The linotype, the invention of Ottmar Mergenthaler of Baltimore, came first; then the monotype of Tolbert Lanston, a native of Ohio.

The linotype is the favorite composing machine for newspapers and is also widely used in typesetting for books, though the monotype is preferred by book printers.

One or other of these machines has today replaced, for the most part, the old hand compositors in every large printing establishment in the United States.
While the machinery of the great newspapers was being developed, another instrument of communication, more humble but hardly less important in modern life, was coming into existence.

The typewriter is today in every business office and is another of America's gifts to the commercial world.

One might attempt to trace the typewriter back to the early seals, or to the name plates of the Middle Ages, or to the records of the British Patent Office, for 1714, which mention a machine for embossing.