Producing a Newspaper in the 1950s

If you ever wondered what it was like working for a newspaper in the 1950s, have a look a the pictures in this Facebook post, showing the premises of the Sault Star in the early 1950s. 

My dad worked in the composing room, using linotype machines to produce lead slugs that were laid into beds of type from which the paper was printed. He's in the second picture below, second from the right. I used to have a lead slug with my name on it that he had made me. By the time he retired, the printing technology had gone went from hot lead type, to photo offset, to fully computerized typesetting. Dad had to take a typing course when he was fifty (Linotype machines didn't have a standard keyboard). 

If you look at the other pictures, you'll see that there is no computerized technology at all. The most advanced office equipment in sight is a dictaphone being sed by a typist. Desks are cluttered by piles of paper. The Star would have had teletype machines but fax machines hadn't been invented at the time these pictures were taken. The accounting office might have had IBM tablulators or their equivalent but not computers. (Alogoma Steel had a mainframe in the late 1960s; the first time I saw a computer was when I toured their offices during a high school visit). 

Thanks to the Sault Ste. Marie Museum for posting these pictures. They bring back some memories.

Working on the Linotype machines

The Sault Star composing room in the 1950s