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A color photograph of a fair-skinned older man standing in a large composing room. He is wearing a plaid shirt tucked into jeans and glasses. He leans over a composing desk, intently focused while holding a knife with a retractable blade and a ruler to a large paper on the desk.

Among the tools used by staff in the Composing Room were cutting tools. Cutters were used to trim type and images into sections to be arranged into…

A color photograph of a fair-skinned older man standing in a large room with his back to the camera. He wears a plaid shirt tucked into jeans and a baseball cap. He is holding a long black plate against a large, gray machine used for film output.

In the Engraving Room

After pages were completed in the Composing Room, negative copies were created in the Film Output machine. These negatives were used to create the…

A color photo of a group of four people within an office space; there are two fair-skinned older women and two fair-skinned older men. The men both wear short sleeved collared shirts, one with a tie who is sat down at a table with a clipboard and the other standing while holding a cup. The women wear short sleeved shirts, one of whom wears jeans and is standing while mid-sign. The tables surrounding them hold food and drink items.

An Interpreted Staff Gathering

Many work related meetings were held in the Composing Room.

A color photograph of a composing desk with several items laid on it including papers, a line gauge, roller for wax paper, two pairs of scissors, and a knife with a retractable blade.

The Paste-up Workstation for Employees in the Composing Room

Work in the composting room started when an employee was assigned a layout. They would use various tools to paste-up the page, a line gauge, roller…

The Engraving Room

After pages were completed in the Composing Room, negative copies were created in the Film Output machine in the Engraving Room. These negatives were…

A color photograph of a large composing room with several rows of long composing desks. Each segment of the desks have large, uncut papers with newspaper designs on them. In the background there are people scattered across these rows, working at the composing desks.

The Composing Room

The pages of the paper begin to take shape in this room as employees use special tools and techniques to layout each page of text and images.

Linotype Machines

For most of the twentieth century, newspapers were formed from text blocks created on large linotype machines. Newspapers would have many such…

A color photograph of the slipboard in the hallway. Several large corkboards line a white wall, affixed with posters and paper. On one of the boards, large grid-lined paper sheets are affixed. Large bolded text on the sheets identifies the day and shift times.

A Slip Board

These boards were used to indicate time off, assign substitute workers. Scheduling printers shift assignment and work hours. Printers shifts included:…

A color photograph of industrial printing machinery. Large rollers feed paper into the machine.

A Newspaper Feeder

The pages developed in the composing room next traveled to the engraving room before the plates were added to the printing press and printed. These…

A color photograph of equipment lining a glass wall. In the center, a pair of metal typewriting machines sit atop an industrial metal handcart. Next to that, a short wooden cart with metal wheels is stacked with yellowed old papers, and a small sled. Text on the side of the cart reads "Washington Post & Times Herald."

A display of equipment used at The Washington Post

Many Deaf workers recall the pushing of heavy "trucks" during their shifts at The Washington Post.

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