Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase”
Compositors & Type: Origin and Use of “Uppercase” and “Lowercase”
Carl Shank, CARE Typography
Most everyone knows what “uppercase” and “lowercase” letters are. They refer, of course, to our “capital” letters and our “regular” small print. But not many know why or how they came to be known by such terminology. The answer is found in the history and development of typography and printing.
“Case” here doesn’t refer to “circumstance” or “condition.” It refers to the wooden trays used to store metal letters, the top case for capital letters (“uppercase”) and the lower case for small letters. Each tray was divided into compartments to hold the type. The lower case also held the punctuation marks and other pieces of type, like “spacers.” The type case was a shallow wooden tray divided into compartments of various sizes. There were about thirty styles of type cases, and some of these were made in different sizes.[1] The most common, or standard, size was 32¼ by 16 inches, outside dimensions, and ⅛ inches deep, inside. One of three traditional plans or schemes for such type cases involved (1) all characters in one case; (2) capitals, small capitals and a few other characters in one case; or (3) the small letters, figures, points, spaces and quads in another case. The two latter cases formed a pair and would nearly always be used together.(See Images)
Hand compositors (or “swifts”) would take individual letters, spaces and punctuation marks or other characters from the type case and place them in what was called a composing “stick” in such a manner that when the type characters are properly assembled, they form words, sentences and paragraphs. The work of the press room compositor was divided into two fundamental operations — the “setting” of type and the “unsetting” of type. The former was called composition and the latter, distribution.
A visual example of such typesetting can be seen in some of the episodes of The Waltons, an American historical dramatelevision series about a family in rural western Virginia in the Appalachian/Blue Ridge mountains chain, during the economic hardships and mass unemployment of the Great Depression in the 1930s and the subsequent United State home front during World War II in the 1940s. The series aired from 1972 to 1981. John-Boy, a leading character of the series, opened a print shop in a shed by the family home with an old-fashioned mechanical printer that required setting cold metal type from a type case. His brother was the compositor while John-Boy ran the printing machine.
Composition is the act of transferring type from the case to the composing stick, in an orderly, systematic, and uniform manner, in such a way as to form words, lines, sentences, paragraphs, pages, or other desired divisions. Distribution is the act of taking the types apart and putting them back into the case in such a manner that each character will be dropped, without injury, into its respective box, the spaces and quads into their places, and all other used materials into their receptacles.
Speed and accuracy in the setting of type became crucially important to printing. Good spacing became a matter of pride with the compositor. It was not difficult to acquire the habit of evenly and rapidly spacing out a line with a tested practical system. With some study and practice, the omitting of useless motions would in a short time become second nature. Not only would the compositor’s work be done correctly, but his output would be greatly increased by making it unnecessary to go over the matter again to revise bad spacing and other errors.
Typesetters used to hold races with monetary rewards. In the late 19th century, crowds packed into theaters and dime museums to watch elite compositors compete to set tiny metal letters by hand at astonishing speeds. Their performance was measured in ems, a unit based on the width of the type’s capital letter “M.” Some competitions offered cash prizes as high as $1,000 (about $30,000 today) — roughly half a year’s wages for many workers at the time. Among the era’s celebrity racers were William C. Barnes, Alex Duguid, and George “The Velocipede” Arensberg.
Barnes, along with Joseph W. McCann and Alexander Duguid, published A Collation of Facts Related to Fast Typesetting in 1887. The book documented competitive typesetting contests, records achieved by leading compositors, biographies of famous “swift compositors,” and practical advice and techniques for typesetters. The work was significant in the history of printing because it captures the final high point of hand composition just before mechanical systems such as the Linotype transformed the printing industry.
William Barnes represented a view of typography that emphasized accuracy, or setting type with minimal errors, efficiency, maximizing output while maintaining quality, readability, understanding how type should be arranged on the page, and professional discipline, treating typography as a skilled trade rather than merely factory labor.
His era valued the compositor's eye for spacing, alignment, justification, and page makeup, skills that today are largely handled by software.
For students of typography, Barnes provides insight into the daily work of nineteenth-century printers, the culture of composing rooms, and the transition from handcraft to machine production.
Alexander (Alex) Duguid was a prominent nineteenth-century American printer, compositor, editor, and typographic writer whose work helped document and preserve the traditions of hand typesetting during a period of rapid technological change. Although not a typeface designer, he was an important voice in the professional printing community. Duguid worked as a printer and compositor, a trade journalist, a historian of printing, and an advocate for professional standards in typography.
Duguid contributed extensively to printing journals and trade publications, helping printers stay informed about new technologies, typographic standards, printing practices, and industry developments. His writings often bridged the gap between traditional craftsmanship and emerging industrial methods. Without writers like Duguid, much of what we know about everyday printing practice in the nineteenth century would have been lost.
Duguid championed principles that were central to traditional typography, such as precision in composition, consistent spacing and justification, legibility and readability, professional training and apprenticeship, and respect for the history of printing. These values reflected the influence of earlier printer-scholars such as Benjamin Franklin, William Caslon, and John Baskerville.
George “The Velocipede” Arensberg (1850–1886) was one of the most famous compositors (hand typesetters) in American printing history. He became a legend not because he designed typefaces, but because he demonstrated extraordinary speed and skill in hand composition during the final decades before the Linotype machine transformed the trade.
The nickname came after a celebrated speed trial at The New York Times in New York. On February 19, 1870, the young compositor set 2,064 ems of solid minion type in a single hour, a performance that contemporaries regarded as astonishing. Fellow printers compared his rapid movement around the type case to a velocipede (an early bicycle), and the name stuck. An em is a typographic unit used to measure composition. At the time, an ordinary compositor might set roughly 700–800 ems per hour; 1,200 was considered very fast, and 1,400 exceptional. Breaking 2,000 ems in an hour seemed almost impossible. Arensberg’s achievement was therefore viewed as a benchmark of human performance in hand typesetting. Newspapers, print shops, unions, and even public entertainment venues hosted contests in which compositors competed for money, prestige, and bragging rights. By the 1880s these races attracted large crowds and were treated almost like sporting events.
He died in 1886, the same year Ottmar Mergenthaler publicly demonstrated the Linotype machine. Historians often note the irony that the greatest hand typesetter died just as mechanical typesetting began to replace human compositors. Arensberg was a compositor, not a type designer. Unlike figures such as William Caslon or John Baskerville, Arensberg did not create typefaces. His fame rested on the speed, accuracy, and athleticism of setting existing type by hand.
Joseph W. McCann was a leading American compositor, printer, and typographic writer of the late nineteenth century. Like George Arensberg and William C. Barnes, he is remembered not as a typeface designer but as a master of hand composition during the final decades before machine typesetting transformed the printing trade. McCann's most enduring contribution was as co-author of A Collation of Facts Related to Fast Typesetting (1887), written with Barnes and Duguid.
McCann emphasized accuracy before speed. Fast composition was respected only when it maintained correctness. Errors reduced both efficiency and professional reputation. Mechanical efficiency through memorization of type-case layouts, efficient hand movements, and careful organization of copy along with consistent workflow were important to him.
McCann advocated for treating typography as a learned craft requiring training, discipline, and experience. For students of typography, McCann offers insight into a world where the quality of printed communication depended not on software or machines but on the trained eye, memory, dexterity, and discipline of the compositor. His career represents the culmination of nearly four centuries of hand-composition practice that began with Johannes Gutenberg in the fifteenth century and largely ended with the rise of machine composition in the late nineteenth century.
Compositors were to stand squarely on both feet; heels together, toes turned outward. They were not to lean against the frame or stand which holds the cases. Correct posture in standing and walking was regarded as absolutely necessary in order to maintain physical health. Composing required getting full instructions and directions as to width of measure, size, and style of type before going ahead with the composing.
“The copy should be placed where it can be seen best, at the left-hand side, above the lower-case letters, or slightly toward the right, if a double set of cases is used. The boxes of the case from which the compositor works should not be covered with the copy. The reading of copy should be done slowly and carefully, and the compositor should always carry in his memory enough words to fill one line. The rattle-headed fellow who must refer to his copy for each word, or set one or two at a time, and is constantly hunting for his place, need never hope to become a good compositor; and unless he reads his lines over when justifying, he will always set “dirty” proofs.”[2]
The compositor was to keep his mind on the work, and their eyes on the copy. He was not to set in type anything which he could not spell or understand, trusting to luck that he was getting it right; he was to ask someone, or consult a dictionary. Silence while at work was necessary — the click of the type as it is placed in the stick should be the only noise near the compositor’s workstand. Practical advice was to not put leads, type, or other composing-room materials in your mouth. After a job was finished, they were to see that all materials—extra leads, slugs, cord, etc.—were placed where they belonged.
Compositors treated their job as a craft, requiring training, skill, memorization, agility and speed. While many composing shops were actually horrid places with little airflow and without air conditioning and work “breaks” as we have today, they produced some of the best printed materials of their day and age.
NOTES
1. Alexander Lawson comments in an article « On Frames » that “In the plant with Monotype equipment, the flat surface has been criticized, hence the sloped bank common to the majority of shops. Several of the European manufacturers exhibiting at the Swiss show made an attempt to combine both kinds of makeup operations in a single frame, one end of the frame containing the sloped surface and the other end being flat. Still another well-designed unit is convertible, allowing an easy changeover from flat to sloping bank. The surfaces of the new frames are of metal or smooth formica, which can stand a great deal of abuse.” ((https://alexanderslawsonarchive.com/european-manufacturers-show-new-frame-designs/)
2. Hugo Jahn, “Advice to Compositors” in Hand Composition: A Treatise on the Trade and Practice of the Compositor and Printer (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1947), 160ff.
SOURCES
1. Letters are called ‘uppercase’ and ‘lowercase’ because of how printers stored them. Article in History Facts.com at (bit.ly/4olMo1G)
2. Hugo Jahn, Hand Composition: A Treatise on the Trade and Practice of the Compositor and Printer (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1947)
3. The Inland Printer, 1883–1922.
4. “Young and Delacambre’s Type-Composing Machine” in The Mechanics Magazine, No. 985, June 25, 1842.
5. Ellen Gutoskey, “The Surprising Literal Reason We Call Letters ‘Uppercase’ and ‘Lowercase,’” From Majuscule to Minuscule, Jan 21, 2025.
6. Alexander Lawson, “The Composing Room,” Inland Printer, March 1954 – September 1966, (https://alexanderslawsonarchive.com/bibliography/articles/composing-room/) Blog under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
7. William C. Barnes, Alex Duguid, George “The Velocipede” Arensberg, and Joseph W. McCann in A Collation of Facts Related to Fast Typesetting, 1887, from ChatGPT.
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