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Vol. 14 | No. 7 | Thursday, February 14, 2019
Schicks visit APA Museum named in their honor
Dennis Schick thumbed through the oversized photo album in the APA’s museum, looking at the faces and trying to remember their names. For anyone of a certain age — awake and alert from 1955 onward — there was no mistaking one face. It belonged to Fess Parker, who was as famous as famous could be as Disney’s Davy Crockett in 1955-56 and as TV’s Daniel Boone from 1964 to 1970. Parker, dressed in a business suit and with neither coonskin cap nor flintlock musket, was apparently a guest at an APA convention way back when. It’s hard to know exactly, because none of the photos are labeled. No captions. No cutlines. “Any old-timer, you get him in here, feed him lunch and give him some sticky notes,” Schick said.
from 1979 to 2004, and Jan was his right hand. They still live in North Little Rock and took time out recently to visit the museum. To say that technology has changed the newspaper world is a mighty big understatement. What could be called the crown jewels of the museum are a Washington hand press
a former president of the APA. What makes this press especially interesting is a print hanging on the wall behind it. In the print, Ben Franklin is seen reading a newspaper. Behind him, workers labor to make more on a press that looks very much like the APA’s. Dennis put his hands on the wooden handle. “If you think of all the hands that pulled on this … “ The Mergenthaler Linotype Co. was founded in 1886 by Otto Mergenthaler, who invented a process to improve the laborious task of setting type by hand. A Linotype machine used a keyboard to create a mold into which hot lead was poured. Hence the terms hot type and, for computer-generated text, cold type. The latter came into common use in the 1970s, leaving the giant Linotype machines in back shops all over the country.
Better invite several oldtimers, because there are lots This particular Linotype of photos. They’re surprising A Linotype machine was complicated and took up a lot of space, but it greatly improved machine was manufactured in one way — people sure did the technology of newspaper production. Dennis Schick is familiar with the technology about 1925 and came from dress up for conventions back from his long career in the newspaper business. the DeWitt Era-Enterprise. then, suits and ties, dresses and a Linotype machine. To employ another understatement, it takes and hats. Conventions have become more casual, reflecting of course a shift in A Washington hand press has a cam-action up a lot of space. American life. impression lever. Push. Press. Print. Many Photography has certainly changed. manufacturers produced hand presses. Journalists today have gone digital, and The album was created by Schick for the This one was made by the St. Louis Type often use cell phones to take pictures and APA’s 125th anniversary back in 1998. It’s Foundry & Printing Machine Works in record videos. The museum has a couple of one of numerous artifacts in the museum, the 19th century, but an exact date of cameras, including a Polaroid Electric Eye which got its start with Dennis and his wife, manufacture is unavailable. camera. The lens telescopes and there’s a Jan, in the organization’s former offices on Broadway in Little Rock. “I want to say it was Cone Magie’s at big flash attached to the side. The instant Cabot,” Schick said, referring to the owner roll film camera was made from 1960-1963. Dennis was executive director of the APA and publisher of the Cabot Star-Herald, and It shares space on an oak roll-top desk with Continued on Page 2