SIC 3555 Printing Trades Machinery and Equipment
SIC 3555
This category covers establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing machinery and equipment used by the printing and bookbinding trades, including printing presses, bookbinding machines, typesetting and photoengraving equipment, and a variety of specialized tools for the printing trades.
333293
Printing Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 497 establishments operated in this category in the early 2000s. Industry-wide employment totaled 15,618 workers receiving a payroll of almost $742 million. Of those workers, 8,263 worked in production, putting in more than 15 million hours to earn wages of $310 million. Overall shipments for the industry were valued at more than $2.9 billion. While digital equipment costs were going down slowly, printing machinery prices in general were expected to increase into the mid-2000s.
Leading members of the printing equipment industry banded together in 1910 to form the Printing Press Manufacturers Association (PPMA), with the purpose of convincing Congress to pass laws protecting the industry from foreign imports.
In 1933, the National Printing Equipment Association was founded, hoping to help the industry recover from the Great Depression. Industry codes enforcing fair competition proposed by the NPEA were accepted by President Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration (NRA) in 1934, but in 1935 a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the National Industrial Recovery Act, under which the NRA was formed, was unconstitutional. Although the NPEA code of fair competition was invalidated, the organization voted to continue as a source of information and education for the printing equipment industry.
The name of NPEA was changed to the National Printing Equipment and Supply Association in 1978, and changed again in 1991 to the Association for Suppliers of Printing and Publishing Technologies (NPES). In 1996 NPES had more than 300 members, including computer manufacturers and software companies, as well as traditional printing machinery manufacturers. NPES conducted market research and promotes international trade on behalf of its members.
Letterpress printing, using raised images to print on paper, was an ancient art developed by the Babylonians as early as 2000 B.C. for producing playing cards. The first printing presses, however, were derived from machines used to press grapes and cheese and were not invented until the early 15th century, more than 3,000 years later. The modern printing industry is generally considered to date from the mid-fifteenth century with the invention of moveable type by German printer Johannes Gutenberg. The Gutenberg press used a flat wooden plate, or platen, to press a single sheet of soft paper against a form containing letters cast in metal from clay molds.
The printing press changed very little over the next 400 years. When Stephen Daye established the first publishing house in the American Colonies in 1639, his English-made press was not significantly different from Gutenberg's. Christopher Sauer Jr. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, also followed the Gutenberg model when he manufactured the first press built in the American Colonies in 1750. However, printing machinery technology began to change radically in the early 1800s, with many of the advancements developed by American manufacturers. Among the most important U.S. contributions to printing machinery were the development of the Columbian press, the rotary press, the Linotype machine, and the offset press. The United States was the leading manufacturer of printing presses from the mid-1800s until after World War II, when Germany began to challenge U.S. dominance.
In 1813, George Clymer, a printer in Philadelphia, replaced the cumbersome screw mechanism of the Gutenberg press with a much faster system of levers that allowed press operators to achieve sufficient pressure for printing. The elaborate system had a long handle known in the printing trades as "the devil's tail." Clymer's Columbian press was cast from iron and...
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