The Cranston Press

THE CRANSTON PRESS

The Cranston Newspaper Press is a beautiful single-revolution big-cylinder “drum” newspaper press, built in the late 1800s. It is a late survival of an early drum-cylinder design and was still commonly used in small-town newspaper offices around the USA through the early years of the 20th century. It had the wooden delivery fingers in the back, flipping out the paper on the same side as the feeding of the paper (manually, one at a time, from above).

According to the International Printing Museum, these drum cylinder presses operated on the single-revolution principle, in that only half the cylinder is utilized for impression while the other half clears the type during the return movement of the bed, hence the large drum-like cylinder. The complete printing cycle takes one revolution of the cylinder, and since the cylinder does not have to be raised to clear the type on the return move, as in a two-revolution press, there is no throw-off mechanism.