Joseph Papin had a quite a few photostats of his drawings. He often had both a “white lines on black background” version of the drawing, as well as the more familiar “black lines on white background” version. These photostats are of his earlier work from 1957 through the 1960s, with at least a couple in the mid-1970s.
The first generation print from a photostat machine was the white lines on a black background; the “second stage” photostat was the black lines on a white background which was produced by photostatting the black background/white lines photostat image. The following drawing by Joseph Papin was drawn on-the-scene of a musical conductor in Greenwich Village, circa 1957.
“Photostat machines consisted of a large camera that photographed documents or papers and exposed an image directly onto rolls of sensitized photographic paper that were about 350 feet (110 m) long. A prism was placed in front of the lens to reverse the image. After a 10-second exposure, the paper was directed to developing and fixing baths, then either air- or machine-dried. Since the print was directly exposed, without the use of an intermediate film, the result was a negative print [in other words] a photostat print with a black background and white letters [or lines]. Thanks to the prism, the text would remain legible. Producing photostats took about two minutes in total. The result could, in turn, be photostated again to make any number of positive prints [a photostat with a white background and black lines].” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photostat_machine)
The following article, “Photostats, or, The more things change, the more they stay the same” is written by Erin Blake (7-23-2015), and goes into more detail about the machine and the process:
“With traditional photography, the camera captures a latent image on light-sensitive transparent film or glass that is then developed and fixed to produce a transparent negative. Next, the transparent negative is exposed onto light-sensitive paper, and then that latent image is developed and fixed to create a positive image on paper.
“Photostats completely bypass the film stage by exposing the image directly onto a long roll of light-sensitive paper, and greatly speed up the other steps by having them all happen inside the machine while new images continue to be taken.
“Basically, the photostat machine is a great big camera with a built-in processing lab attached at the back. The operator puts an original document face-up on a flat bed in front of the camera, and the camera’s lens assembly projects an image of the document onto the roll of sensitized paper. After about ten seconds of exposure, the operator winds the paper forward for the next shot, moving the exposed paper past a sheet trimmer and into the chemical baths that develop and fix the image.
“Because photostats are direct images, the blacks and whites are reversed, like a film negative in traditional photography. [However, unlike a film negative, the image is not reversed.]
“If you only need one copy of a page, and don’t already have a photostat of that page on file, a negative photostat is the cheapest way to go: you make a photostat of the page, and you’re done. But if you make a photostat, then make a photostat of that photostat, the negative/positive reverses again, and you get black letters on a white page” (https://collation.folger.edu/2015/07/photostats/).
The following two images are of a collage of drawings of the 1974 Mitchell Stans trial. The photostat has been retouched with black opaque around the edges and in some places on the drawing in order to eliminate any white areas that don’t belong in the image. This was made into a large full-size negative but to the best of my knowledge was not made into a plate, or at least I have not seen a published version of it.
How were these photostats used in the printing process? I do not have a definitive answer, and would welcome any suggestions or corrections. I know that white background/black line “positive” photostats were used in “paste-up” – literally being printed and then cut out with scissors to the proper size after which they were pasted down on a board where the drawing was to appear. This was the type of “cold type” composing that was exclusively used by the New York Times by mid-1978 and by the Daily News in 1979 and thereafter.
Photostat machines could print a photostat of a drawing and either reduce it or enlarge it in size – there are some photostats of the same Papin drawing that appear in more than one size. And although photostats were often simply used to make copies in the days before “xerox” copies, some of the photostat images have crop lines, indicating that they were to be used directly to make a plate for printing.
This drawing of a Linotype hot-type typesetting machine located at the New York Times that was done for the August 1958 Harper’s Magazine is interesting because it is a photostat of the original drawing being photographed in a large copy camera (those are the lines at the top of the photo – those lines are a part of the copy camera itself). Was this simply a photostat copy made to record the image at the New York Times, or was this used to make a plate to be printed in Harper’s magazine? This drawing did not, in fact, make it into the published story but quite a few others did.
A similar question exists for several Papin drawings done circa 1973 documenting the Daily News Newspoint rotogravure plant, fifteen years after the Harper’s magazine story about the New York Times. I believe that the drawing below was done for NewsPix, the internal Daily News publication, and was a part of a series that began with Papin’s coverage of the mail room operations at the News. All that I found of the Papin drawings done on-the-scene at Newspoint are white lines/black backgrounds “negative” photostats. This could indicate that the News kept the originals, as they often did, and that only the negative photostat image was needed. I believe that the NewsPix publication may have been printed on the letterpress equipment on the presses at 42nd Street and not as a color print at Newspoint. Anyone who was at the News and who could offer feedback on where the NewsPix publications were printed would be much appreciated!
Even as photostats continued to be used, Xerox introduced a “breakthrough technology [in 1970], which transfers images using an electrostatic charge and toner—instead of ink and pressure—and enables the seamless rendering of digital documents onto paper”; in 1977 Xerox adapted their “copier technology by adding a laser beam to it [enabling it to become] the industry’s first xerographic laser printer” (https://www.xerox.com/en-us/about/history-timeline). By 1976, when Papin was covering the Patty Hearst trial in San Francisco for eight weeks, he used a portable Xerox copier to transmit his work back to the Daily News in NYC:
I’m guessing that the photostat (white lines/black background; i.e. reversed from the original drawing which was black lines/white background on a sheet of drawing paper) was then photographed and a negative made of the black background/white lines photostat. This negative would not need to be stripped and reversed, and eliminated the job of the negative stripper, therefore speeding up the process (and sadly eliminating a profession).
I put together the following chart outlining the process of photoengraving that includes the work of a negative stripper, or negative turner, to strip the film from its celluloid base and mount it onto a clear piece of glass:
The following is a comparison chart that I put together on how photostats would have been used in letterpress printing in small shops without a skilled negative stripper who stripped away the emulsion of the copy negative from its backing of celluloid (or in a large press if the job of negative stripper was being eliminated). A black background/white line photostat would have accomplished the same thing as the emulsion from the negative being mounted on the glass as shown below left. I am surmising that using a photostat would look like the steps to the right. Again, I very much welcome any corrections and critique.
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