1876 Transfer-Tablet-Hektograph-Holcomb 1

The hectograph, gelatin duplicator or jellygraph is a

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

process that involves transfer of an original, prepared with special inks, to a pan of

gelatin Gelatin or gelatine () is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also be referred to as hydrolyzed collagen, coll ...

or a gelatin pad pulled tight on a metal frame. While the original use of the technology has diminished, it has recently been revived for use in the art world. The hectograph has been modernized and made practical for anyone to use.

Process

The special

aniline Aniline (From , meaning ' indigo shrub', and ''-ine'' indicating a derived substance) is an organic compound with the formula . Consisting of a phenyl group () attached to an amino group (), aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an in ...

dyes for making the master image came in the form of

ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. ...

or in pens, pencils,

carbon paper Carbon paper (originally carbonic paper) consists of sheets of paper that create one or more copies simultaneously with the creation of an original document when inscribed by a typewriter or ballpoint pen. The email term cc which means "carbon ...

, and even

typewriter ribbon An ink ribbon or inked ribbon is an expendable assembly serving the function of transferring pigment to paper in various devices for impact printing. Since such assemblies were first widely used on typewriters, they were often called typewriter r ...

. Hectograph pencils and pens are sometimes still available. Various other inks have been found usable to varying degrees in the process; master sheets for

spirit duplicator A spirit duplicator (also Rexograph and Ditto machine in North America, Banda machine and Fordigraph machine in the U.K. and Australia) is a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld, which was used for most of the 20th century. Th ...

s have also been pressed into service. Unlike a spirit duplicator master, a hectograph master is not a mirror image. Thus, when using a spirit duplicator master with a hectograph, one writes on the back of the purple sheet, using it like carbon paper to produce an image on the white sheet, rather than writing on the front of the white sheet to produce a mirror image on its back. The master is placed on the gelatin and spirits applied to transfer the ink from the master to the gelatin. After transfer of the image to the inked gelatin surface, copies are made by pressing paper against it. When a pad ceased to be useful, the gelatin could be soaked with spirits, the ink sponged away, and the pad left clean for the next master.

Storage

A grey-colored, thick, absorbent paper pad was supplied to cover the gelatin surface for storage. This also removed ink from the surface, but it took many hours to do so. Care needed to be taken that the gelatin surface was kept clean, and not damaged (e.g. by

fingernail A nail is a protective plate characteristically found at the tip of the digits (fingers and toes) of all primates, corresponding to the claws in other tetrapod animals. Fingernails and toenails are made of a tough rigid protein called alpha-k ...

s) during duplicating. Although the name "

hecto- ''Hecto'' (symbol: h) is a decimal unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of one hundred. It was adopted as a multiplier in 1795, and comes from the Greek , meaning "hundred". In 19th century English it was sometimes spelled "hecato" ...

graph" implies production of 100 copies, in reality the gelatin process produced print runs of somewhere between 20 and 80 copies, depending upon the skill of the user and the quality of the original. At least eight different colors of hectographic ink were available at one time, but purple was the most popular because of its density and contrast.

Historical uses

Hectography, requiring limited technology and leaving few traces behind, has been deemed useful both in low-technology environments and in clandestine circumstances where discretion was necessary. In the earlier 20th century, the process lent itself to small runs of school classroom test papers, church newsletters and

science fiction fanzine A science-fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science-fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day. They were one of the earliest forms of fanzine, within one of which the term "''fanzine''" ...

s. Prisoners-of-war at

Stalag Luft III Stalag Luft III (; literally "Main Camp, Air, III"; SL III) was a ''Luftwaffe''-run prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War, which held captured Western Allied air force personnel. The camp was established in March 1942 near th ...

(the scene of ''The Great Escape'') and at

Colditz Castle Colditz Castle (or ''Schloss Colditz'' in German) is a Renaissance architecture, Renaissance castle in the town of Colditz near Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz in the States of Germany, state of Saxony in Germany. The castle is between the towns o ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

used an improvised hectograph to reproduce documents for a planned

escape attempt ''Escape Attempt'' () is a 1962 science fiction novel by Soviet writers Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, set in the Noon Universe. The English translation was published in a single volume with the other Noon universe stories '' Space Mowgli'' and '' ...

. The Communist authorities in the

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

–

Anhui Anhui is an inland Provinces of China, province located in East China. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze and Huai rivers, bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the east, Jiang ...

Border Area of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

used the process for postage stamps in November 1948, produced in sheets of 35, with thirteen $50 values, six $100, twelve $200, two $300 and two $500 values.

Stanley Gibbons The Stanley Gibbons Group plc is a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange specialising in the retailing of collectable postage stamps and similar products. The group is incorporated in London. The company is a major stamp dealer and phila ...

Stamp Catalogue A stamp catalog (or stamp catalogue) is a catalog of postage stamp types with descriptions and prices. The stamp catalog is an essential tool of philately and stamp collecting. Stamp catalogs are part of philatelic literature. Similar catalogs ...

Part 17 It has also been used, though not very extensively, as an artistic medium in

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...

. The

Russian Futurists Russian Futurism is the broad term for a movement of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism", which espoused the rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, ...

used it for book illustrations, and the

German expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

Emil Nolde Emil Nolde (born Hans Emil Hansen; 7 August 1867 – 13 April 1956) was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and was one of the first oil painting and watercolor painters of the early ...

made four hectographs.

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

, in his book '' On Writing'', writes of how he and his elder brother Dave used the process to create their newspaper, ''Dave's Rag''. It was also used in professional situations; in

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

advertising department during the 1950s and 1960s, full-page newspaper ad layouts were drawn with hectograph pencils and then duplicated on a hectograph to make file copies for future reference. Before the popularization of spirit duplicators and the

mimeograph A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator or stencil machine) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a co ...

, there were mechanized hectography machines that used a drum, rather than a simple flat tray of gelatin.

In fiction

In the final chapters of ''

The Pothunters ''The Pothunters'' is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse published on 18 September 1902 by Adam & Charles Black. It was Wodehouse's first published novel, and the first of several school stories, this one set at the fictional public school of St. Au ...

'' by

P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...

the major characters use a jellygraph to produce a school magazine at very short notice. Wodehouse assumes his reader knows exactly what a jellygraph is and alludes to its being unattractive: "This jelly business makes one beastly sticky. I think we'll keep to print in future."

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...

's ''

Keep the Aspidistra Flying ''Keep the Aspidistra Flying'', first published in 1936, is a socially critical novel by George Orwell set in 1930s London. The main theme is Gordon Comstock's romantic ambition to defy worship of the money-god and status, and the dismal lif ...

'' (1936) describes a somewhat more subversive schoolboy publication:

References

External links