Richard March Hoe

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Richard March Hoe

Born	September 12, 1812
Died	June 7, 1886

Richard March Hoe (September 12, 1812 - June 7, 1886), was an American inventor who designed an improved printing press. Hoe was born in New York City. His wife, Mary, and he lived on a vast 53-acre estate, called Brightside, in the Morrisania / Hunt's Point section of the Bronx. He was the son of Robert Hoe (1784-1833), an English-born American mechanic, who with his brothers-in-law, Peter and Matthew Smith, established in New York City a manufactory of printing presses, and used steam to run his machinery. His father owned a steam-powered manufactory of printing presses, which Richard joined at fifteen. On his father's death, he became head of the Robert Hoe & Company corporation.

In 1843, Richard invented the rotary printing press, a design much faster than the old flat-bed printing press. Because many type cylinders could be placed around the main cylinder, which could move much faster since it only travelled in one direction, some versions of the press were able to create up to 20,000 impressions per hour. The design was patented in 1846 (U.S. Patent #5199), and first commercially installed in 1847. In its early days, it was also called the "Hoe web perfecting press," the "Hoe lightning press," and the "Hoes's Cylindrical-Bed Press."

Richard M. Hoe was a Freemason. He had considerable inventive genius and set himself to secure greater speed for printing presses. He discarded the old flat-bed model and placed the type on a revolving cylinder, a model later developed into the well-known Hoe rotary or lightning press, patented in 1846, and further improved under the name of the Hoe web perfecting press. In 1870 he developed a rotary press that printed both sides of a page in a single operation.

He died in Florence, Italy.

His nephew, Robert Hoe (1839-1909), wrote a notable Short History of the Printing Press in 1902 and made further improvements in printing.