When Charles and Samuel Dowst of Chicago purchased a fancy new Linotype machine in the 1890s, their intent was to use it to ready their firm’s flagship product, “National Laundry Journal,” for publication. But the Dowst brothers quickly realized that if their machine could cast lead into the shapes of letters and numerals for a printing press, it could also be customized to produce small objects of almost any shape. Soon, the brothers had...Continue Reading