TYPE BY GOUDY
FREDERIC W. GOUDY, Greatest American Type Designer, Has Left His Imprint on the World by Creating More Than 100 Beautiful Faces to Give Dignity and Simplicity to the Pages on Which Man Records His Dreams
By ANDREW R. BOONE
FUTURE generations will know Frederic W. Goudy as the man who left a greater imprint upon the recorded story of his time than any historian or craftsman living today.
At 40, this short, plump, pinkish, and puckish gentleman kept books for a Chicago realtor, and considered himself a failure. During the next 36 years, starting almost from scratch at an age when most men are permanently set in their chosen vocations, he cut 113 fonts of type, thereby creating more usable faces than did the seven greatest inventors of type and books, from Gutenberg to Garamond. Now 76, he is the dean of twentieth-century designers.
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Uncle Sam’s Stamp Factory
By Wayne Whittaker
THE THIN FELLOW you saw in the post office the other day with that worried look might well have been one of the millions of stamp collectors in this country. He has had a harrowing year—1948— trying to keep track of the special stamps that have rolled from the presses in the U. S. Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Washington, D. C.
The last Congress may go down in history as the “Stamp Act” Congress. By congressional authorization, its members sponsored a new stamp on the average of every other week in 1948. Stamp dealers groaned. Stamp collectors groaned. Officials of the bureau groaned loudest of all, but Congress went happily on its way paying tribute to everything from the poultry industry to the Gettysburg Address.
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From DRAWING BOARD to PROVING GROUND
WHEN a “flock of geese” turned out to be a fleet of airplanes, an idea was born in the mind of an engineer. And that idea led to the development of an entirely new design for automobiles.
Ever alert for ideas that may result in a more efficient motor, a better brake or a safer steering system, the engineer usually is the first to catch a vision of what is to come. Then, from its conception in the engineer’s brain, every new car and every part in it traces a trail of trial and error over the drafting board, through wind tunnel and precision tests, to the proving ground and Anally into actual production.
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Interesting quote:
“After being cut, the dough is carried on a canvas belt to the asbestos conveyor of the first oven.”
I wonder how many other food products used to be cooked on asbestos conveyor belts.
Tortillas Meet The Machine Age
By Jack B. Kemmerer
THE INDIANS of Mexico first made tortillas between 2000 and 1000 B.C., when most historians agree that corn originated in Guatemala and southern Mexico.
The ancient method of making tortillas by hand had never changed until recently. Now, the tortilla has met the machine age.
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Excellent exposé about all of the ways slot machines are rigged to screw you.
Machines that Pick Your Pocket - AND MAKE YOU LIKE IT! —Inside Story of the Slot Machine Racket
by WALTER A. RASCHICK
No matter how clever you are, you can’t beat the slot machine racket. If you play the game, you’ll have to reconcile yourself to seeing your nickels flowing away in a steady stream, paying tribute to the engineering brains which have designed these mechanical pick-pockets so efficiently that they can’t fail to keep half or more of the coins fed into them, giving the player nothing in return except the thrill of seeing his money vanish.
“GOSH!” you’ve probably said more than once, as the symbols halted, hesitated, and then swung tantalizingly away from the center row, “I almost got the bells that time. Watch this one” —and out of your pocket and into the slot machine goes another hard-earned nickel.
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How a Fireworks Magician Tames Dynamite
Flaming dynamite and exploding mortars are the chief tools of the fireworks expert. In this vivid, intimate story one of the aces of the fireworks army takes you behind the scenes to reveal, for the first time, the thrills and dangers of his roaring trade.
MILLIONS of Americans thrill yearly to the glittering wheels, flaming rockets and spectacular bombs of the giant fireworks displays; but the men who fire them are the men nobody knows—the world’s most mysterious showmen.
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Electrons in Overalls
WHILE millions of men throughout the world have been frantically engaged in destructive warfare waged by new and secret devices, during the last few years, several hundred earnest American scientists have been just as busy training an army of their own and perfecting a weapon which may go a long way toward making a better civilization tomorrow.
The army of the scientists is an army of electrons, countless billions strong. The weapon is the electronic tube—no secret weapon, to be sure, because among the common types are the tubes in your radio.
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You Drive a MILLION DOLLAR Automobile
by DONALD G. COOLEY
THAT shiny, streamlined 1936 motor car that you bought for a few hundred dollars cost its manufacturer one million dollars!
In all the story of modern industry there is no more arresting miracle than this. The million dollar car differs in only one respect from its moderate-priced brothers on the highways—it is completely hand built. Into it goes genius of the highest order. It is the master model of skilled designers which serves as a pattern for mass production.
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How Mechanical SPIDERS SPIN Bay Bridge Cables
by C. W. GEIGER
This article describes in simple language how a wire long enough to encircle the world three times is carried back and forth across San Francisco Bay by traveling wheels to spin the suspension cables of the world’s longest structure, the mammoth San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
BY FAR the most spectacular operation in the construction of a suspension bridge is the spinning of the mighty cables which loop gracefully from tower to tower, supporting a roadway hung far below. How are these mile-long cables, each weighing 9,500 tons and containing 17,464 strands of steel, being stretched from tower to tower for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay suspension bridge?
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Machine Speeds Pretzel Bending
THERE are more crunchy pretzels to munch when you sip long, cold drinks this summer, thanks to a new automatic pretzel-twisting machine that rolls and ties them at the rate of 50 a minute—more than twice as fast as skilled hand twisters can make them. Developed by the American Machine & Foundry Co., of New York City, the pretzel . bender is helping to meet the increased demand of pretzel lovers, who eat millions of pounds each year. On this and the following page is the story of how pretzels march from raw dough to baked twist.
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