Hoe, Richard March
HOE, RICHARD MARCH (1812-1886), American inventor, was born in New York City on the 12th of September 1812. He was the son of Robert Hoe (i 784-1833), 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. Richard entered his father's manufactory at the age of fifteen and became head of the firm (Robert Hoe & Company) on his father's death. 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 (see PRINTING). He died in Florence, Italy, on the 7th of June 1886.
See A Short History of the Printing Press (New York, 1902) by his nephew Robert Hoe (1839-1909), who was responsible for further improvements in printing, and was an indefatigable worker in support of the New York Metropolitan Museum.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
