Happy Birthday, America! From the Hoe Press to the Cloud: 250 Years of NYC Print Innovation

As we approach a milestone year for a relatively young country (250!) I'm honored to be part of its trajectory in one of the cities that gave this country its reputation: New York City.

This is a city that bred innovation, the epicenter of modern advertising, media, print, and fashion- all of which trace back to roots planted here over 250 years ago.

And in case you didn't already know: NYC was literally the birthplace of American print technology.

Back in 1805, a small workshop on Cedar Street called Smith, Hoe & Company started building hand presses. By the 1840s, under Robert Hoe's sons, that company had developed the "lightning press," capable of printing 2,000 sheets an hour- a speed nobody had seen before.

By 1909, R. Hoe & Company employed 2,500 people in its New York factory alone. In 1886, the New York Tribune installed the first Linotype machine, changing how every newspaper in America was set. And in 1938, a Queens native named Chester Carlson invented xerography-the dry copying process behind every office copier since.

Manhattan didn't just sell print. It built the machines that built the industry.

I'll never forget what one of my first bosses in the print industry told me about selling copiers in Manhattan, as we sat in a conference room overlooking dozens of skyscrapers: "Just look outside…we sell what every business needs."

And he was right- although with the turn of events during a global pandemic, that fact changed dramatically.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't fighting for my life (and a decent paycheck) ever since the great shutdown of 2020. We've had ups and downs, and I get beat up at times, but it's still my passion to work in this industry and talk about print. Especially now- the industry isn't shrinking, it's shifting.

AI-driven fleet analytics, cloud-based print management, and carbon tracking are the new lightning press. The tools changed; the need didn't.

In honor of this semiquincentennial celebration, I'm going to take you through some of the most fascinating facts about the print industry that shaped Manhattan and beyond- timed perfectly with a city that's about to throw the biggest birthday party it's ever seen.

The Times Square Ball will drop for the first time outside of New Year's Eve, on July 3rd at 11:59pm, lit red, white, and blue for America250. Tall ships from 40 nations will sail into New York Harbor for Sail4th 250, led by the Coast Guard cutter Eagle under the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. And Macy's will mark its 50th anniversary of NYC fireworks, launching simultaneously from the East River, the Hudson, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Long before "managed print" was a category, NYC was the place print machinery got invented. In 1805, three brothers-in-law- Peter Smith, Matthew Smith, and Robert Hoe opened a small workshop on Cedar Street called Smith, Hoe & Company, building wooden hand presses. Robert Hoe took over after his partners' deaths and, in 1827, built what's believed to be the first cylinder press made in America, and was likely the first American machinist to run his equipment on steam power.

His sons took it further. By the 1840s, R. Hoe & Company had developed the "lightning press" — a type-revolving design that could turn out 2,000 sheets an hour, a speed nobody had touched before. The machines could be custom-built with up to ten cylinders depending on a newspaper's needs. By 1909, the company employed 2,500 people at its New York factory alone, plus another 800 in London. This wasn't a print shop. It was a manufacturing engine, and it ran on Manhattan soil for over 165 years before finally closing in the 1970s.

The innovations kept stacking. In 1886, the New York Tribune installed the country's first Linotype machine- the first automatic typesetter, casting entire lines of type as single metal strips. It changed the economics of every newspaper in America, and it stayed the industry standard until the New York Times set its very last page by Linotype in 1978- a moment so significant it became the subject of a documentary, Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu.

And then there's Chester Carlson- a Queens native who, in 1938, invented xerography, the dry photocopying process. Every copier sitting in every office in Midtown today owes something to a guy from Queens working alone in a lab nearly 90 years ago.

By 1850, New York had more than 106 paper mills, more than any other state. Print and publishing were concentrated enough by 1919 to claim their own district near Herald Square, known then as Newspaper Row. Before there was a "Silicon Alley," there was a print alley, and it was bigger.

The industry didn't disappear, it merely changed shape. The global managed print services market is sitting around $52–55 billion in 2026, still growing at a healthy clip, and the conversation in boardrooms has shifted entirely. It's no longer "how many pages did we print"- it's security, sustainability, and AI.

A few things worth knowing if you're the one signing off on this stuff:

The Hoe press solved a speed problem. The Linotype solved a labor problem. Xerography solved a duplication problem. Today's print stack solves a data problem- but it's the same instinct: build the machine the moment actually needs.

If you're around for the holiday, NYC is throwing the biggest party it's ever thrown for itself. Three things worth your time:

Impresora (Spanish) — [eem-preh-SOH-rah] — printing press
La impresora de la oficina necesita más tinta. (The office printer needs more ink.)

Impressora (Portuguese) — [eem-preh-SOH-rah] — printing press
A impressora do escritório está sem papel. (The office printer is out of paper.)

Happy Birthday America! Keep printing!