Tag #154196 - Interview #94325 (Stepan Neuman)

My father was twelve years old then. My grandmother managed to make arrangements for my father to become an apprentice of a type setter in a printing house. The type setting process was manual: the words were set from lead letters to make sentences. My father told me that he was short and for him to be able to reach a box with lead letters they put a box so he could stand on it. Those lead letters were also too heavy for him, but he overcame all difficulties and had a profession by the age of 15.

At that time qualified professionals needed to have experience of work in other countries. The more countries he had worked in the more high-skilled a person was believed to be. My father left Budapest to work in Italy, France and Germany. When my father was working in a printing house in Leipzig, he began to attend evening classes in a college. Since my father composed books and magazines in German, he managed to learn it well. Even before he finished his studies, my father also did editing of books in German.

When my father finished his college the company in Berlin manufacturing linotypes, offered my father to write a manual on the use of linotype units making lead letters. My father wrote a manual in German and it was published. There were very good references for this manual. I have this book. My father did a great job. There is a big article about my father Edvard Neuman in the Polygraphist Encyclopedia.