A Printing Genius Named Milton A. McKee

In the early 1900’s, Milton A. McKee, a “technical expert and authority on letter-press printing,”^​2​ made two of the most important contributions to printing industry. Donald C. Cottrell, President of The Cottrell Company, for whom McKee worked, referred to McKee as a “printing genius” in his 1955 address to the Newcomen Society.^​3​ That Cottrell made a point to honor McKee with this epitaph 26 years after his death is a testament to the impact he had on the industry. However, achieving this level of success did not come without its challenges. McKee, whose early life was marked by juvenile delinquency and public mistrust, and who, despite his skill, was “not a desirable person to employ,”^​4​ became a man celebrated  as “possibly the greatest pressman of our day, or any other day.”^​1​ His story is evidence of the healing power of time and hard work.

In 1912, McKee was awarded the John Scott Legacy Medal by the Franklin Institute (Philadelphia) in honor of his inventions and contributions to the printing industry. The John Scott Award has been offered since 1822 to “‘the most deserving’ men and women whose inventions have contributed in some outstanding way to the ‘comfort, welfare and happiness’ of mankind.”^​5​ Past recipients included scientists and inventors, including Frederick Ives, Thomas Edison, and Marie Curie. McKee’s award was commemorated by a 1913 profile by Stephen Horgan in the Inland Printer.^​1​ This profile was the foundation upon which this research was conducted.

I previously wrote about McKee in an article discussing the contributions of Thomas A. Lenci and the Eagle Printing Ink Company to the development of four-color wet-on-wet letterpress printing. McKee’s first major contribution to the printing industry was the development of the four-color Multicolor Rotary Press (on which the Eagle Quad Inks were used).^​6,7​ While developing the press, McKee identified a need for improved make-ready efficiency and developed a process that drastically shortened the time required to make-ready a press with electrotype plates by building the make-ready into the electrotype plate.^​8​ This was known as the “McKee Process.” Both the Multicolor Rotary Press and the McKee Process were key to industrializing four-color printing.

The need for multicolor printing was discussed in the Thomas A. Lenci article. However, some background on the letterpress halftone make-ready process will lend additional context to this discussion. Both platen and cylinder presses had the same basic components:

• Bed: surface on which the printing block sat
• Printing Block/Forme: contained the raised printing surfaces (type, engravings, halftone plates, etc)
• Platen: Provided counter pressure against the bed (on Cylinder presses the platen was the impression cylinder)
• Packing: sheets of paper placed on the platen to absorb the impact of the type (different types of paper were used depending on the substrate and printing requirements)
• Tympan: thin sheet of paper or fabric that held the packing in place

There are, of course, many more printing press components, but the above components will be highlighted in this discussion. When printing halftones, heavier tones required more pressure than lighter tones, starting with a harder packing material. Under tympan, an additional sheet is placed with small pieces of paper glued to the surface in areas that require more impression and areas cut away that require less impression. (See image from Spicher’s book with his accompanying description below).

The printing block contained the raised type, halftone plates , engravings, or whatever else was to be printed. For short jobs, the block itself could be inked up. However, the printing surfaces would wear out over long runs so copies of the block were made for industrial print jobs. The most common reproduction process for magazine publishing was electrotyping.^​*​ Electrotype plates were metal printing plates that carried ink on raised surfaces corresponding to those on the original block. The electrotype process began with the creation of a mold of the original block. The mold, was then coated with a conducting surface, such as graphite, and placed in a bath with a copper electrolyte. A power source, such as a battery, was attached to the copper and to the mold. A copper layer built up on the mold, forming the electrotype, an exact relief copy of the original block. Additional metals were deposited on the electrotype surface to add durability. The electrotype could be reused by re-coating the copper plate after the outer layer wore down.^​10​ A nice animation demonstrating the electrotype process was posted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art showing the reproduction of a Tiffany Vase.

Make-ready for electrotype halftones had to account for the different pressures required for solid, shadow, midtone, and highlight tints, as discussed above. Magazines commonly used smoother, coated substrates that required greater pressure, as Sherman discusses below:

With the introduction of halftone printing plates and enameled, coated and calendared papers came the necessity of hard packing and a firm make-ready for printing presses. The very delicate screens of halftone plates required a much harder and more rigid surface of contact to bring out the details in printing than could be accomplished with the old-time packings and make-ready used in printing wood, steel, and copper engravings.^​11​

The pressman of McKee’s time were expert in not only the running of the press, but were also skilled in mechanics, chemistry, material science and electronics. Throughout his career he made it a point to become expert in all aspects of printing, traveling across the country to improve his skills. As Horgan stated in his profile of McKee, “The story of his wanderings would make most interesting reading…His purpose through it all was to gain experience with all kinds of presses and under all circumstances, and this proved to be of great service to him later.”

It is impossible to do justice to the history of McKee’s life experiences in a single post. This post will lay the foundation of McKee as a man and as a printer. Later posts will discuss what life was like for a printer in McKee’s time, the advances in photomechanical engraving technology (which he spent many years studying), color printing in the late 1800s, and how McKee’s work at The Cottrell Company impacted the development of multicolor printing in the years after his death in 1919.

McKee was born on February 24, 1857, in Montpelier, Vermont, to Thomas W. McKee (b. 1831 in Quebec, Canada), a painter and sewing machine salesman, and Celinda^​†​ M. Parcher McKee (b. 1838 in Vermont).^​12,13​ His mother passed away on October 5, 1868, when McKee was 11, and that event precipitated a decade of trouble.^​14,15​

In April 1869, at the age of 12, McKee was convicted of breaking into locked drawers in a schoolhouse and was committed to the Vermont State Reform School in Waterbury, Vermont.^​16​ He was furloughed in April 1870 to his father’s care in Montpelier. He later tried his hand at selling sewing machines as an employee of his father, but “proved unfaithful” and “squandered his father’s money.” ^​17​ The State Reform School welcomed him back in August 1874. Furloughed a second time in May 1876, again to his father’s care, he began working as an apprentice for the Montpelier Argus and Patriot newspaper.

The Montpelier Argus and Patriot was published in a large, three-story building furnished with “improved presses, an automatic paper folder, and other accessories for successfully conducting the printing business.”^​18​ The pressroom included “one of each size of the Degener job presses, 1 Globe half medium, 1 hand press, 2 first class Cottrell & Babcock cylinder presses—one of the largest press of any kind in the State (1881).”^​19​ McKee would have likely begun his presswork training on the Degener platen job-press. Platen job presses were a class of press in which the bed, carrying the printing plate or type, and the platen, carrying the paper, were pressed together to produce an impression. One type of Degener job press, the Liberty, had gears and printing action driven by a foot peddle, as describe below:

The bottom edges of the platen and bed were hinged together, and they raised and opened out into a horizontal position to receive the sheet, the bed passing under the ink rollers on the way up. The platen and bed then closed for the impression with a hinge-like motion, again inking the form on its downward sweep, and causing the ink disc to pass under the rollers. This was a popular press for a short time because of its power and speed but best results were not possible because of its clam-shell action.

From the article, The Liberty Platten Press, on the website, Handset Press.

The Degener was referred to as “Clamshell” type of platen job press owing to the mechanical motion of the bed and platen. The Globe half-medium, manufactured by John Jones of Palmyra, was a platen job press for smaller work.^​20​

The Cottrell and Babcock was a more advanced press and McKee would likely not have worked with it until later in his apprenticeship. Cottrell and Babcock, formed in 1855, and the predecessor to The Cottrell Company (formed in 1880), was operated by Calvert Byron Cottrell in partnership with Nathan Babcock.^​21​ The Cottrell and Babcock presses operated by the Argus and Patriot would have been the workhorses of the newspaper operation. Cylinder presses were a variation of the platen job press, designed for improved efficiency. The printing block was placed face-up on the bed. The bed oscillated back and forth, starting in an open position, then moving through the inking unit and beneath the rotating impression cylinder on which the paper was mounted.

The video below shows the operation of a R. Hoe cylinder press that would have operated similar to the Cottrell & Babcock.

A similar make-ready process to that described above would be used for the cylinder pressed. While the above description does not do justice to the complexity of the make-ready process, it does illuminate the importance of McKee’s later make-ready achievement. By engineering the make-ready into the electrotype itself, the complex and time consuming process of cutting, pasting, and registering the underlay, was streamlined and could be precisely reproduced.

Throughout his apprenticeship, McKee would have begun developing many of the important skills he drew on later in his career: setting type, engraving, press mechanics, ink chemistry, make-ready and operation. Operating the Cottrell and Babcock would have given McKee his first experience making-ready a cylinder press for print.

McKee completed his apprenticeship at the Argus and Patriot in 1879, after which he moved to Brattleboro and started working for D. Leonard, a job-printing specialist.^​22​ This move received some notice. The Argus and Patriot mentioned in April 1879 that McKee was one of several departures from Montpelier, stating that he had “gone out west.”^{​​23​​} In this case, it seems, “out west” was south to Brattleboro.

Brattleboro was well known at the time for its printing industry.^​24​ D. Leonard printed many different products, including wedding stationary, commercial work (letterheads, business cards, receipts, envelopes, etc.), book, and pamphlet work.^​25​ They owned several presses, including a Cottrell and Babcock First-Class Drum Cylinder Press, the same, or similar, press to the one McKee worked on at the Argus and Patriot.

There was some indication that McKee was rebounding from his days in the Reformed School after starting his apprenticeship, but his association with a less reputable crowd gave him a reputation for being childish and dishonest. McKee found himself in trouble with the law on several occasions between 1877 and 1880, including an arrest by his employer for trespassing and theft in August 1877.^​26​ He was arrested again in February 1880, while working for D. Leonard in Brattleboro, but managed to talk his way out of a sentence.^​27​ He completed his work with D. Leonard in 1883 but did not leave on good terms. A note in the Argus and Patriot describes him as “a pretty good pressman,” but they “found his notions of honesty and truth so mixed that he was not a desirable person to employ.”^​28​ The note suggests his value as a pressman out-weighed his personal defects, at least until 1883. Horgan wrote in his profile:

When his time was up the…young McKee went West to get a fortune…His purpose through it all was to gain experience with all kinds of presses and under all circumstances, and this proved to be of great service to him later.

He worked as a journeyman on the Detroit Free Press, then moved on to Chicago, then in Kansas City, and went into Denver on a narrow-gage railroad. Returning East he worked in Brattleborro, Vermont.^​1​

By the end of 1884, McKee had slowly made amends with his associates, had paid off his creditors in Brattleboro, and taken a position as mechanical manager of the H.D. Watson printing company, in Greenfield, Massachusetts.^​29​ McKee “then went to Boston where he worked for John Clark on new editions of Iveson & Blakeman’s readers and geographies.”^​1​

In 1886, his next employment was with the Youth’s Companion, one of the most popular weekly publications in the United States, with a circulation of around 400,000.^​31​ The magazine covered a spectrum of topics for both adults and children and bolstered subscriptions through various promotions. One such promotion, in 1892, was built around the national celebration of 400th anniversary of Columbus’s maiden voyage. The promotion began with the distribution of American flags to schools across the country as part of a give-away program, and culminated with the introduction of the Pledge of Allegiance, written by Francis Bellamy, on September 8, 1892.^​‡​ McKee became assistant foreman at the Youth’s Companion around 1890,^{​​​32​} and thus had a front-row seat to this important moment in U.S. cultural history. While working for the Youth’s Companion, between 1888 and 1890, McKee built an engraving lab in his home. He later obtained a year-long leave of absence around 1897 to set up the Plimpton Press at Norwood, Massachusetts.^​1​

Around 1900, McKee left the Youth’s Companion to join The Cottrell Company and begin work on the Multicolor Rotary Press and on the McKee Process for making ready electrotype plates. His work with Thomas Lenci and the Eagle Printing Ink Company began around 1904, but it is not clear what led to the collaboration between McKee and The Cottrell Company and the Lenci and the Eagle Printing Ink Company.

McKee’s make-ready innovation was to remove the packing from the cylinder and, instead, make adjustments to the thickness of the electrotype plate. Donald C. Cottrell quoted an anonymous source in his speech to the Newcomen society: “McKee developed a system for making printing plates that was heralded as ‘the greatest advance in platemaking since the introduction of halftone engravings.'”^​3​ The McKee Process, as it was known, was described by Henry Bullen in the Inland Printer:

 Several proofs of the plate are taken in the usual manner, an overlay is made in reverse of that used on an impression cylinder [for make-ready]. From one of these proofs all the darkest printing shades are cut out and discarded. From the second proof the darkest shades and also those of secondary darkness are cut out and discarded. What remains is pasted in register on the base sheet. From the third proof all the impression, except the lightest shades, is cut out and discarded, and what remains is pasted in register as above.

Thus a reverse overlay or matrix is produced, which is thickest on the highlights and thinnest on the solids. The electrotype is laid face-down on this matrix in register and then placed on the bed of a special shaving machine. The shaving-knife will only shave those parts of the plate as are supported by the built-up portions of the reverse over-lay on which the plate rests. The unsupported portions give way under the pressure of the knife, which passes over such places on the back of the plate without shaving them. As soon as the pressure is removed the resiliency of the temporarily depressed places to spring back up to their normal position. At the end of the first cut, the plate will be thinner in those places where it was shaved and of normal thickness where it escaped the knife. The number of times the plates is passed under the shaving knife is determined by the character of the printing-plates.

The shaving operation does not affect the face of the electrotype, which remains level, but the back has very high and very low places. The plate is then places in a heated hydraulic press, still in contact with the reverse overlay or matrix. Under heat and pressure, the irregularities of the back of the plate are forced into the irregularities of the reverse overlay, or matrix, and the back of the plate becomes true and level. The irregularities of height are thus transferred to the printing surface. These irregularities take the places of hand-cut overlays of the present method.^​30​

The reduction of make-ready time using the McKee Process marked an important step toward the industrialization of four-color printing. Shorter make-ready times meant quicker turn-around on four-color jobs. However, it was McKee’s printing press design that made multi-color printing possible. Bullen described the Cottrell Multicolor Rotary Press invented by McKee:

The press consists of one large impression cylinder and four plate cylinders, each of the latter having an inking apparatus. The sheet is fed to grippers on the impression cylinder and is carried under a cylinder carrying the yellow plate, then under the red, blue and black plates, delivering the printed sheet completed, and also a slip-sheet to cover it, if necessary [to prevent back-transfer of the still-wet ink]. The sheet is held by grippers during the whole operation, and, therefore, cannot get out of register.^​30​

The time savings of the McKee Process was significant and became a mainstay in electrotype letter-press printing for many years thereafter. McKee gained considerable renown after his series of inventions in the early 1900’s. His innovations are a testament to a life of hard work, dedication to his craft, and his nature of perfectionism.

The first commercial use of the Cottrell Multicolor Rotary Press was the printing of the Lettie Lane Paper Doll page in the October 1908 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal, both shown in the image below.

Transitioning from a working R&D machine to a commercially viable product was itself challenging. Curtis Publishing, publisher of the Ladies’ Home Journal, would not purchase the press until The Cottrell Company proved the Multicolor Rotary Press could produce work of the required quality. The Cottrell Company fine-tuned the process for printing the doll pages starting in 1907. Curtis Publishing purchased two presses the following year to begin producing content for the Ladies’ Home Journal.^​3​

The full story was included as an anecdote in an article by Waldemar Kaempffart, entitled “Making Money out of Patents,” in the September-December 1913 edition of the Outlook, shown below. The anecdote did not reference specific persons or companies, but the details are corroborated by other contemporary accounts. Annotations are provided in square brackets for clarity.

It took ten years to produce a press on which the colored covers of our magazines could be printed at one operation…The most skillful pressman [likely Milton A. McKee] and engraver in the United States were engaged to solve the basic problem of preparing printing plates so that no “make-ready,” as it is called in the trade, would be necessary. By 1901 a self-printing plate had been invented. Next came the problem of bringing it to commercial perfection—a problem that involved three years of patient, expensive, heartbreaking experimenting [resulting in the McKee Process]. A special hydraulic press had to be built [for curving electrotype plates to fit the forme cylinder, another McKee patent], and other special machines as the experiments called for them. Then it was discovered that the press was not strong enough. An entirely new one had to be designed and constructed. Next it was found that the idea of printing one wet color upon an other was impracticable with the printing inks on the market. An ink chemist was employed, who spent over a year in the unsuccessful effort to produce inks of the desired character. After he failed, a practical printing ink maker [the Eagle Printing Ink Company] was engaged, who finally succeeded after many months. Even though the process, the press, and the inks seemed perfect, no satisfactory results could be obtained. It was discovered that the arrangement of the printing cylinders was at fault. Because they were arranged vertically [as in the 1905 McKee patent^​7​], so that the lowest one was near the floor and the uppermost one near the ceiling, they were subjected to different degrees of temperature, which affected the working of the inks. A new press had to be designed and built with horizontal cylinders [1915 McKee patent^​6​], all lying in the same zone of temperature, and then, at last, success was assured—but only success in solving the problem of printing several colors at one operation. The problem of selling the press had not even been attacked.

The manufacturer [The Cottrell Company] found it difficult to interest publishers and printers in his method of printing four-color magazine covers at one operation. They came and watched the press, marveled at its performances, but did nothing. They refused to believe their own eyes. In sheer desperation he [Edgar Cottrell, President of The Cottrell Company] had to install the press at his own expense in a large publishing house [Curtis Publishing] and to furnish his experience and assistance in trying it out. Even then the machine ran for nine months every day [1907-1908] before the publisher was really convinced that it could do his work.^​31​

The growth of four-color magazine printing increased steadily after the introduction of the Cottrell Multicolor Rotary Press. Curtis Publishing initially used it for only the doll page, then added additional four-color pages, including ads, in the months and years thereafter. Donald C. Cottrell reflected upon the press’s impact on page 21 of his address:

Like the web perfector that The Cottrell Company had introduced 18 years before, the four-color rotary press had a far-reaching impact on the printing industry. It was not only welcomed in the fields of magazine and commercial printing, but was quickly adapted to many other fields, such as folding cartons, bag printing, label printing, playing cards, and miscellaneous packaging printing.^​3​

I obtained an original Lettie Lane Paper Family doll page from the December 1908 edition of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Images of the print (screened at around 120 lpi) magnified at 140x, show the quality of four-color work produced by the Cottrell Multicolor Rotary Press. Further analysis of the prints themselves will be provided in a later article.

McKee’s inventions garnered him notoriety in the printing and general science community and afforded him the ability to travel. In July 1906, he traveled to Europe to promote his inventions and secure European patents.^​32​ McKee passed away on April 8, 1919, while on a health retreat in Santa Barbara, the Isle of Pines, in the West Indies,^​33​ an American settlement in what is now part of Cuba.^​34​

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Further Reading

In addition to Spicher’s book,^​9​ there are many excellent resources that describe the make-ready process, including those by Thomas (1903) and Gage (1909).^​35,36​

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Acknowledgements

Assistance in researching McKee’s early life in Vermont was provided by archivists at the Vermont State Archives & Records Administration.

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Disclaimer

This article was written by Brian Gamm in his personal capacity. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual with which the author has been, is currently, or will be affiliated.

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1. ^​*​
   As opposed to the stereotype, common for newspaper publishing due to it’s faster turn-around, lower cost, albeit lower quality.
2. ^​†​
   Various sources also wrote her first name as or Selinda, or Selenda.

1. 1.

   Horgan SA. Milton A. McKee, Inventor of the McKee Process. Inland Printer. 1913;51:749.
2. 2.

   Inventor of Art Press Succums. Detroit Free Press. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51406378/detroit-free-press/. Published June 1, 1919. Accessed August 10, 2020.
3. 3.

   Cottrell DC. The Cottrell Company (1855-1955): Color Press Pioneers. The Newcomen Society in North America; 1955.
4. 4.

   Personal New Items. Argus and Patriot. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51354024/milton-mckee/. Published March 28, 1883. Accessed July 27, 2020.
5. 5.

   The John Scott Award. Penn Libraries. Accessed August 10, 2020. http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/johnscottaward.html
6. 6.

   McKee MA. Printing Machinery. Published online December 14, 1915. https://patents.google.com/patent/US1164296A/en?inventor=Milton+A+Mckee
7. 7.

   McKee MA. Art of Color-Printing. Published online April 11, 1905. https://patents.google.com/patent/US787209A/en?oq=US787209
8. 8.

   McKee MA. Printing Plate Shaving Machine. Published online February 25, 1913. https://patents.google.com/patent/US1054130A/en?oq=US1054130
9. 9.

   Spicher C. The Practice of Presswork. Carnegie Institute of Technology; 1919.
10. 10.

    Urquhart JW. Electro-Typing. Crosby Lockwood and Co.; 1881. Accessed July 30, 2020. https://ia600304.us.archive.org/20/items/electrotypingpra00urquiala/electrotypingpra00urquiala.pdf
11. 11.

    Sherman G. Practical Printing: Exploring the Ways and Means of Production in the Modern Printing Plant. Oswald Publishing Company; 1911. Accessed August 1, 2020. https://archive.org/details/practicalprintin00sherrich
12. 12.

    Vermont, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1732-2005; Washington > Montpelier > Births 1759-1902 > image 40 of 70; citing various town clerks and records divisions, Vermont. FamilySearch. Published November 28, 2018. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99S-XSXC?cc=1987653&wc=Q8ZY-ZNL%3A324710701%2C325225901%2C1583526103
13. 13.

    United States Census, 1860: Celinda Mc Kee in entry for Thomas Mc Kee, 1860. FamilySearch. Published March 18, 2020. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MFDC-W7F
14. 14.

    Vermont Vital Records, 1760-1954:  004667366 > image 3432 of 3678; Citing Secretary of State. State Capitol Building, Montpelier. FamilySearch. Published May 22, 2014. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939V-9N6C-L?cc=1784223&wc=MFVW-B29%3A1029387701
15. 15.

    Find A Grave Index: Selenda M. Parcher McKee, 1868; Burial, Montpelier, Washington, Vermont, United States of America, Green Mount Cemetery; citing record ID 149755080. Find A Grave. Published July 11, 2016. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK1R-94WV
16. 16.

    History of Milton A. McKee. In: Vermont. Weeks School. Box WEEK-001 F-20855. Vermont State Archives & Records Administration; 1876. https://sos.vermont.gov/vsara-container?seriesID=WEEK-001
17. 17.

    Mere Mention. Argus and Patriot. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51356194/argus-and-patriot/. Published August 22, 1877. Accessed June 2, 2020.
18. 18.

    Adams W. Gazetteer of Washington County, Vt., 1783-1889. Syracuse Journal Company; 1889.
19. 19.

    Walson EP. The History of the Town of Montpelier, Including That of the Town of East Montpelier, for the First One Hundred and Two Years…. Miss A. M. Hemenway; 1883.
20. 20.

    Harris EM. Personal Impressions: The Small Printing Press in Nineteenth-Century America. David R. Godine; 2004. Accessed June 3, 2020. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/YT8jLqxuQUMC?hl=en&gbpv=0
21. 21.

    Cottrell Company. University of Delaware Library. Accessed June 2, 2020. http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/pdf/mss0093_0014.pdf
22. 22.

    D. Leonard, Steam Job Printer. Vermont Phoenix. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51430493/vermont-phoenix/. Published December 22, 1879. Accessed June 2, 2020.
23. 23.

    Mere Mention Memoranda. Argus and Patriot. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51358160/argus-and-patriot/. Published April 2, 1879. Accessed June 3, 2020.
24. 24.

    Mussey B. Book Town: A Historical Sketch of Printing and Publishing in Brattleboro. The Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society. 1968;36(4):173-185. https://vermonthistory.org/journal/misc/BookTown.pdf
25. 25.

    The D. Leonard Printing Office. Vermont Phoenix. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51430493/vermont-phoenix/ . Published July 29, 1887. Accessed June 3, 2020.
26. 26.

    The Freeman. Green-Mountain Freeman . https://www.newspapers.com/image/366010735/?terms=Milton%2BA%2BMcKee. Published August 27, 1877. Accessed June 2, 2020.
27. 27.

    Mere Mention Memoranda. Argus and Patriot. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51357218/argus-and-patriot/. Published February 4, 1880. Accessed June 2, 2020.
28. 28.

    Personal News Items. Argus and Patriot. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51354024/milton-mckee/. Published March 28, 1883. Accessed June 2, 2020.
29. 29.

    Montpelier Minor Mere Mention. Argus and Patriot. December 17, 1884:3.
30. 30.

    Bullen HL. An Advance in Color-Printing and Plate Making. Inland Printer. 1910;45:700.
31. 31.

    Kaempffert W. Making Money out of Patents. The Outlook. 1913;105:663-664. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/1LpOAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
32. 32.

    Printing in Colors. Montpelier Evening Argus. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/51406164/1906-mention-of-mckee-printing-in-colors/. Published June 15, 1906. Accessed May 17, 2020.
33. 33.

    Milton A. McKee. Evening Public Ledger. https://www.newspapers.com/image/162746163/?article=872fa5bb-a97c-473b-b33f-05d1ef282a93&focus=0.2613622,0.84518427,0.3777673,0.92632174&xid=2378. Published April 19, 2020. Accessed June 3, 2020.
34. 34.

    American Settlement in the Isla de Pinos, Cuba. Geographical Review. 1942;32(1):21-35. while on a health retreat in Santa Barbara, the Isle of Pines, in the West Indies
35. 35.

    Thomas FW. A Concise Manual of Platen Presswork. The Inland Printer Company; 1903. Accessed August 6, 2020. https://archive.org/details/concisemanualofp00thom
36. 36.

    Gage FW. Modern Presswork. The Inland Printer Co.; 1909. Accessed August 6, 2020. https://archive.org/details/modernpresswork00gagerich