 hile
he was in grade school, Orville had become interested in the line illustrations in his
father's books and magazines, and the techniques used to make them. A neighbor and boyhood
friend, Ed Sines, had a small printing outfit and the two went into business together.
Lorin and Wilbur traded an old boat for a better press, the Bishop bought the boys 25
pounds of used type, and the job printing business took over the summer kitchen at the
Wright home.In high school, Orville worked two summers as a printer's apprentice to learn the printing trade. With Wilbur's assistance, he designed and built a professional press from a damaged tombstone, buggy parts, and other recycled odds and ends. By the time his mother died in 1889, eighteen-year-old Orville had decided to drop out of school. He had become a skilled printer and his printing business, which he operated out of the tiny carriage barn at the Wright home, showed promise. And he was now it’s sole proprietor. He bought out his original partner, Ed Sines, when a local grocer paid a printing bill with popcorn. Sines wanted to eat the profits; Orville wanted to sell the corn and buy more type. The dispute was resolved when Orville gave Sines his share of the popcorn in return for Sine’s share of the business. Afterwards, Ed Sines became an employee of Wright Printing.
|
Click
on a photo to enlarge it. The Midget was Orville's first attempt at journalism. He and Ed Sines only printed one edition of this diminutive newspaper. On the back page, it promised that the second edition would carry an editorial by Orville and Ed's teacher on "the wickedness of schoolchildren," and this may have had something to do with the suspension of publication. |