Bob Andrews and Steve Birmingham are right on target. When I broke into the newspaper business in the late 1960s, we called these "halftones." They were made from original photos by photoengravers and mounted on lead blocks that were fitted into the chase that held the type for the page set by linotype machines. This chase was then used to make a cardboard mold (stereotyping) from which the actual metal printing plate was cast. This process was still in use at the papers I worked for in Boston into the 1970s, but was gradually supplanted by computers and offset printing techniques employed today. One-column "cuts" like your Gonder were often saved and filed in cabinets in the newspaper's morgue or library and reused to save time and money. Thus, many have survived today. Though they are steps away from being "printing plates," these "cuts" or "halftones" can be inked and used to make crude proofs of the image.
|