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Ottmar Mergenthaler

Ottmar Mergenthaler (May 10, 1854 - October 28, 1899) was a German inventor.

He was born in Hachtel, Württemberg, Germany, the third son of a school teacher and apprenticed to a watchmaker before moving to Baltimore, Maryland, USA in 1872. He invented the linotype in 1886, a machine that allowed an operator to automatically set type, which revolutionized the printing industry. He died of tuberculosis in Baltimore in 1899.

A building is named after him at Johns Hopkins University.

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