Staley Thomas McBrayer (June 22, 1909 – April 14, 2002) was a newspaper publisher and inventor best known for inventing the Vanguard web

offset press Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on ...

for newspaper printing. A native of

Saltillo, Texas Saltillo is an unincorporated community in Hopkins County, Texas, in the United States. It is located sixteen miles east of Sulphur Springs at the intersection of US 67 and FM 900. Saltillo has a population of approximately 300. Despite being uninc ...

, he earned degrees from East Texas State Teachers College (now

Texas A&M University–Commerce Texas A&M University–Commerce is a public university in Commerce, Texas. With an enrollment of over 12,000 students as of fall 2017, the university is the third-largest institution in the Texas A&M University System. Founded in 1889, the inst ...

) and the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

(UT Austin). He owned numerous newspapers in

Fort Worth Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

, other cities in the

Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, officially designated Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is a conurbated metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Texas encompassing 11 counties and anchore ...

, and

Greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, is the fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, encompassing nine counties along the Gulf Co ...

. After five years of effort and experimentation, he ultimately succeeded in modifying an offset printing press designed for book printing and adapting it for printing newspapers: the resulting Vanguard web offset press, which he unveiled in 1954, reduced the cost, time, and manual labor required to print newspapers, which was especially beneficial to small newspapers. Due to his invention, he is sometimes referred to as the "Orville Wright" or "Wilbur Wright" of offset newspaper publishing.

Early life and career

Staley Thomas McBrayer was born on June 22, 1909 and raised in

. He attended East Texas State Teachers College (now

), graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1933. While a student, he worked in the business department of ''

The Commerce Journal ''The Commerce Journal'' is a weekly online Burmese language newspaper published every Monday by the Ministry of Commerce in Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicati ...

'' as well as on '' The East Texan''. In 1936, he earned a graduate degree from the

(UT Austin), where he majored in

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...

. After graduating, McBrayer worked as the advertising and business manager of ''The Commerce Journal''. By the early 1940s, he and his wife Beverly owned four

weekly newspaper A weekly newspaper is a general-news or Current affairs (news format), current affairs publication that is issued once or twice a week in a wide variety broadsheet, magazine, and electronic publishing, digital formats. Similarly, a biweekly new ...

s in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

. By the end of the decade, they also owned

daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s in adjacent

cities of Arlington,

Grand Prairie Grand Prairie is a city in Dallas, Tarrant, and Ellis counties of Texas, in the United States. It is part of the Mid-Cities region in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It had a population of 175,396 according to the 2010 census, making it th ...

Haltom City Haltom City is a city, part of the Dallas–Fort Worth region, in Tarrant County, Texas, United States. Its population was 46,073 at the 2020 census. Haltom City is an inner suburb of Fort Worth, a principal city of the DFW Metroplex. The city ...

, Irving, and

Richland Hills Richland Hills is a city in Tarrant County, Texas, United States. The population was 7,801 at the 2010 census. Government Richland Hills operates under a charter adopted in 1986, which provides for a "Council-Manager" form of government. The Cou ...

. McBrayer also published ''

The Pasadena Citizen ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' in

Pasadena, Texas Pasadena () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, within the metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 151,950, making it the twentieth most populous city in the state of Texas, as well as the second-largest cit ...

, and established ''

The News-Citizen ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' in Clear Lake in June 1961.

Vanguard web offset press

McBrayer is best known for inventing the Vanguard web

for newspaper printing. After five years of effort and experimentation, he ultimately succeeded in modifying an offset printing press designed for book printing and adapting it for printing newspapers: the result was the Vanguard web offset press, which he unveiled in 1954 in Fort Worth. McBrayer began by acquiring a German-built offset press for $10,000, which he modified for newspaper printing by experimenting with a variety of

ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker ...

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distributed ...

s, and

plastic Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...

s. McBrayer's design was physically made and refined by J. Grant Ghormley Jr., an engineer from Fort Worth, and draftsman Clyde T. "Jack" Kitchens; Ghormley and Kitchens were awarded the key

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

s for the Vanguard web offset press. The Vanguard web offset press shifted the newspaper printing business from "hot type" printing that relied on hand-setting metal type to "cold type" printing that used photographic images instead, which reduced both the cost and time required to print newspapers. The invention also allowed small community newspapers to share printing sites and reduced the amount of manual labor required to print a newspaper, leading to increased labor tensions with linotypists. Texas A&M University–Commerce professor Otha Spencer credited McBrayer with pioneering the publication of suburban newspapers, as well as saving small newspapers from extinction.

American Newspaper Publishers Association The News Media Alliance (formerly known as the Newspaper Association of America until 2016 McBrayer himself stated that concern for reducing costs, and not

altruism Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...

, was what chiefly motivated his invention. According to Spencer, by the mid-1980s, less than three decades after McBrayer's invention, "99 percent of the country's newspapers were offset". The newspaper industry writ large was slow to adopt the web offset press, however: by the 1960s, Goss International began to use the technology, while Harris Corporation adopted it later.

Honors and legacy

McBrayer was elected to the national presidency of

Sigma Delta Chi The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), formerly known as Sigma Delta Chi, is the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States. It was established on April 17, 1909, at DePauw University,2009 SPJ Annual Report, letter ...

, a professional fraternity for journalists later known as the Society of Professional Journalists, in 1967–68. He also served as chairman of the ANPA's offset printing committee. Due to his invention, he is sometimes referred to as the "Orville Wright" or "Wilbur Wright" of offset newspaper publishing. A&M–Commerce recognized him as a Distinguished Alumnus in 1973; its campus also features the Staley T. McBrayer Instructional Printing Facility, the largest of its kind in

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

. Similarly, McBrayer was named an Outstanding Alumnus of UT Austin's College of Communication in 1984, the first alumnus to be so honored. He was also honored as one of 50 people who impacted journalism in the 20th century by ''

Editor & Publisher ''Editor & Publisher'' (''E&P'') is an American monthly trade news magazine covering the newspaper industry. Published since 1901, ''Editor & Publisher'' is the self-described "bible of the newspaper industry." Originally based in New York City, ...

'' magazine. In 1992, he received just the fourth ANPA Award since it was established in 1965. He was inducted into the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association Hall of Fame in 2006 and was one of the four-member inaugural class of the Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2007. In 1977, the McBrayers established a journalism

scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholarsh ...

fund at East Texas State University (now A&M–Commerce). In 1987, McBrayer similarly established an endowed fund in

community journalism Community journalism is locally-oriented, professional news coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods, individual suburbs or small towns, rather than metropolitan, state, national or world news. If it covers wider topics, community j ...

for UT Austin's College of Communication in honor of his wife Beverly, a 1930 graduate of UT Austin.

Personal life

McBrayer married Beverly Wills in 1938; they met while studying at UT Austin together. Beverly died in December 1997. McBrayer died on April 14, 2002, in Fort Worth, at age 92.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McBrayer, Staley T. 1909 births 2002 deaths American newspaper publishers (people) Texas A&M University–Commerce alumni Moody College of Communication alumni People from Hopkins County, Texas 20th-century American inventors Presidents of the Society of Professional Journalists