In Search of a Death Certificate

The Death of an Inventor You’ve Likely Never Heard About

Quite by accident, 20 years ago I became interested in the massive impact of a single invention called the Linotype. Heck, I even made a whole film about it and am currently writing a book about it because I’m still fascinated by the many stories a single machine can unfurl. While researching for said film, I learned about the fascinating and short life of the inventor, Ottmar Mergenthaler.

Mergenthaler fits in the pantheon of late-19th-century inventors such as the exceptionally-racist Henry Ford, Henry Firestone, Levi Strauss, Alexander Graham Bell, Nikola Tesla, and the exceptionally-petty Thomas Edison, but yet I bet you’ve never heard of him.

I hope my future book will do this German immigrant to America justice, but for now you will have to settle for this short blog post.

I Wonder If I Could Find That?

For a long time, I have wanted to understand more about how Ottmar Mergenthaler died so young at the age of 45. I’ve read the cause of death listed as “pleurisy” or “tuberculosis” or “consumption” or even “working himself to death,” but I needed more concrete details. Which lead me to think, “I bet there was a death certificate for Ottmar Mergenthaler. I wonder if I can find it?”

As much as I still debate the value of the internet as a whole, I must admit that a quick search lead me to a large batch of PDFs on the Maryland State Archives website. By knowing the exact date of death, I could sort and find the correct file. I downloaded a giant 495MB PDF file and started digging through manually as no OCR was to be found.

Saved and Preserved in Multiple Technologies

The records were put onto microfilm in 1963 and uploaded to the internet around 2021 or so. My debt goes to the people who made decisions decades ago to preserve these records. In fact, I got lucky because all deaths in Baltimore before 1898 were not saved or preserved for research at all.

Thankfully the death certificates were roughly in date order, although they varied by a few days; which I assume is because undertakers would file deaths in small batches rather than rush to city offices after each death?

On page 1,449 of the 2,897 page PDF, I finally found Ottmar Mergenthaler’s official death certificate from the Heath Department, City of Baltimore, Office of Registrar of Vital Statistics.

Simple Facts of Life and Death

There in stark, black, cursive handwriting, it states the plain facts about Ottmar Mergenthaler’s death.

• Certificate Number: 21414
• Date of Death: October 28th, 1899
• Age: 45
• Occupation: Inventor
• Birthplace: Germany
• Duration of Residence in the City of Baltimore: 27 years
• Place of Death: 159 W. Lanvale Street (his home)
• Cause of Death: Pulmonary Consumption (tuberculosis) and Asthenia (defined as “loss of vital forces”)
• Duration of Last Sickness: About 8 years
• Place of Burial: Louden Park Cemetery
• Undertaker: Henry W. Mears & Son at 413 E. Fayette St.

Further Clarification Needed

I just wrapped up reading “Everything is Tuberculosis” by John Green, which gave a good overview of TB and now I need to interview a pulmonologist in order to understand what Ottmar Mergenthaler dealt with for “almost 8 years” as his death certificate states. It seems like a terrible, painful, and desperate disease — especially in the late 1800s.

This is but one tiny aspect of my research journey for my book project, but as Robert Caro says, “Turn every page,” right?