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![“For does a crop grow in any field to equal this
[papyrus], on which the thoughts of the wise
are preserved? For previously, the sayings of
the wise and the ideas of our ancestors were
in danger…” Cassiodorus
Before printing: PapyrusBefore printing: Papyrus](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/rc1-160824164013/85/Rc-1-a-printing-8-320.jpg)
Uploaded byBill Kovarik
Rc 1.a.printing
The document discusses the evolution of printing from its early history, starting with oral culture and the development of writing systems, to the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. It details advancements in materials such as papyrus, parchment, and paper, and outlines the significant impact of printing technology on the production of literature and information dissemination. The lecture emphasizes how printing revolutionized communication and contributed to the transition from medieval to modern society.
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Rc 1.a.printing
- 1. Media History fromMediaHistory from GutenbergGutenberg to the Digital Ageto the Digital Age Slides based on the Bloomsbury book by Bill Kovarik Revolutions inRevolutions in CommunicationCommunication Chapter 1 – Printing -- #4
- 2. Web site &textbookWeb site & textbook Textbook: 1st edition – 2011 2nd edition – 2016 http://www.revolutionsincommunication.com
- 3. Technical & historicalcontext of printing ◦ Papermaking ◦ Typesetting ◦ Development of presses Gutenberg Incunabula Monk Power Life in a print shop This lecture is about …This lecture is about …
- 4. Before printing: OralcultureBefore printing: Oral culture People are “pre-wired” for language and storytelling ◦ Reading & writing are learned Sense of connection Alex Haley’s Roots – ◦ Ex. of working oral culture Fireside chats – ◦ Ex. Of radio as promoting oral culture
- 5. Storytelling comes naturallyStorytellingcomes naturally
- 6. Learning to writewas the “tuition” for human education – Wilbur Schramm 6th millennium BCE, earliest known Neolithic writings. Writing developed in a progression from picture – oriented (logographic) symbols to abstract phonetic images Before printing: WritingBefore printing: Writing
- 7. Types of writtenlanguageTypes of written language Logographic -- In which the Egyptian hieroglyph is a duck, and the Chinese logogram 山 stands for mountain. Syllabaric -- In which certain symbols stand for syllables. Complex logographic systems like Chinese, or those derived from logographic systems (like Japanese), have characters that stand for syllables. Alphabetic -- Where individual characters stand for phonemes (sounds) of the spoken language. English is based on the Latin alphabet (ABCD...) ; Russian is based on the Cyrillic script ( A B ... ).Г Д
- 8. “For does acrop grow in any field to equal this [papyrus], on which the thoughts of the wise are preserved? For previously, the sayings of the wise and the ideas of our ancestors were in danger…” Cassiodorus Before printing: PapyrusBefore printing: Papyrus
- 9. Split animal skins ◦calf, sheep, goat More durable than papyrus ◦ But far more expensive Skins were soaked, treated, split, stretched, smoothed, cut Before printing: ParchmentBefore printing: Parchment
- 10. Bamboo, wood pulppaperBamboo, wood pulp paper Known since 100 AD in China Linen, bamboo or other long- fiber material suspended in water
- 11. Fibers suspended in water,then “screened” Developed in China c 105 ACE Reached Europe around 1200 ACE Attributed to Tso Lin Before printing: Paper (China)Before printing: Paper (China)
- 12. Romans discarded unwieldy scrollsin favor of the “codex,” or arrangement of pages in succession. Before printing: Linen paperBefore printing: Linen paper
- 13. Handwritten news widely distributed acrossRoman empire “Acta Diurna” – Daily Acts 131 BCE to 400s ACE Helped keep up loyalty to Rome News of sports (esp gladiators), proclamations from Senate, battles, omens, and human interest stories Before printing: Acta DiurnaBefore printing: Acta Diurna
- 14. Romans discarded unwieldy scrollsin favor of the “codex,” or arrangement of pages in succession. Before printing: The Roman CodexBefore printing: The Roman Codex
- 15. Books were sacredBookswere sacred During the “dark ages” especially, books were considered the tiny flickering candle flame of civilization Book of Kells, 800 ACE Monasteries laboriously created works of art as acts of reverence Illuminated manuscripts (not incunabula )
- 16. 2 - 3pages per day One monk takes 2 years to copy 1,282 pages in the Bible * * Frederick Somner Merryweather, Bibliomania of the Middle Ages, (London: Merryweather, 1849). ** Brian Richardson, Printing, writers and readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge U. Press, 1999) In 1447, just before printing, it takes 45 scribes 22 months to copy 200 manuscripts for the Cosimo de Medici’s library. ** 1 Monk Power = 2.5 pages/day, or 1/2 Bible / year Monk powerMonk power
- 17. Wood block -China 220 ACEWood block - China 220 ACE
- 18. Ceramic – 1041-1048ACECeramic – 1041-1048 ACE Bi Sheng is credited with invention in the Dream Pool Essays
- 19. Aachen Pilgrim’s badgeAachenPilgrim’s badge
- 20. Gutenberg’s matrixGutenberg’s matrix JohannesGutenberg’s key insight: •Re-useable, moveable type. •The “matrix” was a mold that formed a piece of type from hot lead, tin and antimony. • Printing sped up book production by 1000 -2000 x
- 21. What Gutenberg actuallyinvented was not the “press” itself – That was widely used in agriculture and for woodcuts. As a metal smith, Gutenberg found the right combination of lead and antimony and tin for type. Moveable type made from wood was known, but even the hardest woods don’t hold up after hundreds of impressions.
- 22. Mainz, Germany, 1453– Johannes Gutenberg (1395 – 1468)
- 30. 1 billion booksby 18001 billion books by 1800
- 31. Printing RevolutionPrinting Revolution THEpivotal development in history, The turning point in the transition between the Medieval and the Modern Printing comes from an build-up of techniques, resources & demands ◦ pressing (olives, grapes) ◦ paper making (to replace animal hides) ◦ woodcuts of religious images ◦ abundance of linen paper
- 32. Francis BaconFrancis Bacon NovumOrganum (New Instrument, published 1620): "Printing, gunpowder and the compass: These three have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes, in so much that no empire, no sect, no star seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these mechanical discoveries.
- 33. Printing 1450s -1790sPrinting 1450s - 1790s Typical production of wooden flatbed press was 3200 impressions per 14-hr day* A “token” (an hour’s work) was 250 pages (single sided) Four men working 100 days set type and printed 200 volumes of the Gutenberg Bible** So in effect, one person produced one book in two days, compared to a monk or scribe producing a book in two years. Monk Power = 312 * Hans-Jürgen Wolf, Geschichte der Druckpressen (Frankfurt: Interprint, 1974) ** Brian Richardson, Printing, writers and readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge U. Press, 1999)
- 34. Bed &Bed & platenplaten presspress Among many improvements to hand powered presses Treadwell, c. 1820s, was 4x faster Monk Power = 1,280
- 35. FriedrichFriedrich Koenig’sKoenig’s SteamSteam PressPress Six-person crew –First used at the Times of London 1814 -- 2,200 pages per hour MONK POWER = 2,000 1828 – 8,000 pages / hour MONK POWER = 7,500
- 36. HoeHoe rotaryrotary presspress (sheet fed)(sheet fed) 1844– 20,000 pg / hour (4 cylinder) 1852– 50,000 pg / hr (10 cylinder) Monk power = 20,000
- 37. Fourdrinier paper processFourdrinierpaper process First by Henry Fourdrinier, 1803, Frogmore, UK
- 38. Web (continuous paper)pressWeb (continuous paper) press 1865 (Bullock) -- 480,000 pages / hour Uses stereotype plates Monk power = 2.6 million
- 39. Not many changesin LetterpressNot many changes in Letterpress techniques from 1870s–1970stechniques from 1870s–1970s
- 40. Stereotypes inventedin 1725 in Scotland Widely used to save typesetting expenses by mid-1800s Also called “cliché” from Clichy lead works near Paris
- 41. Hoe letterpress –Australia, 1950 Note heavy gearing for lead plates
- 42. Man-Roland offset printingpress c. 1970s Plates are thin aluminum not heavy lead stereotypes Far lighter, cheaper, cleaner, higher quality color Works well with photo-mechanical and digital systems for type setting
- 43. Typesetting by handTypesettingby hand Manchester Guardian, c. 1890, approx 100 people working in typesetting; note upper & lower cases; compositors in front assemble galleys, paper galley proofs hanging from board to the right (It looks like a door). 5 to 10 wpm = 2.5 x Avg Monk Speed
- 44. Typesetting by hand(WWI era)Typesetting by hand (WWI era) Note Upper & Lower case Drawers of fonts under the cases Proofing press to check for errors
- 46. Chicago Defender, c.1940, approx. Four men work with Mergenthaler’s Linotype machines setting type. The fifth man here is a compositor who assembles the work into columns of type. This was hot, dirty, and dangerous, but at 30 wpm, it was much faster and far cheaper than setting type by hand.
- 47. Photomechanical typesettingPhotomechanical typesetting “Cold”type 60 – 80 wpm $10,000 in 1970s (1/5 cost of Linotype) Paste-up artists replace hot type compositors 30 – 40 x Monk Speed COMPUGRAPHIC, c. 1975 Rene Higgonet, Louis Moyroud / Vannevar Bush
- 48. Monk power /monk speedMonk power / monk speed From 2.5 pages / day ◦ To millions per day ◦ Monk Power x hundreds of millions From 2 words / minute writing ◦ To 30 wpm Linotype ◦ To 60- 100 wpm photomechanical, digital ◦ Monk Speed x 50
- 49. Digital typesetting /Digitaltypesetting / desktop publishingdesktop publishing 60 – 80 wpm $4,000 1984 – 1990 plus laser printer 1/10 cost of Linotype Digital pagination (no paste-up) End of typesetting as a separate part of the process APPLE MAC, c. 1985
- 50. Next: Chapter 1bNext:Chapter 1b Impacts of the printing revolutionImpacts of the printing revolution
Editor's Notes
- #5 To begin with, writing and then mechanized writing (printing) are learned skills. They are not innate in human nature, like storytelling and language.
- #6 Anker Grossvater, 1884; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
- #7 Most historians have seen writing as evolving from economic necessity in the ancient Near East around the 4th millennium BCE . Its possible it was more widespread earlier on. What economic necessity? Why? Interesting that the Egyptian pictograph for “son” is the same as “duck” – Probably from image of ducks following parents closely. We use something like that today --- “kid”
- #8 An important point about these forms of written language is that alphabets can communicate billions of ideas with only a two dozen symbols. In contrast, logographic and syllabaric systems require thousands of symbols. This is not a problem in a manuscript culture, but it was a crucial difference in the development of mass communication through printing, since it is difficult to create and organize thousands of separate permanent symbols to be used in a printing press.
- #9 This is a kingfisher bird amid a grove of papyrus, 1350 BCE, and the image comes from the palace of Akhenaten at El-Amarna on the Nilenn. The quote is from Cassiodorus, late Roman empire (485 – 585 ACE) reminds us of how welcome media technologies were, how important it was to have a way to fix ideas. Of course, papyrus is a big improvement over parchment and bark, but it still has problems. It is a flexible medium but not a very durable one. ( Note Im indebted to the Encyclopedia Romana at the University of Chicago for these insights and this public domain image ) Quote continues (It really is lovely) … For how could you quickly record words which the resistant hardness of bark made it almost impossible to set down? No wonder that the heat of the mind suffered pointless delays, and genius was forced to cool as its words were retarded. Hence, antiquity gave the name of liber to the books of the ancients; for even today we call the bark of green wood liber. It was, I admit, unfitting to entrust learned discourse to these unsmoothed tablets, and to imprint the achievements of elegant feeling on bits of sluggish wood. When hands were checked, few men were impelled to write; and no one to whom such a page was offered was induced to say much. But this was appropriate to early times, when it was right for a crude beginning to use such a device, to encourage the ingenuity of posterity. The tempting beauty of paper is amply adorned by compositions where there is no fear that the writing material may be withheld. For it opens a field for the elegant with its white surface; its help is always plentiful; and it is so pliant that it can be rolled together, although it is unfolded to a great length. Its joints are seamless, its parts united; it is the snowy pith of a green plant, a writing surface which takes black ink for its ornament; on it, with letters exalted, the flourishing corn-field of words yields the sweetest of harvests to the mind, as often as it meets the reader's wish. It keeps a faithful witness of human deeds; it speaks of the past, and is the enemy of oblivion. For, even if our memory retains the content, it alters the words; but there discourse is stored in safety, to be heard for ever with consistency." Cassiodorus, Variae (XI.383-6) http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html When, in the first century AD, Pliny wrote about papyrus in his Natural History, it already had been the most common writing material in the ancient world for three millennia (indeed, the word "paper" itself derives from the Latin, papyrus).
- #10 College diplomas used to be printed on parchment, hence the idea of “Getting your sheepskin” One of the worst jobs in any print shop was to treat the animal skins -- even after the invention of linen paper, Vellum was a kind of parchment made from calf skins Parchment is a durable medium but not a flexible one
- #11 Paper is a flexible medium and, when made from pure linen, can be fairly durable
- #12 An image of a Ming dynasty woodcut describing five major steps in ancient Chinese papermaking process as outlined by Cai Lun in 105 AD The traditional story about the inspiration for paper making was that Lun observing wasps building nests, and realized they were chewing up and spitting out mulberry bark. The idea of paper making is said to have come back from China with Marco Polo and his brother in 1269 to Venice (They left in 1250 )
- #13 Just at the beginning of the Renaissance there was what climatologists call the Little Ice age – officially 1350 to about 1850 but probably starting 1200s / / Winters were much, much colder So what is this have to do with printing? Because people were wearing a lot of linen (flax) and hemp clothing, and taking it off in the spring, there was a lot of linen which could be used to make paper. Note hunters are coming home with just one little fox … not a good hunt. Dogs are very skinny, and the grain mill is frozen up. 1565 oil-on-wood painting by Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
- #14 The History Channel said that newspapers were one of 10 innovations that built Rome, along with roads, aqueducts, law, welfare and other feats. The Romans were known to contribute to public discourse through the use of official texts detailing military, legal and civil issues. Known as Acta Diurna, or “daily acts,” these early newspapers posted in heavily trafficked areas like the Roman Forum. Acta are believed to have first appeared around 131 B.C. and typically included details of Roman military victories, lists of games and gladiatorial bouts, birth and death notices and even human interest stories. There was also an Acta Senatus, which detailed the proceedings of the Roman senate. These were traditionally withheld from public view until 59 B.C., when Julius Caesar ordered their publication as part of the many populist reforms he instituted during his first consulship. http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/10-innovations-that-built-ancient-rome For some humor: Monty Python – what have they ever given us? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9foi342LXQE&list=PLW7ar68_07tZVTWQFCRDQrYPZvDxl7ICm
- #16 Only 150 years before Book of Kells was produced in Ireland, the last books at the Library of Alexandria were burned. When the Saracens sacked the town, it is said that they burned the last remaining books because if they weren’t the words of the prophet they were evil and if they were, they were superfluous. http://faculty.txwes.edu/csmeller/human-experience/ExpData09/03Biee/BieePICs/3fEurPICs/Kells/Kells00Index.htm / INCUNABULA are PRINTED books between 1453 and 1500 which may also have illumination, but there is a big difference. Incunabula is Latin for “cradle” but it can refer an early stages of something important. Usually we hear it used for books in the early stages of printing.
- #17 We would summarize the productive power of the average monk as around 1,250 words per day; or at 500 words per page, 2.5 pages / day, so monk speed = about 2 wpm / Typesetting and printing were the same thing for a Monk. Gutenberg’s press separated them. Digital media re-united them. For a scribe working in Medici’s library, it would take 5 months to complete one manuscript. We don’t know how long they were so this is not much of a measure of monk power.
- #18 The Chinese of course used wood block printing to facilitate transfer of ideas, but even the toughest types of wood (such as cherry) break down after several thousand impressions.
- #19 To replace wood block printing, Chinese scholar Bi Sheng invented printing with ceramic type. Although Bi Sheng was able to overcome the irregularities in ceramic type width and depth, the Chinese logographic language has about 6,000 basic characters – too many to organize into an effective moveable type system.
- #20 Johannes Gutenberg got into the printing business by first developing a new way to make the small metal badges that were popular with people who were on religious pilgrimages. The badges, or “pilgrims mirrors,” were four inches high and made from cheap metals such as lead and tin. They would be sewn onto hats or cloaks to show that the traveler was a pilgrim, and they would be held up in the presence of religious relics as the pilgrim’s act of devotion. Millions of the badges were sold across Europe between the Medieval era and the late Renaissance. Even today, the badges are still being dug up along the old pilgrim trails. From court records, we know that two investors backed Gutenberg in an improved process for making the metal badges. They expected to sell 32,000 of them at the Aachen fair, but in 1439, news came that the Aachen pilgrimage was being postponed due to bubonic plague. With the setback, Gutenberg realized he needed another way to keep investors happy. He started a second enterprise in Strasbourg, France that used the alloy of lead, tin and antimony. It also used, according to cryptic court documents, “something required for printing.”
- #22 Note the nick on the down side of this piece of type. This helped typesetters find the right position for the type.
- #23 Most of the techniques and elements in this shop would be used for the next 400 years. Only by the 1830s - 1850s would printing start to change.
- #24 Incunabula are the approximately eight million books printed between the 1450s and 1500. This chart shows their distribution by region. The data is based on the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue of the British Library (as of March 2, 2011). By Maximilian Dörrbecker See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incunabula
- #25 Incunabula distribution by language. The data is based on the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue of the British Library (as of March 2, 2011). By Maximilian Dörrbecker See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incunabula
- #26 http://atlas.lib.uiowa.edu/
- #30 CHART BY ELTIO BURINGH from the Journal of Economic History IMPORTANT NOTE – THIS IS A LOGARITHIMIC CHART /// So we go from 10k in 6th century to 100K in 9th century to 1 million in 13th to 10 million in 15th // Also these are the number of copies not the number of titles. Estimated European output of books from 500 to 1800. Manuscripts do not include individual deeds and charters. A printed book is defined as printed matter containing more than 49 pages. Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten: "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 69, No. 2 (2009), pp. 409–445 (416–417, tables 1&2) Author http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Output_of_Books_500%E2%80%931800.png
- #31 Data from: Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten: "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 69, No. 2 (2009), pp. 409–445 (417, table 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:European_Output_of_Printed_Books_ca._1450%E2%80%931800.png Stack of books at Humboldt University,Berlin,Germany,Europe -- The installation of the statue "Der moderne Buchdruck" (Modern Book Printing) took place on April 21, 2006 at Bebelplatz opposite Humboldt University. The assembly of this 12.2 metre high object on the street Unter den Linden took three days. This is not a memorial to the Nazi book burnings in the same plaza 10 May 1933, but there is a memorial there. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebelplatz A line of Heinrich Heine from his play, Almansor (1821), is engraved on a plaque inset in the square: "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." (in English: "Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people").
- #34 * Actually, 3200 is 250 x 13, so they must have had an hour off every day, or Wolf’s 250 impressions per hour figure is only roughly accurate. Printers would probably not work on Sundays, so 312 = 52 weeks x six days each week.
- #35 Shown here with Tympan and friskets up for new page. The press would roll back and forth, so one side was always being reloaded with paper. Also had automatic inking. (No more beating). http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Appletons%27_Cyclop%C3%A6dia_of_American_Biography/Treadwell,_Daniel
- #36 Compared to wooden hand presses at 250 per hour with a three person crew
- #37 This was the development that really accelerated the penny press in the US. By the time of the US Civil War, in the 1860s, newspapers were having a huge impact on politics.
- #38 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourdrinier_machine#History_of_paper_machines
- #40 http://skyscraper.org/EXHIBITIONS/PAPER_SPIRES/sw202_moan.php Making of a newspaper – Silent movie clicks thru from photo (From The Front Page 1974 Walter Matheau and Jack Lemon )
- #43 Note smaller, lighter plates – Cheaper, easier color registration. Replacing the old letterpress system had major economic benefits for publishers
- #46 Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854 – 1899) invented a typesetting machine in the 1880s that was much faster than individual typesetting by hand. The complex machine uses brass matrices that fall down into the line of type when the keys are punched. Once a line is in place, it is adjusted (kerned) and then the hot lead is poured in. Once the lead cools, it is trimmed and falls into a holder.
- #47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdXml-XrYGU click thru photo for vocational type video from 1938 The work was dangerous because of lead poisoning from the constant fumes from molten lead. Many printers had occupational problems with lead poisoning.
- #48 Compugraphics and similar photo-mechanical machines were early computers that would allow you to set several hundred lines of type, saving it all on a 10 inch floppy drive (10K storage), and then printing to a sheet of photographic paper which had to be developed, dried and then pasted up. Fonts were stored not in the computer but on a celluloid belt that would be changed every time you needed to change to different size or style. So all headlines would be written at one time, rather than with each story. This is the point at which newspapers become fabulously profitable with 20 – 40 percent annual ROI. Layoffs of Linotype operators cause major strikes in 1970s. Because papers are so profitable, they are no longer a family business, and are bought up by media conglomerates concerned about earnings, not quality. No reinvestment in research and development. By 2012, newspaper industry’s fortunes have reversed.
- #50 By the time Apple Macs were introduced, individual desktop computers were proving themselves as more flexible and reliable than large-scale systems.