Juan Monroy — Media Technologies: Early Print

Gutenberg Myth
- Gutenberg did not invent printing
- Gutenberg did not invent the printing press
- Gutenberg did not invent typography
- Printing was invented by Chinese (500) and Koreans (1234)
Gutenberg and Print Revolution
- experimented with metal type, 1440
- metal forges and molds for type
- typesetting method
- long-lasting ink
- new kind of press
- high quality linen paper
- financing to launch this system
Gutenberg Bible
- Mainz, 1454
- 1282 pages
- 42-line
- clear and legible
Precursors to Gutenberg
- engraving
- woodcuts
- movable type
Engraving
- cylinder seals used in early Mesopotamian civilizations, 3500 BCE
  - hard stone
  - glass
  - ceramic
- rolled across wet clay or textiles
- used for engraved seals and stamps
Woodcuts
- Chinese artists and scribes, ~500 CE
  - often used for images
  - sometimes used for text
- European printers
  - used for playing cards and pictures of saints
  - shifted to metal plates by 1400s
Moveable Type
- Bi Sheng solved the moveable type problem
  - used wax
  - instead of wood or copper or zinc
  - logographic language was unsuitable for movable type
    - Chinese has at least 6,000 characters
    - Western Latin and Cyrillic has only about 150 characters
Gutenberg Press and Medieval Europe
- availability of different innovations that came together at the right moment
  - paper
  - ink
  - presses for printing
  - type foundries
  - system for business investments
- expanding education system
  - starting around 1200
  - merchant class
  - nobility
Diffusion of Printing in Europe
- Venice was cradle of printing
  - 65 companies
  - 200 presses
  - thousands working in industry
    - printing
    - paper making
    - type foundries
- Roman type
  - capital lettering, Roman architects
  - lower-case lettering, monks
  - more legible than Gutenberg’s gothic print
  - adopted as a standard
Print Revolution
- printing made bookmaking much more efficient
  - one person could copy one double-sided page per day
  - a four-person printing crew could print 1,500 double-sided pages per day
- took advantage of older skills
  - paper-making
  - ink manufacturing
  - leather working
  - bookbinding
  - book marketing
- development of newer skills
  - press work
  - typesetting
  - foundry type casting
Print and Other Revolutions
- dissolved feudal societies in Europe
- popularize the Renaissance
- launched the Protestant Reformation
- encouraged the Scientific Revolution
- spread the Enlightenment and Political Revolutions
Printing and the Renaissance
- new demands
  - knowledge
  - literacy
  - art
  - wealth
- new institutions
  - banks
  - academies
  - universities
- new focus on human over religious goals
demand for new books
- religious texts
- Latin Bible
- ancient Roman and Greek manuscripts
- printed in vernacular languages
  - French
  - Dutch
  - English
- nationalistic and humanistic impulses
Initial Effects of Printing
- codified and standardizing regional dialects
- standardized and reproduced information
- printing itself became standardized
- introduced the notion that a culture could change and reach new horizons
Printing and the Church
- Gutenberg’s Latin Bible
- seen as a way to diffuse knowledge
- also reacted with alarm to vernacular translations
Martin Luther and Printing
- Luther was a priest and a scholar
- posted 95 Theses on a door in Wittenberg, Germany, 1517
- protested against sales of indulgences
- 95 Theses were reproduced and distributed by print
- reception shocked Europe and kicked off Protestant Reformation
- Luther also printed German translation of Bible
Reformation and New Christian Sects
- Calvinist Reformed Church
- English Puritanism
- Scottish Presbyterianism
- French Huguenot Protestantism
Print and Religious Tolerance
- print launched Europe into centuries of religious war, 1524–1648
- amplified calls for tolerance and reason
- John Milton argued for a “marketplace of ideas”: Truth would win out
Print and Scientific Revolution
- captured scientific and technological revolution
- improvements in medicine
- insights into astronomy
religious intolerance stifled scientific publication
- Giordano Bruno
- Nicholas Copernicus
- Galileo Galilei
De Re Metallica
- Georgious Agricola, 1556
- illustrated explorations
  - geology
  - mining
  - metallurgy
News in Print
- Acta Diurna
  - official acts
  - crime reports
  - divorce notices
  - news of general interest
First newspapers
- relation: one-time publication about a single event
- coronto: small book about news from a foreign country
- diurnal: regular publication about one subject
- mercury: small book about events from a single country, six months at a time
- Benjamin Harris
  - Domestick Intelligence, or News from Both City and Country: London, 1679
  - Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestic: Boston, 1690
  - London Post, 1695
Censorship and Freedom of the press
- English Parliament outlawed “slanderous news…where discord may occur between the King and the people,” 1275
- basic approaches to censorship
  - licensing of a printing company
  - pre-press approval of each print publication (“prior restraint”)
  - taxation and stamps on regular publications
  - prosecution
    - sedition against government
    - libel against individuals
Free Speech proponents
- Sweden banned censorship, 1766
- marketplace of ideas and the Enlightenment
  - John Locke
  - Jean Jacques Rosseau
  - Benjamin Franklin
  - Thomas Paine
  - Thomas Jefferson
  - David Hume
Freedom of the Press codified as a “first freedom”
- Virginia Declaration of Rights, 1776
- Declaration of Rights of Man and of Citizen, 1789
- Bill of Rights, 1791
- United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
- European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1963
Political revolutions
- The English Civil War and the Marketplace of Ideas
- Revolutionary press fights for American Independence
- France: the call for freedom and the Reign of Terror
- Spain, Portugal, and Latin America
Partisan Press before the Industrial Revolution
- Partisan press in the US outpaced European Partisan Papers
  - censorship
  - higher taxes
  - higher postal rates
  - US newspapers were supported by favorable postal rates to encourage self-government
  - newspapers in the US were sold to a small circle of subscribers for five-to-six cents per copy
Partisan papers in Great Britain
- encouraged by Glorious Revolution, 1688
- expiration of Licensing Act, 1694
- prior restraint was considered impractical
- supported by two major political parties
  - Tories
  - Whigs
- emergence of halfpenny press
  - for the “poorer sort of people… to divert and allure” themselves
  - stamp tax ended halfpenny press, 1724
  - underground “pauper press” lasted until tax was repealed, 1855
Partisan Papers in the United States
- Federalists
  - John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington
  - John Fenno’s Gazette of the United States
  - strong federal government
  - alarmed by French Revolution
- Democratic-Republicans
  - Thomas Jefferson
  - Phillip Freneau’s National Gazette
  - favored French Revolution
  - opposed the Alien and Sedition Act, 1798