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Print Culture & The Modern World. The First Printed Books – China. From 594 AD onwards, books were printed in China by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.
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The First Printed Books – China • From 594 AD onwards, books were printed in China by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks. • The traditional Chinese ‘Accordion Book’ was folded and stitched at the side because both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not be printed. • The imperial state of China sponsored the large scale printing of textbooks for Civil Service examination. • The number of candidates for the examinations increased from the 16th century, and this increased the volume of print. By the 17th century, the use of print diversified. • Merchants used print in day-to-day life because they collected trade related information. Fictional narratives, poetry, autobiographies & romantic plays became the staple for the reading public.
The First Printed Books – Japan • The Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around 768 – 770 AD. • The Buddhist Diamond Sutra which was printed in 868 AD was the oldest Japanese book. • Pictures were printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money. • Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed materials of various types like books on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquette, cooking and famous places.
Print Comes to Europe • In 1295, Marco polo, a great explorer returned to Italy after many years of exploration in China. • He brought the knowledge of print technology back with him from China. Thus, printing began in Italy and travelled to other parts of Europe. • Vellum was still the preferred material for printing the luxury editions because printed books were considered as cheap vulgarities. • Luxury editions were handwritten on very expensive vellum meant for aristocratic people and rich monastic libraries. • By the early 15th century, woodblocks were widely used in Europe to print various materials.
Increase in demand for books • As the demand for books increased, the book-sellers of Europe began exporting books to many countries. • Book fairs were held at different places. • Production of handwritten manuscripts was also organized in new ways to meet the expanded demand. • Book sellers started employing Scribes. • Handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-increasing demands for books. • With increase in demand for books, woodwork printing gradually became more & more popular.
Woodblock Printing • The woodblock printing was widely used in Europe to print textiles, religious pictures, texts & playing cards.
Gutenberg & the Printing Press Johannes Gutenberg Gutenberg Bible
The Print revolution & its impact • With the print technology, a new reading public emerged. • Books became cheaper because of printing. • Numerous copies could now be produced with much ease. This helped in catering to an ever growing readership. • Access to books increased for the public. This helped in creating a new culture of reading. • Popular ballads and folk tales were published which could be listened by even the illiterates. People started to enjoy listening to books.
Religion & Print • Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas, and introduced a new world of debate and discussion. • Those who disagreed with the established authorities could now print & circulate their ideas. • For the orthodox people, it was like a challenge as they feared the disturbance in old order. • the Protestant Revolution in Christianity began because of print culture. • The Roman Church started to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
The Reading Mania • The literacy levels improved through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe. • Churches of different denominations set up schools in villages. • Booksellers employed pedlars who roamed around villages to sell books. • Periodicals, novels, almanac, etc. formed the staple for the reading mania. • Ideas of scientists and philosophers became more accessible to the common people.
Print Culture & the French Revolution • Many historians are of the view that print culture created the conditions which led to French Revolution. • Print popularized the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers. These thinkers gave critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism. • Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. General public began to discuss the values, norms and institutions and tried to re-evaluate the established notions. • By the 1780s, there was a surge in literature which mocked the royalty and criticized their morality.
The 19th century – Children & Print • Primary education became compulsory from 19th century. • Children’s Press was set up in France. • Old fairy tales & folk tales were published. The Grim brothers in Germany compiled tales of peasants. • The stories were edited before they were published in 1812. • Any material that was not suitable to Children was not part of the final publication. • Rural folk tales acquired a new form. Print recorded old tales but also changed them
Women, Workers & Print • Women became important readers & writers. Penny magazines were published for women. • In the 19th century, novels began to be written & women were seen as important readers. • Some of the well known women writers were Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Elliot. • The writings defined new type of women : a person with will, strength of personality, determination & the power to think. • The lending libraries which had been in existence from the 17th century became the hub of activity for white-collar workers, artisans and lower middle class people.
Further Innovations • Richard M. Hoe of New York perfected the power-driven cylindrical press by the mid 19th century. • Offset press was developed in the late 19th century. • Electrically operated presses came in use from the turn of the 20th century. • Methods of feeding paper improved, quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels & photoelectric controls of the color register were introduced. • The 19th century periodicals serialized important novels.
New Strategies to sell books • Many periodicals serialized important novels in the nineteenth century. • In the 1920s in England, popular works were sold in cheap series, called the Shilling Series. • The dust cover or book jacket is a twentieth century innovation. • Cheap paperback editions were brought to counter the effect of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
India and the World of Print • The Portuguese missionaries were the first to bring printing press to Goa in the mid 16th century. The first books were printed in Konkani language. • By 1674, about 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara Languages. • Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin. They printed the first Malayalam book in 1713. • By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil texts, many of them translations of older works. • From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette.
Pages from the Rig-Veda Handwritten manuscripts continued to be produced in India till much after the coming of print. This manuscript was produced in the eighteenth century in the Malayalam script.
Religious Reforms & Public Debates Role of the Newspapers: • Many existing religious practices were criticized. Ram Mohun Roy published Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 to criticize the orthodox views in the Hinduism. • The Hindu orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to counter his opinions. • In 1822, publication of two Persian newspapers began, viz. Jam-i-Jahan-Nama & Shamsul Akhbar. • Bombay Samachar; a Gujarati newspaper appeared in the same year.
Religious Reforms & Public Debates Views of the Muslim Sects: • In north India, the ulama began to publish cheap lithographic prints which contained Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures. • They also published religious newspapers and tracts. • The Deoband Seminary was founded in 1867. • It published thousands of fatwas about proper conduct in the life of Muslims.
Religious Reforms & Public Debates Role of religious text in Debates: • Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas was printed from Calcutta in 1810. • From the 1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published many religious texts in vernaculars.
New Forms of Publication • Initially, people got to read the novels which were written by European writers. But people could not relate to those novels because they were written in the European context. • Many other new forms of writing also came into origin; like lyrics, short stories, essays about social and political matters, etc. • A new visual culture was taking shape by the end of the nineteenth century. Many printing presses started to produce visual images in large numbers. • By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers. They commented on various social and political issues.
Women & Print • Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home, and sent them to schools. • Many journals began carrying writings by women, and explained why women should be educated. • They also carried a syllabus and attached suitable reading matter which could be used for home-based schooling. • Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed and Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
Pandita Ramabai Tarabai Shinde
Print and the Poor People • Very cheap small books were brought to markets in nineteenth-century Madras towns. • Public libraries were set up from the early twentieth century, expanding the access to books. These libraries were located mostly in cities and towns. • JyotibaPhule, the Maratha pioneer of ‘low caste’ protest movements, wrote about the injustices of the caste system in his Gulamgiri (1871). • B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. RamaswamyNaicker in Madras wrote on caste system. • Local protest movements and sects also created a lot of popular journals and tracts criticisingancient scriptures and envisioning a new and just future.
Print and the Poor People • Workers in factories were too overworked & lacked the education to write much. • Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote & published ChhoteAur Bade Ka Sawalin 1938. • Poems of another Kanpur millworker, were brought together & published in a collection called SacchiKavitayan. • By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton millworkers set up libraries to educate themselves. • Social reformers tried to restrict excessive drinking among the workers, to bring literacy & to propagate the message of nationalism.
Print and Censorship • Initially, the control measures were directed against Englishmen in India who were critical of Company misrule. • By the 1820s, the Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom. • The Company began encouraging publication of newspapers that would celebrate Britsh rule. • The Vernacular Press Act was passed in 1878. The Act provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports and editorials in the vernacular press. • When Punjab revolutionaries were deported in 1907, BalgangadharTilak wrote with great sympathy about them in his Kesari
