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22 March 2024
A Brief History of the Significance of the Written Word
Writing developed independently in three different regions of the world: the Middle East, China, and Mesoamerica.

A Brief History of Writing

Overview
Writing is the visual representation of language through the use of an established selection of markings. As a means of communicating ideas and storing information, written language is the single most important and far-reaching technology available to humans and has served as the foundation for virtually all other information technologies from early etchings in clay to the world of digital access that we enjoy today. Writing has allowed for the development and maintenance of large and complex societies, the formalization of both academic and practical learning, and the ability to exchange information on a global level.  It is, perhaps, foremost among the many other fundamental social and technological advancements that have shaped our world.
Writing developed independently in three different regions of the world: the Middle East, China, and Mesoamerica.1 Through a natural evolution of language, culture, script, and necessity, these early traditions became the foundation for the modern written word.

The Birth of Writing in China
Leaf of Chinese block printing. ca. 960-1280 CE. This is a page from a book written by a statesmen discussing the possibility of a concubine becoming an Empress in the Han Dynasty. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The earliest examples of writing date to 7,000 BCE when Neolithic Period humans in China and elsewhere began producing glyphs and ideographics—symbols representing objects and ideas. Markings which some archaeologists have identified as examples of proto-writing first appeared in China in approximately 6600 BCE, evidence of which has been discovered at the Jiǎhú archaeological site in Henan, China. Pictograms have also been found in China dating from the 5th century BCE. Despite these very early examples of proto-writing, it was not until 1400 BCE that a near-complete writing system was developed in China. This Shang Dynasty script, known as the oracle bone script because of its appearance on bones used for divining, appeared in a nearly complete form with no clear developmental history. Whether the archaeological record is incomplete or the script was borrowed in part from Middle Eastern source–rather than developed wholly in China–is unclear. Regardless, the appearance of this near-complete writing was a significant technological advance for the Chinese people and gave birth to a literate and highly published population.2
Picturesque representations of the dress and manners of the Chinese. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Since the appearance of the oracle bone script, Chinese writing has undergone a number of fundamental changes, including the use of compound characters for clarity and alterations in script appearance. Nevertheless, more than one-thousand characters appearing in the oracle bone script can be identified, in modified form, in modern Chinese writing. What’s more, speakers of other Asian languages adopted and modified Archaic Chinese, eventually leading to the development of writing systems for Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean, among other languages.
Recordkeeping in the Middle East
Face of a clay tablet inscribed with records from ancient Sumeria. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
In the 4th millennium BCE, proto-writing began to evolve into phonetic writing systems in Egypt, India, Iran, and Sumer. In approximately 3400 BCE, Sumerians began transforming their primitive pictographic system into one featuring syllabic, alphabetic, and logophonetic symbols.3 Between its first appearance in 3400 BCE and its replacement by the Roman alphabet in the first century CE, the Sumerian symbol group decreased in size from 1,000 characters to approximately 400, with a corresponding increase in sophistication.
The Egyptian hieroglyphic system, using both logographic and alphabetic elements, was developed circa 3300 BCE, probably as a result of exchanges between Egypt and Sumerian Mesopotamia. The Egyptian hieroglyphic system was used until the 5th century BCE.4 Various proto-writing systems also appeared in Pakistan, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and elsewhere. The first "alphabet", the Proto-Canaanite system, consisted of a limited selection of symbols developed by Egyptian Semites in 1800 BCE to produce phonetic spellings of the Phoenician language.5 The alphabet was introduced to civilizations across the Mediterranean by the sea-faring Phoenicians and became the basis for the Greek alphabet. In turn, Alexander the Great spread Greek across the Western world, a process which eventually spawned the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets and led to written language in the West.
Writing in Mesoamerica
The first true writing in the Western Hemisphere appeared in the 2nd century BCE in Mexico. The Epi-Olmec, the successor culture to the Olmec, used a complete writing system featuring hieroglyphics with both whole words and syllabic sound which may have developed out of the Zapotec logosyllabic tradition. Mayan, Mixtec, and Aztec writing also appeared in Central and South America not long after Epi-Olmec writing.
Several writing traditions developed as the major indigenous ethnic groups of the Americas expanded and consolidated their empires. Native language and writing continued in the post-Conquest era despite a decline in population brought about by contact with Hernan Cortes and his fellow conquistadors. Some writing traditions continued late into the Colonial period, though European languages eventually became dominant.6

The Manuscript Tradition

The Scribe in Europe
Beginning in the 1100s CE, as literacy rates rose among European nobility, the demand for the reproduction of manuscript texts for personal use increased dramatically. Monks had traditionally produced texts in small quantities for use within their own religious communities. As one of the few groups with the education to produce manuscripts on a commercial level, some orders began accepting contracts from private citizens. This proved to be a lucrative profession and formed part of the financial basis for many monasteries in Europe.7
Manuscripts were notoriously tedious to create and a single text could, in some cases, take a year or more for a scribe to complete. By the 1400s, demand for manuscripts had far exceeded what could be produced within the monastic system. Seeing an opportunity for profit, entrepreneurs across Europe began opening scriptoria, workshops dedicated entirely to the reproduction of manuscripts.8 Some scriptories even included craftsmen to produce decorative elements including illustrations and embellished initials or drop caps. These scriptorias served as the predecessors to the publishing houses that would populate Europe after the advent of Johann Gutenberg’s printing press.
The Illuminated Manuscript
Initial from a Gregorian gradual. ca. 1400s. Probably hand-printed and illuminated in 13th century manuscript by a 15th century Flemish monk. Directions for singing are scattered throughout the chants. The church calendar, lettered in red and brown with marginal notes and grotesque drawing, follows the chants. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
An illuminated manuscript is defined as a handwritten (manuscript) item illustrated with images, decorated margins, or embellished initials. Traditionally, the term is reserved for items decorated with either gold or silver, though modern terminology rarely makes this distinction. Illuminated manuscripts can be found in most areas of the world with a long written tradition including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Mesoamerica. It should be noted, however, that decorated manuscripts from the Asian and Mesoamerican traditions are referred to as "painted" rather than illuminated, though their defining characteristics are often very similar to the illuminated manuscripts produced in Europe and the Middle East.
The first illuminated manuscripts date from the 4th century BCE Roman Empire. Early illuminated manuscripts, however, were very expensive to create and the demand for them was low. It was not until the late 1100s CE that Western Europe experienced a revitalization of the illuminated manuscript tradition. Many of the early designs were introduced to European craftsmen by their counterparts in the Middle East through trade in the Iberian Peninsula. This influence can be clearly seen through the appearance of Islamic patterns in European manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages.9
Traditional illumination was a costly and tedious process requiring the use of gold and silverleaf or powder and expensive paints. Before the appearance of paper in Europe, virtually all illuminated texts were produced on vellum, a highly durable and costly cousin to common parchment. As a result, nearly all illuminated manuscripts were of a religious nature. Non-religious or profane texts were typically not considered worthy of the expense, though an increasing number of secular texts were illuminated beginning in the late 1200s. The production of illuminated manuscripts increased steadily until the mid-1400s when the moveable type printing press appeared, resulting in the decline of manuscript production. Some illumination of printed works did occur, but the more efficient process of block printing quickly replaced this tradition.

The Rise of Craft Bookbinding

The Evolution of Bookbinding
A re-bound Balinese bamboo book. Originally, this text would have opened and closed much like a Venetian blind. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
India is traditionally considered the birthplace of bookbinding. In the 2nd century BCE, Hindi scribes began etching religious texts into palm leaves and binding them together with twine between two boards to form a rudimentary book-like structure. This practice protected the palm leaves from direct exposure to sunlight, rapid fluctuations in water content, and incidental damage, and proved to be an efficient method for organizing multi-page texts. Buddhist monks quickly realized the value of the process and, upon adopting it, became instrumental in introducing it to the Middle East and Eastern Asia.
A re-bound Balinese bamboo book. Originally, this text would have opened and closed much like a Venetian blind. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
While much of the Western world used scrolls during Antiquity, they were not always an efficient means of storing and accessing information. Wax tablets eventually became common in the Mediterranean as they were recyclable and allowed users to access specific blocks of text quickly. For longer works, tablets were sometimes hinged together, forming a device not unlike the modern book, though with many fewer leaves. Nevertheless, the scroll was used for record-keeping centuries after more practical methods had become known.
The Scroll of Esther. Manuscript on stitched animal skin. ca. 1750. An early Hebrew manuscript, which relates the story of Esther as it appears in Rabbinical literature. The authorship has never been definitely determined but it is believed to be of late origin in Rabbinical literature. The Jews of the first and second centuries question its right to be included among the canonical books of the Bible. The Authority of the book of Esther as a historical record has been rejected but it is read each year in the synagogue when the Feast of Purim is celebrated. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The technique of binding folded parchment between wood boards became popular among Romans during the first and second centuries CE. These notebooks, used for personal writing, were known as pugillares membranei and are considered to be some of the first examples of true codices, or books.
The Scroll of Esther. Manuscript on stitched animal skin. ca. 1750. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Similar items have also been found in Egypt, predating even those found in Western Europe. The basic codex form was introduced to other parts of Western Europe and the Middle East, and quickly became preferred over other forms such as the scroll and tablet because of accessibility and space efficiency.10
The Book as Art
The Writings of Abraham Lincoln. Gold tooling on Levant Morocco leather on a book cover. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
As the codex became an increasingly accepted textual construct in the Western world, demand increased for the decorative adornment of books. Churches and monasteries were some of the first consumers of fine bindings, though the wealthy elite soon followed suit.
Mushrooms in Their Natural Habitats. Container designed to look like a book. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Decorative bookbinding was a complicated, inter-disciplinary trade. It required skills in leather, wood, and metalworking, a mastery of traditional binding techniques, and a great deal of facility with a variety of delicate tools. Early decorative bindings featured half-calf or full-calf boards covered with dampened leather and treated with a hot brass tool. This process, known as blind tooling, allowed the artisan to create impressions in the leather binding, leaving the desired image in relief.11 Later binders began introducing gold leaf into the process. Gold tooling came into prominence in Italy and Spain during the fifteenth century as a result of Arab influence in the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula. Gold tooling required binders to create an impression (intaglio) of the desired image in the leather and then lay gold into the impression, creating an effect opposite of that caused by blind tooling.12
Oriental Series: Japan and China. Gold-tooled book spine. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Binders also developed techniques for dying and adding texture to leathers, resulting in the relatively common levant morocco and turkey leathers, among others. Some binders experimented with a variety of exotic leathers including snake, crocodile, and even lion. In some exceptionally rare cases, books were bound in human skin, a process known as anthropodermic biblioplegy.
Geology and Mineralogy Considered with Reference to Natural Theology. Sample of feathered marbling on a cover and textblock. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Some binders specialized in the use of valuable materials including rare stones, precious metals, silk, velvet, and other fine textiles. As demand for finely bound books increased, jewelers and metalsmiths found positions in binderies, providing the skill necessary to effectively use precious materials in the binding process. Of course the covers of books were not all that received the attention of binders. Some binderies began using high quality linen to cover the interior of their boards. Others employed velvet and silk. In the 17th century, Arabic traders brought a new decorative element to Europe—marbled paper.13 The marbling process required dye to be carefully dropped across the surface of a liquid known as size. Designs were then made in the pools of dye using a stylus. Paper could then be laid across the top of the size and allowed to absorb some of the dye before being removed, dried, and treated with a protective coating. This process created paper with colorful, unique patterns frequently used to cover boards or serve as endpaper. Occasionally, the marbling was applied to the edges of the textblock for as an extra decorative element.
Oriental Series: Japan and China. Gold-tooled book spine. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Bookbinding was a highly competitive craft well into the 20th century. Individual bookbinders became famous for their use of unique tools and techniques, and certain binderies enjoyed the patronage of wealthy landowners, politicians, and public figures. The art of fine bookbinding continues today, though the popularization of inexpensive "paperback" books and increasing emphasis on electronic media has reduced the industry.14

The Incunable Era

The Gutenberg Press
Manuscript leaf embellished by hand with red, blue, and gold. 1496. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
In 1436 Johaness Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, began designing a machine capable of producing pages of text at an incredible speed—a product that he hoped would offset losses from a failed attempt to sell metal mirrors. By 1440 Gutenberg had established the basics of his printing press including the use of a mobile, reusable set of type, and within ten years he had constructed a working prototype of the press. In 1454 Gutenberg put his press to commercial use, producing thousands of indulgences for the Church. The following year he printed his famous 42-line Bible, the first book printed on a moveable type press in the West.15
Manuscript leaf embellished by hand with red, blue, and gold. 1496. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Gutenberg’s press was the combined effort of several discoveries and inventions. The printing press was built around the traditional screw press, a precursor to today’s drill press, with an added matrix on which individually-cast letters and symbols could be arranged to form the desired text. This moveable type design allowed pages of text to be quickly assembled from a pre-cast selection of letters and symbols rather than laboriously carved from a block of wood as in the block printing method.
Imprimerie en Lettres, L’Operation de la Casse. Matrix containing moveable type. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Gutenberg also created a unique oil-based ink which transferred from his metal type to the printing substrate much more effectively than the water-based inks that other printers of the era used. In order to print a page, Gutenberg would arrange the necessary letters on the matrix and coat them in his ink. The matrix was then mounted on the contact end of the modified screw press and lowered until it struck the paper underneath. The process, while labor intensive, allowed Gutenberg to print pages at a much greater rate than printers using the block printing method or those doing manuscript work.16
Imprimerie en Lettres, L’Operation de la Casse. Matrix containing moveable type. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Johannes Gutenberg’s moveable type press marked the beginning of the Printing Revolution in the western world, a colossal moment in the history of information and learning. With access to printing presses, scientists, philosophers, politicians, and religious officials could replicate their ideas quickly and make them available to large audiences.
The First Book
Copulata super octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis iuxte doctrinam doctoris Thomae de Aquino, c. 1492. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The earliest printed materials, dating from Gutenberg’s first pressing until 1501, are known as incunabula, a term derived from the Latin word for "swaddling clothes". The term was first applied to early printed texts by Bernhard von Mallinckrodt, a Cologne scholar, in 1639. The process of collecting and preserving incunabula began in the early 18th century with British scholar Michel Maittaire. Today, it is believed that approximately 30,000 unique incunable titles and editions are extant while the entire body of surviving incunabula may be greater than ten times that amount. These texts were produced in approximately 280 cities across twenty European countries in eighteen languages.17
Incunabula may refer to one of two types of printed work. The block book is an item in which the entire page has been pressed from a single carved block of wood. This process, known as xylography, required an artisan to chisel each letter in relief on a wood block.2 Alternatively, many printers preferred typography which used Gutenberg’s moveable type press. When printers using typography needed to include an image, the metal type was supplemented with a woodcut of the desired image. Typography, while more expensive for beginning printers because of the cost of the casting a letter set, ultimately proved much more cost and time efficient than xylography.
The Art of Type
Example of early printed text from Priscian’s Opera. 1470. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
It was during the incunabula era that the development and standardization of typefaces began. Penmanship enjoyed a long tradition in Europe with recognized styles being taught and duplicated throughout the West, not unlike calligraphy in the East. Printers initially attempted to mimic handwriting with their presses but it was not long before utility became the larger concern. Metalworkers and printers across Europe turned their attention to the design of legible, easily-cast fonts. Particularly capable artisans became internationally known for their typefaces. Some designers, like Claude Garamond, John Baskerville and Giambattist Bodoni, produced typefaces that are still used today, centuries after their creation.
Example of early printed text from Pietro Cavretto’s De Amoris Generibus. 1492. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Many of the early printing industry’s most important contributions to the future of text production were in the area of standardization. The initial distribution of font samples from a few early printers provided future printers with a selection of widely accepted letter shapes and, eventually, normative spelling and punctuation on which to base their own work.18
Example of early printed text from Quaestiones in Aristotelis Metaphysicam. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Over the course of the next several hundred years, conventions formed around typeface, size, page layout, margin boundaries, etc. and were refined and formalized by the printing community, eventually leading to the well-standardized industry of the 21st century.
Printing with Paper
Before the late Middle Ages, parchment was the preferred material on which to write. Parchment was made from an animal pelt (traditionally goat, sheep, or calf) that had been soaked in water, bathed in a lye solution to remove all of the hair, stretched, scraped, and dried. After the material had been dried, it was treated to give it a smooth finish capable of retaining ink. Because of its cost, parchment was unsuitable for short-term record keeping and could not be sustainably produced in the quantities necessary for the mass publication of a text. To make matters worse, only the highest quality parchment, called vellum, could be used in a printing press, thereby making the expense of printing with parchment astronomical.19
A depiction of the papermaking process from Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The printing press would have had little chance of succeeding had parchment been the only material available; the cost of the substrate would have doomed the endeavor. Fortunately, Europeans had been introduced to an alternative material for writing as early as the 12th century CE. Paper had been invented in China in the 2nd century BCE and, through trade with the Islamic merchants, had passed from China into the Middle East and Northern Africa.20 These Middle Eastern traders in turn introduced the fundamentals of papermaking to Italian and Spanish traders who opened paper mills in their home countries and other parts of Europe.
Paper provided a solution to the question of a cost efficient printing substrate. Unlike parchment, it was relatively inexpensive to produce and could be made in much greater quantities. With the proper treatment, paper was able to take impressions well, hold ink, and though not as durable as parchment, could be preserved for long periods of time.
A depiction of the papermaking process from Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Wood pulp paper, the type of paper we see most frequently today, did not appear until the mid-1800s. Instead, medieval European paper was traditionally made from recycled rags, resulting in the term rag paper. The long and complicated process of papermaking began with specialized dealers responsible for collecting the raw rags. These rags were then sold to papermakers who would begin preparations by cutting them into small pieces and mixing them with water to ferment, a process that caused the cellulose to separate. This material was then milled (traditionally in a converted corn mill), mixed with soap to create a paste, and spread in a form to dry. The paper then went through an extensive wetting, drying, and pressing process before being coated in size and textured.
A depiction of the papermaking process from Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Paper was an integral part of the printing process and, as printers spread throughout Europe, so did the papermakers, finding their way into France and Germany and eventually Northern Europe. The paper market was competitive and as the number of papermakers increased, so too did the demand on paper’s primary ingredient—cloth rags. Some papermakers were forced to hire agents to travel from village to village purchasing rags. Because the demand for paper exceeded the availability of raw materials, there was an almost constant shortage of paper in Europe during the Middle Ages.21

Printing for the Public

Religion in Print
Johannes Gutenberg developed his printing press in a society in which participation in organized religion was nearly unanimous. Given the influence the Church held in Western Europe during that time, it is unsurprising that the first printed book was the Bible and that arguably the most influential printed work of the time was Martin Luther’s The 95 Theses. In fact, a great number of the earliest printed works were of a religious nature.
Saint carrying a girdle book. 1400s. Probably hand-printed and illuminated in 13th century manuscript by a 15th century Flemish monk. Directions for singing are scattered throughout the chants. The church calendar, lettered in red and brown with marginal notes and grotesque drawing, follows the chants. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The clergy quickly adopted the printing press, sometimes replacing their traditional scriptoria with a press. The ability to circulate theological materials among clergymen at a much greater rate was generally seen as desirable. Increasing literacy rates and prevalence of religious texts resulted in a growing subsection of the European public with direct access to religious materials.22 Though the Roman Catholic Church maintained that only members of the clergy were qualified to interpret the Bible, this new degree of access to religious texts provided impetus for a growing reformist movement. With the advent of Luther’s Theses, the printing press became central to the Protestant cause and ideology.23 Protestantism encouraged the direct questioning of Papal authority, accused Church officials of abuses of power, and emphasized personal interpretation of Scripture. The ability to distribute religious texts and radical theory to the reading public allowed for a fundamental shift in the relationship between parishioners and religious officials.
The conflict between Protestants and Catholics was an open one with both sides seeking the support of the public. The printing press became an important weapon in the Reformation. Both the Protestant and Catholic propagandists made use of the printing press as a means of influencing the public. Protestants used the printing press to proliferate revolutionary theological material at a popular level, while the Catholic Church produced large quantities of anti-Reformation texts.
Ultimately, the Reformation resulted in a long series of conflicts–both ideological and violent–that continued until the mid-17th century. The printing press played a significant role in communicating the ideas that fuelled this theological war and was responsible, in part, for the Reformation’s effect on Western religion and politics.24
It should be noted that Jewish and Islamic groups were traditionally less receptive to the printing press, and generally preferred to produce written religious texts until the 18th or 19th centuries. Most Eastern religion communities also rejected the moveable type press, though more frequently because of the difficulty of casting hundreds or thousands of individual characters. As a result, the earliest printed religious texts are almost exclusively from Christian documents from Europe.
Secularism and the Printing Press
The 1400s and 1500s played host to the Scientific Renaissance, the precursor to the Scientific Revolution of the 1700s. European intellectualism had been stirred in the 1200s with the advent of the Renaissance, and had spread with the rise of humanist philosophy. In the 14th century, scholars began collaborating and a community arose around these early interactions, although the spread of humanism and intellectualism were necessarily limited by the difficulty of communicating complex ideas to large audiences through text. The advent of Gutenberg’s press proved to be a major turning point. The ability to reproduce texts and distribute them widely meant not only that a text could reach a larger audience, but that it was much more likely to survive. A handful of manuscripts were susceptible to loss or confiscation; hundreds or thousands of printed copies were much more likely to survive.
Publication of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Universal History. 1483. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The intellectualism movement in Europe began with a return to ancient Greek and Roman works. Rather than conducting original research, many scholars dedicated themselves to the translation of texts from antiquity. Classical physics, mathematics, and science had largely been lost during the Dark Ages and scholars found it necessary to reclaim this learning through intensive study of early works.25 Philosophy, astronomy, pharmacology, and anatomy underwent a significant revival among scholars. Complex mathematics and tools were developed to aid mariners, surgical techniques were discovered, and doctors began to correlate disease and infection with environmental and behavioral variables.
With this growth in human knowledge came a movement to collect and catalogue. The gathering and categorization of knowledge became an obsession for this new breed of intellectual. At the intersection of order and beauty sat Denis Diderot’s Encylopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. More commonly known as Diderot’s Encylopédie, this twenty-eight volume compendium included more than 70,000 entries and hundreds of intricate etchings carefully detailing every aspect of modern learning including agriculture, husbandry, industry, and theology. Diderot’s masterpiece represented the new guard. It was precise, well-organized, and based squarely in the matters that affected daily life. Most importantly, it did little to differentiate between academia and practical knowledge, effectively marrying theory with practice.
Leaf from Justinianus I’s law book, Inforiatum de Tortis. 1497/1498. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
This practice of accumulating of knowledge by way of observation, experimentation, and analytical thought continued through the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions and formed the basis of what is, today, the Information Age.26

Improving the Press

Information for the Masses
Eden: Or, a Compleat Body of Gardening. Colorized plate from a British gardening manual. 1757. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The first newspapers appeared in the late 1400s in Germany, designed in the image of the brochures and pamphlets popular in Western Europe. Though vastly different both in utility and appearance than the newspapers of the modern era, these publications are the ancestors of dailies such as the Telegraph and Wall Street Journal. While largely successful in Europe, the introduction of the newspaper industry to the Americas proved to be a significant challenge. Because printing presses were expensive and difficult to build, they were extremely uncommon in the colonies and, for similar reasons, paper and ink were often difficult to obtain. Expediency, however, was the most elusive quantity. The colonies were rural and dispersed over a large portion of the Eastern Seaboard. The task of distributing newspapers to communities large enough to support a such a venture was nearly impossible. Moreover, the time required in setting the type and then delivering the products often meant that a newspaper might be delivered days or even weeks after news had already reached an area by word of mouth.
Eden: Or, a Compleat Body of Gardening. Colorized plate from a British gardening manual. 1757. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
For these reasons, it was not until the beginning of the 18th century that printers in Boston, Baltimore, and New York began publishing news in installments. Even then publications schedules were irregular, the news was often out-of-date, and most publishers were constantly on the verge of poverty. Nevertheless, newspapers were supported by the political and intellectual elite and the industry managed to survive and even prosper.27 This promise of economic viability drew the attention of artisans and inventors who began searching for ways to improve the printing process.
Stronger, Faster, Better
The history of the printing press is a somewhat muddied one. With inventors working across multiple countries and continents, only a loose trail of patents, and a lack of clarity regarding the provenance of certain improvements, a complete and accurate timeline is nearly impossible. It is clear, however, that there were several major inventions during the 19th century that revolutionized the printing industry and made the mass publishing a reality.
Between 1450 and the early 19th century the printing press remained almost unchanged. The traditional screw press, though functional, was slow because it required the printing matrix to be cranked up and down for each pressing. In 1802, a German printer named Friedrich Koenig set out to create a faster printing method by using a cylinder press which featured plates of typeface fixed to a cylinder.28 As the cylinder rotated, the plates would come into contact with the substrate. By drawing the paper through the press in time with the rotation of the cylinder, impressions could be made at a near-continuous rate. Unfortunately, the operating speed of the press was limited by the phyiscal strength of its human operator. Here, Koenig saw potential for additional improvement. Rather than relying on a pressman to power the cylinder, Koenig’s press made use of the steam engine. This allowed the press to function with increased speed and made it nearly autonomous, further reducing the cost of printing. By 1814, Koenig’s press was being used to produce the widely circulated London Times, making 1,100, impressions per hour and by 1818, after additional refinements, had reached an astounding 2,400 impressions per hour.
Koenig’s printing press remained the predominant printing method until the middle of the 19th century when an American, Richard M. Hoe, revolutionized the cylinder press. Rather than using flat plates, Hoe curved his text plates around a cylinder, allowing the drum to spin at a constant speed, making a greater number of impressions per hour.29 He further improved the press by adding an inking roller which would come in contact with the type during its rotation, eliminating the need to stop the press for re-inking. The first model of the press, dubbed "Hoe’s Cylindrical-Bed Press" was completed in 1846 and was capable of producing more than 100,000 impressions per day.30 The steam-powered rotary press was further improved upon with the addition of both a second cylinder which allowed for simultaneous double-sided printing, and a roll of paper known as a web that was continuously fed into the press.
A printing process known as lithography was first developed in the last decade of the 18th century. Lithography was a process that used hydrophilic and hydrophobic chemicals to produce a desired pattern in ink on a smooth plate. The ink was then transferred to a rubber roller which, in turn, was rolled across a length of paper, producing the final product. The process was relatively fast and inexpensive, but was difficult to use and often resulted in poorly printed images. As a result, most commercial printers until the late 20th century preferred to use physical type rather than lithography. Since the 1970s, however, lithography has been greatly improved by digital, photographic, and computer-controlled processes, and is the predominate process used in large-scale printing today.
While Koenig and Hoe, among others, had succeeded in increasing the speed of the printing press, they had not solved the problem of typesetting, a slow and therefore costly process. Various inventors and engineers began exploring ways to improve the typesetting process and, in 1884, Ottmar Mergenthaler produced the first linotype machine. The linotype machine allowed an operator to mechanically assemble a line of single-letter/symbol matrices in any order he or she chose, using a keyboard-like input device. Once the line was assembled, the matrices were automatically filled with molten metal and then cooled. This resulted is a single line, or slug, of cast type which could then be fitted on a press with other slugs cast by the same process. This process eliminated the need for printers to set type by hand and therefore greatly reduced the time and number of workers required to create a page of type. As a result, text could be produced in greater volumes at a much cheaper rate. Linotype technology was first used in the summer of 1886 for the printing of the daily newspaper the New York Tribune where it proved to be a great success. Empowered by this new printing technique, newspapers were able to expand their content offering and decrease costs, thereby reaching a larger market.
The Paper Revolution
Tres Parisien, a hand-colored Parisian fashion magazine ca. 1928. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Rag cloth was the primary source of paper in the western world from the 12th to the 18th century. Beginning in the 1800s, the papermaking process was adapted to allow for the use of organic fiber crops, making the conversion from raw fiber to rag cloth unnecessary. Nevertheless, the cost of paper remained high. Engineers in North America and Europe began developing mechanical and chemical processes for pulping wood in the 1850s. The ability to pulp wood would allow papermakers to create fibers from wood fine enough for use in paper. By 1867, the basic method was in place. Over the next seventy years, the process was significantly improved, resulting in a more efficient system that could produce very fine wood fibers for high-quality papermaking.31
Tres Parisien, a hand-colored Parisian fashion magazine ca. 1928. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Wood for pulping was much cheaper than other crop fibers such as cotton.  As a result, paper could be produced inexpensively, reducing the cost of paper and, in turn, the cost of paper goods. Books and newspapers enjoyed an increase in readership as they became affordable to a larger population.  With more readers and more revenue, the printing industry boomed.

Printed Media and the American Civil War

The Civil War proved to be an important era for print media in the United States. Thanks to the advent of the electric telegraph, newspapers were able to receive reports from great distances quickly. Because of this, newspapers in both the North and South were able to provide the public with important updates on the war’s political issues, battle results, large-scale troop movements, and casualty reports. Perhaps more importantly, newspapers were responsible for editorializing the war.  They were the propaganda machines of the day. Though not universally true, many newspapers published biased accounts of events, "factual" testimonials of enemy atrocities, articles proselytizing for specific political and military goals, and emotionally charged letters from citizens affected by the conflict. A quiet war for public support was waged both in the North and the South with the newspapers serving on the front lines. Issues like conscription, use of slaves as soldiers, and the validity of total war were hotly debated in the papers. The newspapers controlled the ebb and flow of public opinion and a particularly popular circulation could determine the outcomes of city or state politics.32
Announcement of the assassination of President Lincoln. The New York Herald, 1865. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The disparity between reports of the war in the North and South were, in some cases, quite striking. Some newspapers were known to falsely report casualty rates or results of battle to bolster public morale. Desertion was a particularly galling problem for both the Union and Confederate armies throughout the war and newspapers often printed editorials encouraging loyalty and shaming deserters and those who aided them.33 Late in the war, Confederate troops received much of their news through the papers because commanders refused to relay reports of Union victories.
The Civil War catapulted the newspaper industry to new heights in the United States. Newspapers had given the public near-constant access to news and events from all corners of the new American empire. In return, newspapers had secured the ability to affect public opinion. In a democracy, this power translated to the ability to affect politics, finance, and popular culture at its most basic level. Over the course of the next century, the newspaper industry would grow exponentially and assume a place of tremendous power in American society.

Writing and the Private Citizen

In the late 18th century, politicians like Thomas Jefferson called for the creation of a secular educational system and by the 1790s a half-dozen states had developed provisions for educating children. It was not until fifty years later, however, that pressure from education reformers resulted in the creation of a system known as common schooling. Common schools were funded by local taxes and traditionally accepted children regardless of economic standing, though most did exclude non-Caucasians. The goal of the common school program was to teach students basic math, science, reading, and writing. In the early 1850s, many states further formalized the education process through laws enforcing mandatory school attendance. As education became increasingly structured and widespread, literacy rates among the nation’s poorest increased dramatically and non-academics began both reading and producing written works at an unprecedented rate.34
"Read’s Tonic." A handwritten recipe for a homemade cure-all. undated. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The advent of widespread literacy allowed individuals who were traditionally alienated from intellectual culture to both create and consume written material. A body of practical texts, most of which remained unpublished, resulted from this phenomenon. Journals and diaries, correspondence, financial documents, and other ephemera began to appear from a class that had been vastly underrepresented in the historical record. Eventually, other groups including Native Americans and African Americans began to receive education, both formal and informal, and were further able to contribute to the growing body of work originating in the United States.

The Phenomenon of Mass Media

The Civil War had done a great deal to shape the future of the newspaper industry in the United States. Between the end of the war and the 1890s, improved printing technology, greater urbanization (and therefore more efficient distribution), and increasing public literacy had made the industry very lucrative.35 The growth in the industry profit margin also led to a growth in competition. Editors began searching for new ways to attract readers. The first changes to be made were purely aesthetic. During the war, newspaper typesetters had pioneered large, capitalized headlines and the use of multiple fonts, a trend that post-war editors continued and even expanded in hopes of attracting the attention of potential readers. Eventually, better printing and photographic processes allowed for the reproduction of images in newspapers.
As newspapermen quickly learned, aesthetics alone were not enough to build a high-circulation newspaper. Editors soon found that an exaggerated reporting style and sensational headlines appealed greatly to America’s up-and-coming middle class. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, two of the most famous newspaper publishers of the era, became the figureheads for the sensationalist reporting phenomenon known as yellow journalism.36 This trend was most evident in 1898 when the American battleship Maine was sunk in Havana Harbor. Though a great deal of disagreement existed over cause of the accident, American newspapers were quick to paint it as act of war by Spain against the U.S. The resulting outcry from Americans helped ignite the Spanish-American War.
The focus of newspaper reporting began to change and expand in the late 19th century. While political and financial news remained a staple of any successful daily publication, journalists began to write stories for middle and lower-class readers. Investigative journalists, or muckrakers, became concerned with social ills, often focusing on corporate corruption and abuses suffered by the impoverished.37 Most famous among the muckrakers was Upton Sinclair, who authored The Jungle, a novel exposing the horrors of the meatpacking industry. Muckraker journalism appealed to a wide spectrum of readers including the wealthy, who were fascinated by the common plight, and the working poor who could often relate to the subject matter.
This era in history provided newspapermen with the perfect mixture of means and market that allowed the newspaper industry to explode. It also marked the birth of mass media on a hitherto incomprehensible scale. Politics, finances, and popular culture were all fused into an entity that would both reflect and shape public opinion for the next century.

Literature in the Modern Era

A Book in Every Home
Hand-painted pastel illustration in Brinkley’s Oriental Series. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
By the late 1800s, as a direct result of the North American Industrial Revolution and the subsequent increase in material goods production, the United States had become fully integrated into the global marketplace. U.S. companies were producing both raw and manufactured goods at an unprecedented rate using new manufacturing technologies and inexpensive youth and immigrant labor. Competition for new markets had reached a fevered pitch, and trading had extended far beyond traditional Western European markets into Eastern Europe and even the Far East. As business enterprises expanded globally, so too did the American consciousness. As a nation that had, for more than a century, been limited to interactions with Western Europe and the indigenous groups of the Americas, the advent of more globalized travel and thought was of significant import.38
The Industrial Revolution was defined by a wide variety of advances in engineering which lead to a nationwide rail system and more efficient ocean travel. Suddenly, Europe and even Asia became leisure destinations for wealthy Americans. As a result, interest in exotic locales boomed. Satisfaction of this new American curiosity was aided by the rise of intellectualism that had begun in the 1400s and resulted in a sweeping change in the fundamental human approach to collecting knowledge. The attitude of scientific discovery and advancement of the 19th century was a direct consequence of that earlier epoch. The publications of the late 1800s and early 1900s reflected this continued emphasis on discovery and analysis.39 Volume upon volume detailing foreign dress and custom, natural wonders, manufacturing machines and techniques, architectural innovations, and all the discoveries of the modern era were produced and hungrily consumed by the public. Diderot, no doubt, would have been pleased to see the spirit of his work extended to encompass the enormity of human discovery.
Paint on crushed velvet. F. Brinkely’s Oriental Series. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
It was also during this time that public libraries began to appear, first in the United Kingdom and then the United States. The American Library Association came into being in 1876 and grew into a strong advocate for the construction of a national public library system. This coincided with an era of unprecedented philanthropy from the nation’s industrialists. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, among others, contributed heavily to libraries, public schools, universities, museums, and other institutions of learning, allowing the popular educational community to thrive.
The Pulps
With literacy rates at their highest point in human history and the cost of printed material at its lowest, late-19th century publishers had access to a vast market of potential readers possessing both the ability and the means to consume their product. Unfortunately, much of the traditional literature was not attractive to this new audience. Some publishers saw an opportunity in this disconnect and began searching for ways to reach this untapped market.
In 1896, Frank Munsey began publishing Argosy Magazine, a monthly serial featuring sensational stories of sex, crime, and adventure. Munsey purchased stories inexpensively from unknown writers, printed on cheap pulp paper, and ignored conventional standards like covers and illustrations, thereby offering his product for a much lower price than his competitors. By 1905, Argosy’s entertaining stories and low cost had drawn in a loyal base of more than 500,000 monthly readers.40 Munsey’s success inspired the creation of other "pulp magazines" and soon there were dozens of writers churning out work for the pulps. Among these aspiring writers was Edgar Rice Burroughs, a Chicagoan who had spent his early years irregularly employed as a wage laborer. In 1911, Burroughs became fascinated by pulp fiction and began to write his own. In 1912 he sold his first story, "Under the Moons of Mars," to All-Story Magazine where it was serialized and quickly became a favorite of the magazine’s audience. Encouraged by his success, Burroughs continued writing and published Tarzan of the Apes later that year to much popular acclaim.
Burroughs continued to write for the pulp magazine industry for another decade. He realized, however, that financial success lay in novels rather than magazines. He incorporated in 1923 and was publishing his own books by 1931. In 1937 Edgar Burroughs’ son, Jack Burroughs, began illustrating his father’s works in the bright, lurid style that has since come to represent the pulp genre. Though Burroughs focused primarily on his bestselling series—Tarzan and John Carter of Mars—he also published mysteries, westerns, and even historical fiction.41 By his death in 1950, he had produced more than sixty novels, provided the material inspiration for several films, comic series, and radio shows, and become the best known author within the genre.
Seven first edition novels by pulp fiction pioneer Edgar Rice Burroughs. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
Beginning in the mid-1950s, American pulp fiction gave way to the more garish men’s adventure genre. Men’s adventure was an extension of pulp fiction, taking the sex and violence of the pulps to new extremes and marketing them directly to adult males. This genre peaked in the late 1950s and had all but disappeared by the 1970s, taking with it the last of the traditional pulp style of Burroughs and his contemporaries.

A Record of the Human Past

A selection of incunables from the McDonald Collection. / Courtesy The McDonald Collection, Oregon State University
The history of written communication is inextricable from human history itself; religion, politics, war, business, and culture have shaped and been shaped by the written word. The McDonald Collection serves as an extraordinary, if incomplete, microcosm of this history. Replete with examples of the human endeavor from 3000 BCE to the present, this collection is an important and valuable part not only of the Oregon State University Libraries, but of the record of our combined intellectual history. By preserving and providing access to this record, we hope to encourage the future development of writing and information sharing technologies.

Appendix

A Glossary of Terms
  • Anthropodermic biblioplegy: The process of binding a book using human skin.
  • Atelier: A secular workshop devoted to the production of manuscripts or other fine arts.
  • Blind tooling: The process of creating impressions in leather using heated tools.
  • Block book: A text printed using xylographic techniques.
  • Board: The rigid protective cover found around the text block of a codex.
  • Codex (Codices): A book-like structure featuring a substrate bound between boards or a flexible cover.
  • Cylinder press: A style of press featuring flat blocks of type on a rotating cylinder.
  • Girdle book: Book bound with a loose length of leather that could be knotted and tucked into a belt as an accessory.  Worn by medeival monks, scholars, and aristocrats.
  • Gold tooling: The process of applying gold leaf to a leather book cover using heated tools.
  • Ideogram: A symbol representing an item or idea without providing indication of pronunciation of the term describing that item or idea.
  • Illuminated manuscript: A handwritten text illustrated with drops caps or miniatures, generally involving the use of silver or gold.
  • Incunable (Incunabula): A book printed before 1501.
  • Initial (Drop cap): A decorative letter appearing at the beginning of a text, chapter, verse, or paragraph.
  • Intaglio: A design carved or etched below the surface of a material, thereby creating an impression.
  • Linotype: A machine capable of producing unique blocks of type from input by an operator.
  • Lithography: The process of producing an image on paper using a smooth, inked surface.
  • Marbled paper: Paper to which a unique dying process has been applied giving it a swirled or "marbled" appearance.
  • Men’s adventure fiction: A genre of literature characterized by sex, violence, and outlandish plots marketed toward adult males.  Popular in the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s.
  • Miniature: A decorative illustration in an illuminated manuscript.
  • Moveable type: Individually-cast type that can be arranged according to the typesetter’s design.
  • Muckraker: A journalist focused on exposing criminal or immoral activities and conduct in the public sphere.
  • Paperback: A book with a flexible paper cover.
  • Parchment: A pre-cursor to paper made from treated animal skin.
  • Phototypesetting: The process of projecting light through a film negative onto photopaper for use in offset printing.
  • Printing press: A machine used to transfer ink to a substrate to form a desired pattern.
  • Pugillares membranei: Latin term for a style of folded parchment notebook popular among Romans during the 1st century CE.
  • Pulp fiction (Pulp magazine): Low-quality literature written for entertainment value only and marketed to a popular audience. Typically printed using inexpensive materials.
  • Pulp paper: Inexpensive paper created from pulp fibrous matter, typically wood.
  • Rag paper: Paper produced from processed rag cloth.
  • Scriptorium: A monastic workshop devoted to the reproduction of manuscript texts.
  • Slug: A block of type produced by a linotype machine.
  • Substrate: A printing term used to refer to the base material upon which an image will be printed.
  • Text block: The bound block of paper found in a codex.
  • Typeface (Font): The surface of a block of type; the appearance or style of a block of type.
  • Typography: Printing using moveable type.
  • Vellum: A high-quality type of parchment typically made from lamb, kid, or calfskin.
  • Web: A roll of paper used to continually feed a printing press.
  • Xylography (Block printing): Printing using a block of wood carved with the desired design.
  • Yellow journalism: Sensationalist journalism popular in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Endnotes
  1. Fischer, Steven Roger. A History of Writing (London, England: Reaktion Books, 2001) 7-9.
  2. Fischer, Steven Roger. A History of Writing (London, England: Reaktion Books, 2001).
  3. Fischer, Steven Roger. A History of Writing (London, England: Reaktion Books, 2001), 35.
  4. Fischer, Steven Roger. A History of Writing (London, England: Reaktion Books, 2001), 36-47.
  5. Coulmas, Florian. Writing Systems of the World (Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 141.
  6. Fischer, Steven Roger. A History of Writing (London, England: Reaktion Books, 2001).
  7. Febvre, Lucien & Martin, Henri-Jean. The Coming of the Book (London, England: NLB, 1976), 18-19.
  8. de Heml, Christopher. Scribes and Illuminators (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 5.
  9. Backhouse, Janet. The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford, England: Phaidon, 1979).
  10. Roberts, Colin & Skeat, T.C. The Birth of the Codex (London, England: British Academy, 1983).
  11. Carter, John. ABC for Book-Collectors (England: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 40.
  12. Nixon, Howard & Foot, Mirjam. The History of Decorate Bookbinding in England (Oxford, England: Oxford University press, 1992), 26-27.
  13. Carter, John. ABC for Book-Collectors (England: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 131.
  14. Lewis, Roy. Fine Bookbinding In the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: Arco, 1984).
  15. Kapr, Albert. Johannes Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention (Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1996).
  16. Scholderer, Victor. Johann Gutenberg: The Inventor of Printing (London, England: Trustees of the British Museum, 1963).
  17. The British Libraries, British Library Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (April 2011).
  18. Carter, John. ABC for Book-Collectors (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 43.
  19. Fischer, Steven. A History of Writing (London, England: Reaktion Books, 2001), 272.
  20. Febvre, Lucien & Martin, Henri-Jean. The coming of the Book (London, England: NLB, 1976), 18.
  21. Hunter, Dard. Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (New York, NY: A. A. Knopf, 1947).
  22. Febvre, Lucien & Martin, Henri-Jean. The Coming of the Book (London, England: NLB, 1976), 33-44.
  23. Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 77.
  24. Spitz, Lewis W. The Protestant Repformation 1517-1559 (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1984), 68.
  25. Spitz, Lewis W. The Protestant Repformation 1517-1559 (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1984), 86-101.
  26. Boas, Marie. The Scientific Renaissance 1450-1630 (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1962), 18-19.
  27. Yeo, Richard. "Encyclopaedic Knowledge," in Marina Frasca-Spada and Nick Jardine, eds., Books and the Sciences in History (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 207-224.
  28. Tebbel, John. The Compact History of the American Newspaper (New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1969). 
  29. "Printing Machine," The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia (New York, NY: The Century Company, 1911).
  30. Hoe, Richard M. U.S. Patent #5199 (New York: United States Patent Office, July 24, 1847).
  31. Ekilson, Stephen. Graphic Design: A New History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 24.
  32. Sjostrom, Eero. Wood Chemistry: Fundamentals and Applications (New York, NY: Academic Press, 1981).
  33. Coopersmith, Andrew S. Fighting Words (New York, NY: The New Press, 2004), xviii.
  34. Coopersmith, Andrew S. Fighting Words (New York, NY: The New Press, 2004), 167-168.
  35. Cremin, Lawrence. American Education: The National Experience, 1783-1876 (New York, NY: Harper, 1980).
  36. Tebbel, John. The Compact History of the American Newspaper (New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1969), 94-95.
  37. Kobre, Sidney. The Yellow Press and Gilded Age Journalism. (Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University, 1964).
  38. Tebbel, John. The Compact History of the American Newspaper (New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1969), 201.
  39. Fry, Joseph A. "Late Nineteenth-Century U.S. Foreign Relations". The Gilded Age: Perspective on the Origins of Modern America Charles Calhoun, ed. (Plymouth, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 307-332.
  40. Crock, Ruth C. "Cultural and Intellectual Life in the Gilded Age". The Gilded Age: Perspective on the Origins of Modern America Charles Calhoun, ed. (Plymouth, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 211-237.
  41. Britt, George. Forty Years—Forty Millions: The Career of Frank A. Munsey (New York, NY: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935).
  42. Holstmark, Erling. Tarzan and Tradition: Classical Myth in Popular Literature (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981).
Recommended Reading
Originally published by The McDonald Collection, Cascades Campus Library, Oregon State University, 01.11.2012, to the public domain.

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