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.

 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.
The Buddhist Diamond Sutra
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.
Vellum Printing
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
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.
Power-driven Cylindrical Press
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.
Bengal Gazette
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.
Raja Ravi Varma
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.
Rashsundari Debi
Tarabai Shinde Pandita Ramabai
Begum Rokeya Sakhawat
Hossein
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.
Jyotiba Phule, 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.
Ramaswamy Naicker in Madras wrote on caste
system.
Local protest movements and sects also created a lot
of popular journals and tracts criticising ancient
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
Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938.
Poems of another Kanpur millworker, were brought
together & published in a collection called Sacchi
Kavitayan.

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,
Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy
about them in his Kesari