Print Culture and the Modern World

Introduction

Importance of print in today's world

Was it always like this only? NO

Print do have its own history.

● What is this history?

● When did printed literature begin to circulate?
● How has it helped create the modern world?
 Print Culture and the Modern World
The First Printed Books

China Japan

System of handprinting. ● Buddhist missionaries introduced hand

printing technology in Japan.
● Oldest Japanese book Diamond Sutra.
[Rubbing the paper against the
Limitation Printing on textiles, playing cards and
inked surface of woodblocks]
paper money.
● Printing of visual material grew.
● Accordion book
● Use of Books in China Ukiyo by Kitagawa Utamaro

● Huge Bureaucratic System → Civil Services Examinations

● Increasing urban culture. [New readership]
● Merchant use prints to record trade information.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
Print Comes to Europe

Where in Europe ➢ Silk route → Paper

How ➢ Marco polo → Technology of
woodblock printing → Reached Italy
Increasing reading public [ Book fairs, scribes ]

● The production could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for books.
● Limitations of Manuscripts.
Woodblock printing gradually became popular.

Gutenberg and the Printing Press

● In Germany, Johann Gutenberg developed first

known printing press in 1430s. In 1448, Invented printing press
● Son of merchant, saw wine and olive presses. working on this knowledge.
● Knew art of polishing stones, master goldsmith.
The new technology did not entirely displaced the existing art of producing books by hand. How
 Print Culture and the Modern World
The Print Revolution and its Impact
How print created a revolution?

Earlier After Print Revolution

Reading was restricted to the Before the age of print, books were not only expensive
elites. Common people lived but they could not be produced in sufficient numbers.
in a world of oral culture. Now books could reach out to wider sections of people.

Hearing Public X Reading Public

[Sacred texts read out, ballads were recited that they reach out the wider section of people]

Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted.
The line that separated the oral and reading cultures became blurred and the
hearing public and reading public became intermingled.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
Religious Debate and the Fear of Prints
Print Possibility of wide circulation of ideas. Impact

Even those who disagreed with established authorities could now print and circulate their ideas.

Apprehension Revolution
● Many thought that if there was no control over what ● In 1517, Martin Luther wrote ninety-five theses.
was printed and read then rebellious and irreligious ● Criticise many of the practices and ritual of
thoughts might spread. Roman Catholic Church.
● Authority of 'valuable' literature would be destroyed. ● Led to beginning of the protestant reformation.
● Criticism of new printed literature. ● “Printing is the ultimate gift of god and the,
greatest one”.
● Individual interpretation of faith.
Print and Dissent ● Menocchio, A miller in Italy.
● Reinterpreted the message of Bible.
When the Roman Church began its inquisition to repress Booksellers and began to maintain an
heretical ideas, hauled up twice and ultimately executed. Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
The Reading Mania
Setting up of schools by churches of different denominations.
● Literacy rate went up.
● Virtual reading mania was created.
New form of popular literature appeared in print
● Almanacs, ballads and folk tales were published.
● Penny chapbooks were carried by chapman in England. In France 'Biliothic Bleue' were sold.
● Periodical press were developed which produced the information of current affairs with entertainments,
wars and trade. [Newspaper and journals]
● The ideas of scientists and philosopher now became more accessible to common people. [Discovery of Isaac
Newton began to publish]
● The writing of thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau widely printed and read.
Tremble, Therefore, Tyrants of the World
Tremble Involuntary shaking or movement
Tyrants Cruel and oppressive ruler.
Books Means of spreading progress and enlightenment, could change
the world and liberate society from despotism and tyranny.
'The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress, and public
Louis-Sebastien Mercier
opinion is the force that will sweep despotism away'.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
Print Culture and the French Revolution

Print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.
1. Prints popularised the ideas of Enlightened thinkers.
Their ideas argued to judge everything through the application of reason and rationality.
[Writing of Voltaire and Rousseau were read widely]
2. Print created a new culture of dialogues and debates.
Values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by a public. The need to
question existing ideas and beliefs came into public sphere.
3. Outpouring of literature mocked the royalty and criticised their morality.
Cartoons and caricatures showing the pleasure of monarchy and sufferings and
hardship of common people.

We must remember that people did not read just one kind of literature.

Print did not directly shape their minds, but it did open up the possibility of thinking differently.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
The Nineteenth Century

Children Women Workers

● Children press in ● Women became an important ● Lending libraries.

France, 1857. readers as well as writers. ● Self educated
● Grimm brothers in ● Penny magazines teaching working class people
Germany spent years proper behaviour and wrote for
compiling traditional housekeeping. themselves.
folktales gathered ● Novelist like Jane Austen, the ● Time for
from peasants. Bronte Sisters and George self-improvement
● Censorship. Eliot. and self-expression.
● Women: A person with will, ● Wrote political tracts
strength of personality, and autobiographies.
determination, and power to
think.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
Further Innovation

There were a series of innovation in printing technologies.

● Power-driven cylindrical press by Richard M. Hoe.
● Offset press was developed which could print up to six colours at a time.
● Electrically operated presses accelerated printing operation.
● Methods of feeding paper were improved, paper quality became better, automatic paper
and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.
● Periodical serialised important novels.
● Dust cover or the jacket were invented.
● Changes during great depression Cheap paperback edition.
 Print Culture and the Modern World
India and the World of Prints

Manuscripts were used before the age of print. Limitation

Print came to India Goa Tamil Malayalam English
James Augustus Hickey → Bengal Gazette [A commercial paper open to all, but none]

Controversy with British East India Company [Governor General Warren Hasting]
Indians who published Indian Newspaper. Bengal Gazette by Gangadhar Bhattacharya

Religious Reforms and Public Debates Print Reforms and counter reforms.

Reformers VS Hindu Orthodoxy

● Over issues like widow, immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry.
● Sambad Kaumudi → Rammohan Roy
● Samachar Chandrika → Hindu orthodoxy
● From 1822, two persian newspaper Jam-l-Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akbar.
● A Gujarati newspaper → Bombay Samachar appeared in the same year.
Impact of print among Hindu and Muslims.
 Print Culture and the Modern World

New Form of Publication

Novels Painting

● Europe to India [Acquired distinctively ● Publishing of visual material.

Indian form]. ● Raja Ravi Varma.
● People could now read what they ● Diversified use of paintings.
wanted to see in their own lives ● Shaped ideas about modernity and
experiences, emotions, and relationship. traditions, religion and politics and
society and culture.

New Literary forms Caricatures and Cartoons

● Other new literacy material ● Commenting on social and

also entered the world of political issues.
reading — lyrics, short
stories, essays about social
and political matters.
 Print Culture and the Modern World

Women and Print

Women Education
Liberal husbands and fathers Conservatives and Orthodox families
● Began educating their women folk at home. ● Hindu conservatives believes that a
● At times they were sent to school. literate girl would be widowed.
● Muslims feared that educated women
Rebel women defied such prohibition. would be corrupted.
● Rashsundari Debi → Amar Jiban [1876) → Full length autobiography in Bengali language.
● Kailashbashini Debi and her experiences.
● Tarabai shinde and Pandita ramabai wrote with passion about the miserable live caste Hindu women.
Vernacular press were devoted They discussed issue like women's education, widowhood,
for education of women. widow remarriage and the national movement.
Ram Chaddha Istri Dharam Vichar
The khalsa tract society published cheap booklets with message to teach women how to be obedient wives.
Known for publishing cheap editions of religious tracts and script, as Pedlars took the Battala
The Battala
well as literature that was considered obscene and scandalous. publication to homes.
 Print Culture and the Modern World

Print and the Poor People

● Very cheap small books were sold at crossroads.
● Public libraries → Expanding to access to books. For rich local patrons, setting up a library
was a way of acquiring prestige.
Issues of caste discrimination began to be written.
● Jyotiba Phule → Gulamigiri [1871]
● B.R. Ambedkar, E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker also wrote on these issues.
Involvement of people from working class in writing.
● Kashibaba [Mill workers from Kanpur] → Published chote or bade ka Sawal
● Poems of Kanpur mill worker under the name sudarshan chakra

Print and Censorship

Earlier, censorship was restricted to Englishmen in India. Why
➢ By 1820's Calcutta supreme court passed certain regulation to control press freedom.
➢ In 1835, Governor-General Bentinck revised press law on request of editors of English
and Vernacular newspaper.
But after the revolt of 1857, censorship became strict. Why
● 'Native' press were clampdown.
● Vernacular press act, 1878 was passed.
Despite all this, Nationalist print grew in numbers. Kesari → Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
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Digraj Singh Rajput