The Printing Press - A Little of This and A Little of That

By Suzanne Norquist

As an author, I love books and all things related to books. Makes me grateful for Johannes Gutenberg and his printing press. However, he wasn’t the first to use stamping technology for printing. He pulled together ideas from several different industries to develop a system to mass-produce printed material.



Printing technology started in antiquity in China. No one is exactly sure when. Some poor fellow would carve a wooden block (in reverse) that represented an entire page. Once it had been created, an unlimited number of copies could be printed. There had better not be any typos.



Around 1000 A.D., the panels were replaced by individual blocks. Characters could be moved around and reused. These blocks were carved into clay and baked into hard blocks. Clay had advantages over wood—a consistent texture and easier cleanup.

For centuries, Chinese printers improved the process using wood and clay.

Then in the 1400s in Johannes Guttenberg created a new kind of printing press. As a goldsmith, he was familiar with metallurgy. Instead of wood or clay blocks, he used a lead-based alloy, which is still employed today. The metal blocks required a different kind of ink, which Guttenberg also invented. He was a busy guy.



One advantage he had over Chinese inventors was an alphabet with only a couple dozen characters. There are over a thousand Chinese characters.

Guttenberg invented a set of special hand molds to mass-produce the letters. They would have looked similar to the bullet molds pictured below.



Small letters would be composed into lines of text. Since all the letters are backward, a slightly dyslexic person like me could have had an advantage. But I can’t even imagine sorting through those tiny letters to make words all day.



Then the words are placed in a wooden frame known as a galley. (Now I understand why my publisher calls a book that is ready to print a galley). These are laid face up on a frame.



Then “ink beaters” are used to cover all the letters with ink. They are huge and are made from leather stuffed with wool. They are crazy looking things.



A piece of damp paper is laid over the top of the letters. And here is where the press comes in. The new block letters didn’t solve the problem of uneven pressure on the stamps. Guttenberg borrowed the technology from the wine and olive oil industry, using a screw-type press attached to a metal plate.

 

I could use a miniature version of the printing press when I use stamps for making greeting cards. I usually smudge the image when trying to apply even pressure.

With the pull of a lever, the paper is pressed against the inked letters. And, voila, words are on the page.



Unfortunately for Guttenberg, no one appreciates an inventor in his time. While he engaged in crafts like gem cutting, he kept his work on the printing press a secret. His partners learned about it. And since they had loaned him money, they insisted on partnership in the press too. He ended up being involved in several lawsuits with partners and backers of his projects.



On looking back, I can appreciate his brilliance in bringing so many different kinds of things together. Moveable blocks like the Chinese, made from metal instead of wood or clay. Hand molds to easily create blocks. A press like a winepress. I’m so glad he figured it out because I love my books.

***


Suzanne Norquist is the author of two novellas, “A Song for Rose” in A Bouquet of Brides Collection and “Mending Sarah’s Heart” in the Thimbles and Threads Collection. Everything fascinates her. She has worked as a chemist, professor, financial analyst, and even earned a doctorate in economics. Research feeds her curiosity, and she shares the adventure with her readers. She lives in New Mexico with her mining engineer husband and has two grown children. When not writing, she explores the mountains, hikes, and attends kickboxing class.

She authors a blog entitled, Ponderings of a BBQ Ph.D.


“Mending Sarah’s Heart” in the Thimbles and Threads Collection

Four historical romances celebrating the arts of sewing and quilting.

Mending Sarah’s Heart by Suzanne Norquist

Rockledge, Colorado, 1884

Sarah seeks a quiet life as a seamstress. She doesn’t need anyone, especially her dead husband’s partner. If only the Emporium of Fashion would stop stealing her customers, and the local hoodlums would leave her sons alone. When she rejects her husband’s share of the mine, his partner Jack seeks to serve her through other means. But will his efforts only push her further away?

For a Free Preview, click here: http://a.co/1ZtSRkK

Newspapers

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My grandfather worked as a typesetter for a Dallas newspaper for many years. Because of my interest in writing and taking journalism in high school and college, we shared time talking about newspapers and how they were published. One of his first jobs as a young boy was delivering newspapers in Victoria, Texas where his father was a doctor. In writing a novel loosely based on his life, I did research about newspapers which I found to be interesting.

 Even though daily newspapers are dwindling today, they were once the main source of news for those who were literate and could afford the price. Printing in colonial America was expensive with small circulations. No editor could afford to put more than one or two issues a week. Because of the expense of printing and distributing the paper, many of the common folks in town were excluded. Even though Americans tended to be literate, they simply didn’t have the money to buy newspapers. Thus, the circulation remained small.

One of the early "newspaper" sheets circa 1690.

In spite of the expense, early newspapers had a profound influence on the early years of our federal government. Articles, essays, and editorials were in abundance and the organs for political faction. Many politicians became connected to specific newspapers.

Noah Webster, before publishing the first American dictionary, started the first daily newspaper in 1783 in New York City named the American Minerva. Essentially, it was an organ of the Federalist Party. Although in operation for only a few years, it influenced and inspired the establishment of later newspapers.

Eight years later, Alexander Hamilton founded the Post, and it also had some political affiliation. At the time, the newspaper became the means for politicians to communicate with their constituents. The papers carried accounts of newsworthy events as well as letters from the people who voiced their opinions concerning political matters.

John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Andrew Jackson all had political campaigns which played out on the pages of newspapers. This type of political action continued well into the 1820’s.

As newspapers began a transformation in the 1830’s, they turned to publishing news of current events, local happenings, and non-partisan editorials and essays. The price also went down which allowed for the working class and even new immigrants to buy them. Now everyone could afford the paper and reading the news every morning became a routine in many households across the country.

Some of the great names in the industry as it grew included Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune and James Gordon Bennett, pictured above, of the New York Herald. They both possessed strong personalities and controversial opinions as expressed in their respective newspapers.

Another editor, William Cullen Bryant, edited the New York Evening Post even though people knew him better as a poet. The New York Times began publishing in 1851 with Henry J. Raymond at the helm. Raymond worked under Greeley, and the newspaper was considered an upstart without any strong political connection.

Newspaper Press Circa 1865

As the nation grew, underwent wars, and invented new technologies, the newspapers grew as well. With the invention of the linotype by Ottmar Mergenthaler, the papers could publish larger editions with more pages and more news of interest to more people such as news about sporting events.

In the late 1880s Joseph Pulitzer, a successful publisher from St. Louis, bought a paper in New York City. Pulitzer transformed the business of print news by focusing on events that would appeal to common people. He focused on crime stories and other sensational subjects in New York World. The vivid headlines, produced by a staff of specialized editors, pulled in readers.

Pulitzer met with great success in New York, but in the mid 1890’s, a competitor came into the picture. William Randolph Hearst, already the publisher of a San Francisco newspaper, moved to New York City and purchased the New York Journal.

From the competition between the two men came a circulation war, the likes of which had not been seen before. There had been competitive publishers before, of course, but nothing like this. The sensationalism of the competition became known as Yellow Journalism.

In the 19^th and early to late 20^th Century, our nation witnessed a rise in newspaper circulation. Newspapers were delivered to the home, sold at newsstands or hawked by newsboys on city streets. 

Now, in the 21^st century, we see its decline. People now depend on electronic media to give them up-to-date news about events around the world. With the news flashes available on cell phones and computers, even the news on TV may seem old.

Most Americans today are in a rush for everything, and getting the news as soon as it happens is more appealing than reading through various sections in a daily newspaper. With rising costs and smaller editions, the newspapers of today are becoming less and less a necessity of our daily lives.

How much of a part does a newspaper play in your daily life? Do you prefer a printed version or electronic?

It's getting to be rodeo time here in Houston, and my newest release features a barrel-racing heroine. 

Kylee is the youngest of the Danner clan and drops out of college to barrel race full-time and spend more time with her rodeo sweetheart, Jesse Martin. Connor Morris, known as Jesse Martin on the rodeo circuit, is in love with Kylee, but he is keeping his true identity from her for now. When her brothers discover Jesse Martin is an ex-con on parole, they jump in and decide Kylee must break off the relationship. Kylee can’t believe Jesse is what they say, but when he doesn’t show up at the rodeo where they’re both competing, she grows suspicious. When the truth of his identity as Connor Morris is revealed in a news item on television, it is even more shocking to Kylee. His retired movie queen mother has had a heart attack and is at a hospital in Denver. He is shown there with a woman claiming to be his fiancée, and she calls him Connor Morris, son of Hal Morris, who was running for U.S. Senator from Colorado. Jesse must now not only gain back Kylee’s love and trust, he must also convince her father and brothers that he loves Kylee and the TV story was a big mix-up. 

Martha Rogers is a multi-published author and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston, Texas where they are active members of First Baptist Church. They are the parents of three sons and grandparents to eleven grandchildren and great-grandparents to four, soon to be five. Martha is a retired teacher with twenty-eight years teaching Home Economics and English at the secondary level and eight years at the college level supervising student teachers and teaching freshman English. She is the Director of the Texas Christian Writers Conference held in Houston in August each year, a member of ACFW, ACFW WOTS chapter in Houston, and a member of the writers’ group, Inspirational Writers Alive.

Find Martha at:  www.marthawrogers.com, Twitter:  @martharogers2                Facebook: Martha Rogers Author