CLASS 10 PRINT CULTURE AND THE MODERN WORLD (HISTORY-7)
PRINT CULTURE & THE MODERN WORLD
• We
cannot imagine a world without print. We
find evidence of print in books, journals, newspapers, etc.
• We
read printed literature, see printed images and track public debates that
appear in print.
• This print has a history which has shaped our
contemporary world.
• The
earliest kind of print technology was developed in countries like China, Japan
and Korea. This was a system of ‘hand
printing’.
• From
AD 594 onwards, books were printed in China by rubbing paper against the inked
surface of wood blocks.
• As
China had a bureaucratic (administrative official) system so the textbooks for
civil services examinations were printed in vast numbers.
• By
the seventeenth century, an urban culture boomed in China, print began to be
used in everyday life.
• Reading
increasingly became a leisure activity.
• Fictional
narratives, poetry autobiographies, anthologies (a collection) of literary
masterpieces and romantic plays were read with great interests.
• The
new reading culture was accompanied by a new technology.
• Western
printing techniques and mechanical presses were imported in the late nineteenth
century.
• Shangai became the hub of the new print
culture and from hand printing there was a gradual shift to mechanical
printing.
• Hand
printing technology was introduced into Japan from China by the Buddhist
missionaries around 768-779 AD.
• The
oldest Japanese book, printed in AD 868 is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, contained six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
• In
medieval Japan, poets and prose writers regularly published cheap books.
• Printing
of visual material led to interesting publishing-practices.
Print comes
to Europe
• Through
the silk routes, Chinese paper reached Europe in the eleventh century.
• Paper,
made possible the production of manuscripts carefully written by scribes
(penman/copyist).
• In
1295, Marco Polo, an explorer returned to Italy after several years of
exploration in China.
• He
brought the technique of woodblock printing with him .
• Now
Italians began producing books with woodblock printing and soon the technology
spread to other parts of Europe.
• Luxury
editions were still handwritten of expensive Vellum. (a heavy cream coloured
paper resembling sheep skin)
• As
demand of books increased, booksellers all over Europe began exporting books to
many different countries.
• But
the production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever increasing
demand for books.
• As
a result, woodblock printing became more and more popular.
• There
was a great need for even quicker and cheaper reproduction of texts. The
invention of a new print technology made this possible.
• Johann Gutenberg developed the first
known printing press in 1430’s.
• It
brought a revolution in the production of books and helped in the rapid
development in science, arts and religion through books.
• The
first book he printed was the Bible.
(180 copies; it took 3 yrs.)
• The
printing presses were set up in most of the countries in Europe between 1450
and 1550.
• As
a result printed books flooded in the markets of Europe.
The Print Revolution
• The
shift from hand-printing to mechanical printing led to the Print Revolution.
• With
the printing press, a new reading public emerged. Printing reduced the cost of
books.
• As
a result books flooded in the market, reaching out to an ever-growing
readership.
• Access
to books created a new culture of reading.
Now books could reach out to wider sections of people.
• But
books could be read only by the literate and the rates of literacy in most
European countries were low till the 20th century.
• Printers
began publishing popular ballads (narrative songs) and folktales.
• These
were sung and recited at gatherings in villages and in taverns (place where
people gathered)
• Thus,
printed material began to be orally transmitted. Print also created a new debate and
discussion.
• But
the printed book was not welcomed by all.
• There
were many who were anxious of the effects that the access to the printed word
and wider circulation of books could have on the people’s mind.
• They
feared that rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread if there was no
control over what was printed.
• Martin Luther, a religious reformer,
criticised many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church in Ninety Five Thesis.
• The
book challenged the church to debate Luther’s idea.
• Luther’s
writings were immediately reproduced in large numbers and read widely.
• This
ultimately led to a division within the church and to the beginning of the PROTESTANT REFORMATION.
• In
the sixteenth century, Manocchio, a
miller in Italy, read a few books and reinterpreted the message of Bible and
created a view of God and its creation.
• It
infuriated the Roman Catholic Church. Manocchio was hauled up twice and
ultimately executed.
• The
Roman Catholic Church, troubled by such effects of popular readings and
questioning of faith, imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers
and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.
The Reading
Mania
• New
forms of popular literature appeared in print targeting new audiences.
• Pedlars
carried little books for sale in villages. (carrying books for sale)
• Almanacs
ritual, calendars, ballads and folktales were sold. (an annual publication
giving astronomical data)
• Reading
matter of entertainment reached ordinary people.
• Chapmen
(little books with low price) sold chapbooks for a penny in England. Even poor could buy them.
• In
France “Billotheque Bleue”, small books for poor were printed at low price on
poor quality paper.
• Journals,
periodicals and newspapers carried information.
• Books
of various sizes, serving many different purposes and interests were brought
out.
• Ideas
of scientists and philosophers became accessible to common people.
• The
writings of thinkers such as Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Rousseau were widely
printed and read.
The
Nineteenth Century
• By
the nineteenth century, books served as the means of spreading progress and
enlightenment.(clarification/explanation)
• Many
believed that books could change the world, liberate the society from despotism
and tyranny.(autocracy/absolutism)
• Louis
Sebastian Mercier, a novelist in
eighteenth century France stated ‘the printing press is the most important
powerful engine of progress and public opinion that will sweep despotism away.
• Several
historians have argued that print culture created the conditions within which
the French Revolution occurred.
• With
the spread of education in Europe in the 19th century; children, women and workers began to
read in large numbers.
• In
1857, Children’s Press was established in France to fulfill the increasing
demands of books among the children.
• Women
became important readers as well.
• Penny
magazines were especially meant for women, as it were manuals, teaching proper
behaviour and housekeeping.
• Some
popular novelists were women; Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot.
• They
projected women in new form, a person with will, strength of personality,
determination and the power to think.
• Lending
libraries became instruments for educating white collar worker, artisans and
lower middle class people in the 19th century.
• By
the late 18th century, the press came to be made of metal. Though the 19th century there
further innovations in print technology.
• By
the mid nineteenth century, Richard M Hoe of New York perfected the power
driven cylindrical press. It was more
useful in printing newspapers. This was
capable of printing 8000 sheets per hour.
• In
the late 19th century offset press was developed which could print up to six colours at a time.
• Printers
and publishers continuously developed new strategies to sell their product.
• In
the 1920s, in England, popular works were sold in cheap series, called the Shilling
Series.
• From
the turn of the twentieth century, electrically operated presses speeded up
printing operations.
India and
the Print…
• India
had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts – in Sanskrit,
Arabic, Persian as well as in various vernacular languages.
• Manuscripts
were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
• There
were several problems with these manuscripts.
Still they continued to be produced till the introduction of print in
late nineteenth century.
• Printing
press came to Goa with the Portuguese missionaries in the mid-16th
century.
• Jesuit
priest learnt Konkani and printed several tracts (pamphlets). By 1694, about 50 books had been printed in
Konkani and the Kanara languages.
• Catholic
priests printed Malayalam and Tamil books.
• From
1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal Gazette, a weekly magazine.
(by Gangadhar Bhattacharya)
• Literature
played a vital role in the growth of nationalism.
• National
literature was produced in large quantity which made Indians aware of their
rights and inspired them to fight against British imperialism. It worked miracle in arousing political
consciousness among the Indians.
• From
the early nineteenth century, a wider public could participate in the public
discussion and express their views.
Religious
Reforms and Public Debates
• There
were debates over social and religious reforms in the nineteenth century.
• Intense
debate went on over widow immolation (sacrifice to god), monotheism,
Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry
(worship of idols).
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi from 1821 and the
orthodoxy commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions.
• The
Muslims used the cheap lithographic (metals/stone surface) presses to publish
Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures to counter the moves of the
colonial power.
• The
Deoband Seminary published thousands of Fatwa's (Islamic laws) telling Muslim
readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday life and explaining the
meaning of Islamic doctrines.
• Among
Hindus too, print encouraged the reading of religious texts, especially in the
vernacular languages.
• The
first printed edition of the Ramacharitmanas
of Tulsidas, a sixteenth century
text came out from Calcutta in 1810.
• From
the 1880’s the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and Sri Venkateshwar Press in
Bombay published various religious texts in vernacular.
• Newspapers
made people aware of their surroundings and informed them of events taking
place in the other parts of the country,
• These
religious texts reached a wide circle of people. Thus print not only stimulated
the publications of conflicting opinions amongst communities but also connected
communities and people in different parts of India.
• More
and more people could read and therefore they wanted to see their own lives
experiences, emotions and relationships reflected in what they read.
• New
literary forms such as novels, lyrics, short stories, essays about social and
political matters entered the world of reading.
• Emphasis
was laid on human lives and intimate feelings and the political and social
rules that shaped such things.
• By
the end of the nineteenth century, visual images could be easily reproduced in
multiple copies.
New forms
of Publication..
• Painters
like Raja Ravi Verma produced images for mass circulation.
• By
the 1870’s caricatures (comic scripts) and cartoons were published in journals
and newspapers ridiculing the educated Indians' fascination with western tastes
and clothes.
• Cheap
prints and calendars, easily available in bazaars began shaping ideas about
modernity and tradition, religion and politics and society and culture.
Women and
Print
• Writers
started writing about women. This led to several changes in the society.
• Women
readers increased in the middle class homes.
• Liberal
husbands and fathers started educating their women folk at home and sent them
to schools when women schools were set up in the cities and towns after the
mid-nineteenth century.
• Journals
began carrying the writings by women and explained why women should be
educated.
• But
the conservatives were not in favour of women’s education.
• In
East Bengal, in the early nineteenth century, Rashsundari Debi, a young married
girl in a very orthodox family learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen and
wrote her autobiography AMAR JIBAN which
was published in 1876 in the Bengali language.
• From the 1860’, a few Bengali women like Kailashbashini
Debi wrote highlighting the experiences of women – about how women were
imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic labour and
treated unjustly by the very people they served.
• In
the 1880’s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai wrote about the miserable lives
of upper caste Hindu women especially widows.
• In
1926, Begum Rokeya Hussian, an educationists and literary figure, strongly
condemned men for withholding education from women.
• While
Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had developed early, Hindi
printing began seriously only from the 1870’s.
• Soon
a large segment of it was devoted to the education of women.
• Issues
like women's education, widowhood, widow remarriage and the national movement
were discussed in the early twentieth century journals.
• In
Punjab, Ram Chaddha published the fast selling Istri Dharm Vichar to teach
women how to be obedient wives.
• The
Khalsa Tract Society published cheap booklets about the qualities of good
women.
• In
Bengal, Pedlars took the entire area in central Calcutta-the Batala- was
devoted the printing of books to homes, enabling women to read them in their
leisure time.
Print and
the Poor People..
• For
the poor, public libraries were set up from the early 20th century.
• From
the late 19th century, issues of caste discrimination began to be written in
printed tracts and essays.
• Gulamgiri
of Jyotiba Phule exposed ill-treatment to the low caste.
• Dr.
B. R. Ambedkar and E V Ramaswamy Naicker wrote powerfully against untouchability.
• CHOTE
AUR BADE KA SAVAL of Kashibaba (a mill worker, Kanpur) exposed the links
between caste and class exploitation.
• Sudarshan
Chakr published a collection called Sachchi Kahaniyan. These books highlighted the exploitation of the poor
people.
• Efforts
were made by social reformers to condition of improve the condition of the poor
through print.
Print and
Censorship..
• In
1878, Vernacular Press Act was passed.
The East India Company was dead against the freedom of the native press,
it wanted to clamp (close) it down.
• As
Vernacular newspapers became strongly nationalist, the colonial government
began debating measures of stringent control.
• It
provided the government with rights to censor reports and editorials in the
vernacular press.
• A
regular check was kept on the vernacular newspaper published in different
provinces.
• Despite
regressive measures, nationalist newspaper grew in numbers in all parts of
India.
• They
reported on colonial misrule and encouraged nationalist activities which
eventually rested in protests.
• When
Punjab revolutionaries were deported (expel) in 1907, Bal Gangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy about them in Kesari.
• This
led to his imprisonment in 1908 provoking in turn widespread protests all over
India.
• Thus,
the development of printing had far-reaching effects on political, social and
economic lives of the people
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