Printing+and+Book-Making

__ Printing and Book-Making __
 * INTRODUCTION**

Throughout history, one of the best ways to share and preserve information has been to write it down. Once written, this information can be viewed by others as long as the medium is preserved. Since 2500 B.C., when Egyptians made the first papyrus scrolls, man has been engaging in some form of book making. The Muslim bible, the Koran, was copied by hand around 650 A.D. The book as we know it today, the codex, is a relatively new form, originating in the 1400’s. It is said that the society and cultural beliefs of the time help to shape the technology. Men with beliefs and ideas produce technologies to carry out their particular agendas. My study will apply this view to explore the printing of books, and the reasons for which they were made. It is my hypothesis that printing and typography were developed and became popular due to religion. For example, the Gutenberg Bible, printed in 1438, is credited as the first book ever printed in Europe. The first printing presses that were brought to the colonies were to print bibles in Native American languages. I will evaluate the works of three different men, all important and influential to the development of the printing press. Focusing on colonial America, there are many examples to show that the importance of religion in society is what spurred the development of the printing press and type foundries. I will examine William Bradford, who set up one of the first printing presses in Colonial America right outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Next, I will analyze the works of Christopher Sauer, of Germantown Pennsylvania, who established the first type foundry in America. Finally, I will look at the work of his son and successor, William Sauer To get a bit of a technical overview, a printing press is a mechanical device which is used to transfer images to paper to make books, pamphlets, and newspapers, among other things. A type foundry is a foundry that produces metal matrices and casts different sized and shaped letters, or types, for the printing press to use. To better understand the role of a type foundry, we can speak of its modern day equivalent. The modern day type foundry is a company that makes fonts. According to Isaiah Thomas, in his book __History of Printing in America,__ “A press with types and a printer were in 1660 sent over from England by the corporation for propagating the gospel among the Indians in New England. This press was designed solely for the purpose of printing the bible, and other books, in the Indian language.” This desire to spread religion is the origin of printing in America, but it is not the only role religion plays.

In 1682, a man named William Bradford settled in Philadelphia and set up a printing press. He did mostly with the intent to produce religious works for the people around him to read. His earlier works included An Almanac for the year of the Christian Account: 1686, and Epistle, and a quarto pamphlet by George Keith, respecting the New England Churches. I am not saying that those in Colonial America were printing only religious works, because this is far from the truth. Bradford printed Almanacs; Sauer printed a German newspaper, and his son, Christopher Sauer Junior, printing many German books and a newspaper as well. The point I want to get across is that religious works are what helped advance the technology of bookmaking. This happened for a few reasons. The first is that since religious doctrine was an important part of everyday life, the printers catered to the people by printing religious works. In addition, printers used their presses to help spread their own religions, regardless of how profitable it may have been. Being that there were so many different religions, people were always trying to convert others to believe what they believed. This was not easy, especially considering the others mentioned may not even speak the same language. In order to spread their religions, press owners then had to expand what they printed to cater to a different set of people. It was not profitable for the makers of the press in Cambridge to print Native American translations of the Bible. They did it not to make money, but to help convert the Native Americans. In order produce these Native American Bibles, an entirely new set of characters needed to be created to print them. Type foundries needed to be built to accommodate the need for new characters. Getting back to the subject of William Bradford, in 1692 there was controversy among the Quakers in Philadelphia. George Keith, whose writings Bradford often printed and distributed, was an active part of the controversy. In 1689, Keith was appointed as the superintendent of the Quaker schools. After about two year, Keith then became a public speaker at their religious assemblies. The Quakers didn’t like him, and thus forbade him to speak at any town meetings, accusing him of being “assertive, turbulent,” and of “overbearing spirit.” Keith was condemned in the city meetings, and made an appeal. In an effort to educate the general populace of his side of the story, Keith wrote an address. Bradford, supporting Keith, printed the address and distributed it to known Quakers. The address was judges as seditious, and therefore Bradford was arrested and imprisoned. This shows the societal impact that printers had on their culture, because often the author was not the one punished for writing something judged “seditious,” but the printer was imprisoned for printing it. It is shown here that religion dictated not only what a printer would print, but also what a printer wouldn’t print. It is ironic that a man who printed mainly that which glorified the name of God in the form of epistles and religious pamphlets would be arrested by a religious institution for printing something considered “seditious”.
 * WILLIAM BRADFORD**
 * CHRISTOPHER SAUER AND SON**

Nearby, in Germantown, PA, a man named Christopher Sauer established the first type foundry in the United States. Born in the town of Lautenberg, Germany, in 1694, he came to America in 1724. He took up many occupations in America, but did not become a printer until 1739. He fell upon this occupation mostly by accident. In Germany, a group of Baptists, or Tunkers, raised some money in order to send religious books over to Germantown, and set up a press for the use of printing more. This press was to be entrusted to Jacob Gauss, but when it was determined he didn’t have the technical skill to operate it, Sauer was able to get the press types at a very cheap rate. In this case, religion was the direct foundation of the original operation. Sauer started by printing an almanac in 1738, and started a small German newspaper in 1739. According to Anna Kathryn Oller, author of __Christopher Sauer, Colonial Printer,__ “In 1743, he issued from his press, on a German long primer type, and in that language, an edition of the Bible. This was the second Bible printed in British America.” The first was the Indian translation, from the press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, mentioned earlier. One thousand editions were printed, and it became quite profitable for Sauer. In fact, the bible was so profitable that it allowed Sauer to erect a paper mill to attain the necessary paper, and experiment in bookbinding. According to Lawrence C. Wroth, author of __The Colonial Printer__, “since he was producing so many books, Sauer also decided to stop importing type from Germany, and so conceived the project of casting in his own establishment enough letter to keep standing the entire work.” The success of the Bible, and its demand among those in Germantown gave Sauer the ability to practice vertical integration in an early form. According to Oller, Sauer was a man of high ideals, and this made it difficult for him to print that which did not coincide with his religious and moral principles. His primary focus was not to make money or become famous, but rather to provide interesting and instructive reading matter to the German-speaking people. Here is a letter written in 1740 from Sauer to Dr. Heinrich Ehrenfried Luthor, proprietor of the type foundry in Frankfurt: My small printing shop, now started, is dedicated to God, and I hope that during my and my son’s lives, that nothing shall be printed except that which is to the glory of God and for the physical or eternal good of my neighbors. Whatever does not meet this standard, I will not print. I have already rejected several, and would rather have the press standing idle. I am happier when I can distribute something of value among the people for the small price, than if I had a large profit without a good conscience. His son, Christopher Sauer Junior, succeeded Christopher Sauer, and upon his death, took over the foundry in 1758. He expanded the business even more, printing on a larger scale. In 1763, he finished a quarto edition of the German Bible, the types for which were made entirely at his foundry, the first of its kind in the US. Much like his father, Sauer used the success of the Bible to expand and vertically integrate his shop, combining printing with type casting, papermaking, and bookbinding.

**CONCLUSION**

The society and cultural beliefs of the time help to shape the technology we create. Printing and bookmaking were developed and became popular with the help of religion. Men with beliefs and ideas produce technologies to carry out their particular agendas. The desire for churches to spread their beliefs is one major cause of the advances made in printing and bookmaking in the colonial times. In addition, since religion was so wide spread, it provided a basis for consumerism that people like Christopher Sauer were able to capitalize on, and helped him to use such business practices as vertical integration.  References  Primary 1. Arthur Cook. __The Warrant for Committing William Bradford and John Maccomb__ 2. __New England Spirit of Persecution, transmitted to Pennsylvania, and the Pretended Quaker found Persecuting the True Christian Quaker in the Tryal of Peter Boss, George Keith, Thomas Budd, and William Bradford, at the Sessyons held at Philadelphia the Ninth, Tenth, and Twelth Days of December 1692. Giving and account of the most Arbitrary Proceedings of the Court __ Vol. XII, p. 22, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 3. __Pennsylvania Berichte__, September 30, 1758. Translation unsigned from the Pemberton Papers, Vol. XI, p. 7, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Secondary  1. Isaiah Thomas, Benjamin Franklin Thomas, John Russell Bartlett, Samuel Foster Haven, American Antiquarian Society. __The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers, and an Account of Newspapers.__ Published by J. Munsell, printer, 1874. Original from the University of Michigan. 2. Pasko, W.W.  __American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking: Containing a History of These Arts in Europe and America ...__ Published by H. Lockwood, 1894. 592 pages.  3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none;">  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">Oller, Anna Kathryn. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);"> __<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">Christopher Saur, colonial printer; A study of the publications of the press, 1738-1758. __ <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1965. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> 4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">Todd, William B.  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">  __<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">The Gutenberg Bible : new evidence of the original printing : a paper / presented by William B. Todd. __ <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">Carolina: Chapel Hill, 1982. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> 5.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;">  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">Wroth, Lawrence C.  <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">  __<span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">The colonial printer, by Lawrence C. Wroth. __ <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);"> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: rgb(38, 42, 44);">2nd ed. Portland, ME: The Southworth-Anthoensen press, 1938. <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">