Revolutions in

Communication
Media History from
Gutenberg
to the Digital Age
Slides based on the Bloomsbury book by Bill Kovarik

Chapter 1b -- Impact of printing -- #5

Web site & textbook
http://www.revolutionsincommunication.com

Textbook:

1st edition – 2011 2nd edition – 2016

Chapter 1 continued
Francis Bacon, 1620
 We should notice the force, effect,
and consequences of inventions,
which are nowhere more conspicuous
than in those three which were
unknown to the ancients; namely,
printing, gunpowder, and the
compass. For these three have
changed the appearance and state of
the whole world …
Printing effects
•Standardized
scripture
• Critical reading allowed
challenge to church

•Standardized language
•Helped form nation-state
•Amplified new information and ideas

• Christopher Columbus, Martin Luther

become famous overnight
Printing consequences:
The Protestant Reformation
 20 – 30 million killed in religious wars
in the 1500s-1600s period.
 Germany lost 30 % of population
 England Counter-Reformation, 1553
Queen Mary I (“Bloody Mary”), then
Protestantism returns, Elizabeth I,
1559
 Calls for tolerance contribute to the
spirit of the Enlightenment.
Printing and the Reformation
Printing amplified Martin
Luther’s dissent in a way
that had never happened
before.

His 95 Theses, published

in Germany in 1517,
circulated across Europe
in less than a month.

Crowds surged around the

printing houses, grabbing
pages still wet from the
press.
Three Bishops of Oxford,1555
“… Play the
man, Master
Ridley; we shall
this day light
such a candle,
by God's grace,
in England, as I
trust shall never
be put out.”
-- Bishop Hugh
Latimer
Executed as Queen Mary I attempts to return Britain to
Catholic Church. This was also in retaliation for executions by
her father, Protestant king Henry VIII
Protestant Reformation

Anabaptist Anne Hendicks is one of tens of thousands

executed in Amsterdam 1570s
Reaction to religious wars
 Religious tolerance slowly emerges
 In France, Sebastian Casellio (1515-
1563) calls for freedom of conscience
 In Britain, Elizabeth I (1533 – 1603)
succeeds “Bloody” Mary and stops
persecution of Catholics. “There is
only one Christ, Jesus, one faith" she
says. “All else is a dispute over trifles."
Impacts on science
Printing spurred the
exploration of physical
and mental horizons.
News of Columbus’
voyages
spread rapidly with
printing in the 1490s.
Astronomical observatory
of Tycho Brahe (1546–
1601) included a printing
shop to help spread new
scientific knowledge – and
prevent repression by the
church
De re metallica
A 1556 book by Georgius
Agricola (1494–1555)
Exploration of geology,
mining and metallurgy,
carefully illustrated.
Set a standard for
scientific and technical
books to come
First newspapers
 Handwritten by armies of scribes in
ancient China and Rome
◦ Roman paper was called “Acta Diurna”
 Newsletters common in Europe to
promote commerce 1400s-1600s
 First printed newspaper: 1605:
Johann Carolus owned a book printing
company in Strasbourg, France, grew
tired of copying business newsletters
by hand.
Press censorship by …
 Licensing of a printing company
itself;
 Prior restraint: pre-press approval
of each book or edition of a
publication;
 Taxation and stamps on regular
publications; and
 Prosecution for sedition against the
government or libel of individuals.
English civil war
 John Milton (1608-
1674)
◦ The marketplace of
ideas
 “Who ever knew truth
put to the worse in a
free and open
encounter?"
 Areopagetica 1644 --
reference to the
English Enlightenment
 John Locke (1632-1704)
 People and government
have a social contract
 Government existed to serve the
people, not the other way around;
 People have natural rights to life,
liberty and property.
 Tolerance was vital
French Enlightenment
Francois Voltaire (1694-
1778) – May disagree with
what you say but will die
defending your right to say
it.

Also:
Baron de Montesquieu
(1689-1755) - Spirit of the
Laws / Separation of
powers (Legislative,
executive, judicial)
 Trial of John Peter Zenger

New York printer uses truth as a defense in seditious libel trial, 1734
American Enlightenment
 Benjamin Franklin
 Printers believe that
"when men differ in
Opinion, both Sides
ought equally to have
the Advantage of
being heard by the
Public. When Truth
and Error have fair
Play, the former is
always an overmatch
for the latter."
John Wilkes
Editor of North Briton,
Member of Parliament

Newspaper censored, Wilkes

convicted of seditious libel 1764

Goes into four years of exile in

France, returns to fight for
Parliamentary privilege

Ben Franklin and other American

revolutionaries saw this as a bad
omen for their hope of freedom in
America.

Yes, he was that ugly … and yet

he was amazingly popular
The Fourth Estate
 A reference to the growing power of the press
 Whig party leader Edmund Burke in a 1787
speech to Parliament.
 Burke said that there were three “estates”
(walks of life) represented in Parliament:
◦ The nobility (House of Lords);
◦ The clergy (Church of England);
◦ And the middle class (House of Commons).
 “But in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there
sat a Fourth Estate, more important by far
than they all.”
Enlightenment spreads
 Sweden was among the first to abolish
censorship with a law guaranteeing
freedom of the press in 1766.
 Denmark and Norway followed with
their own law on freedom of the press
in 1770.
American Enlightenment
 Thomas Jefferson
 Millions of innocent men,
women and children,
since the introduction of
Christianity, have been
burnt, tortured, fined,
imprisoned; yet we have
not advanced one inch
towards uniformity. What
has been the effect of
coercion? To make half
the world fools, and the
other half hypocrites.
American
revolutionaries
“These are the times that try
men’s souls”— the words
that turned the spark of
rebellion into a campaign for
American freedom emerged
from the pen of Thomas
Paine.
Thomas Paine, author of
After independence, Paine Common Sense, 1776
became involved in the
French Revolution, then
returned to the United States
French revolution sparked
by journalist Camille Desmolins
 Camille Desmoulins
On the storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1789

“I was carried upon a table rather than allowed to

mount it. Hardly had I got up on my feet when I
saw myself surrounded by an immense crowd.
Here is my short speech, which I shall never
forget:

‘Citizens! There is not a moment to lose. . . .

This evening all the Swiss and German battalions
will sally forth from the Champs de Mars to cut our
throats. We have only one recourse—to rush to
arms.’ I had tears in my eyes, and spoke with a
feeling that I have never been able to recapture,
no less describe.”
 The
Terror

Tens of thousands of aristocrats and innocents

executed by guillotine in France in the 1790s;
Americans worry that their revolution could also devolve
into The Terror
US passes Sedition Act 1798
 Prohibited writing, printing, uttering
 "any false, scandalous and malicious
writing ... against the government of the
United States, or president of the United
States,
 ... to bring them into contempt or
disrepute, or to excite against them the
hatred of the good people of the United
States."
 A stiff fine and prison term of two years
were the punishments. Overall, 25
people were arrested.
Reaction to Sedition Act
 ”A reign of witches" – Jefferson
 "It suffices for a man to be a philosopher,
and to believe that human affairs are
susceptible of improvement, and to look
forward, rather than backward to the Gothic
ages, for perfection, to mark him as an
anarchist, disorganizer, atheist, and enemy of
the government."
 Virginia and Kentucky assemblies pass
Resolutions condemning Sedition Act
 Doctrine of “nullification” and states
rights
 Partisan press US – Britain
William Cobbett was called “a kind of
fourth estate in the politics of the
country.”

Published Porcupine’s Gazette in

Philadelphia, 1790s and the Weekly
Political Register in England 1800s

Crusaded against cruelty, poverty and

corruption. In 1809 imprisoned two years
for seditious libel. Fled back to US in
1817 but then returned in 1819 to
continue crusading.

Cobbett attacked the “smothering system” that led to the Luddite

Riots and vowed to expose Britain’s “service and corrupt press” that had
become an instrument in the “delusion, the debasement and the
enslavement of a people.”
US partisan papers
 Bitter partisanship aligned with John
Adams’ Federalist party or Thomas
Jefferson’s Democratic- Republican party
 Depended on patronage and printing
contracts for basic income
 Business model would change with
Penny Press revolution in 1830s
 Not all newspapers were partisan.
◦ Niles Weekly Register, published in Baltimore
1811 - 1848, forerunner of modern press,
guided by principal of “magnanimous
disputation”
Partisan press France
In 1798, Napoleon
Bonaparte assumed power

Freedom of the press ended,

and widespread system of
censorship was put
in place by 1808

Number of newspapers in
Paris dwindled from
hundreds to only 4 by 1811.

Censorship was lifted following Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, then

imposed by French authorities, and occasionally lifted again in cycles
over the next century.
What was it like
to work in a printing chapel?

Long hours, low pay, very strenuous, but also interesting, a place for
literate people, the Creatures of Prometheus.

See the web site for the book Revolutions in Communication

Life in a print shop
 Upper and lower case
 Mind “p”s and “q”s
 Composing “on the stick”
 By the same token
 Out of sorts
 Playing quadrats
 Getting a washing
 Spirit of the chapel
Review: Questions
 Where does paper come from?
 What is parchment? What is papyrus?
 Who invented printing?
 How did steam printing affect the
industry?
 How did rotary presses lead to
stereotyping?
 When was mechanical typesetting
invented?
Review: People & Technology
 Cai Lun, Henry Fourdrinier,
 Bi Sheng, Johannes Gutenberg
 Friedrich Koenig, Otto Mergenthaler
 Rene Higgonnet, Louis Moyroud ,
Vannevar Bush
Review: Book people
 Martin Luther
 Francis Bacon
 John Milton
 Voltaire
 John Locke
 Thomas Paine
 John Wilkes
 Camille Desmoulins
 William Cobbett
 Benjamin Franklin
Review
 Terms: logographic, codex, scriptoria,
incunabula, printing chapel
 Ideas: Partisan press, sedition act,
religious tolerance, Fourth Estate
 Major trends: Protestant reformation,
Enlightenment, English Civil War,
American & French revolutions
Next
 Each drop in price / increase in power
and speed extended the printing
revolution
 Stagnation in the 1870-1970 period
led to complacency in publishing
 Publishers missed digital curve in the
road and lost markets
 For more, read the RinC web site:
Who killed the American newspaper?
Next: Chapter 2
The Industrial Press