AP Board 10th Class Social History Notes 5th Lesson Print Culture and the Modern World
→ We find evidence of print everywhere around us.
→ We take for granted this world of Print and of ten forget that there was a time before print.
→ It is necesay to know aboat the develpment of print form its beginning in Asia to its expansion in Europe and India.
→ Let us study the impact of the spread of technology and the change of social lives and cultures with the coming of print.
→ The art of beautiful and stylised writing is called calligraphy.
→ China recruited its personnel through the Civil Service Examinations.
→ From the sixteenth century the number of examination candidates went up and that Increased the volume of print.
→ By the seventeenth century urban culture bloomed in China. Publishers, writers and areadership increased,
→ In the late nineteenth century, western powers established their outposts in China. Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture.
→ Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around A.D. 768-770.
→ The oldest Japanese book, printed In A.D. 868, is the Buddhist ‘Diamond Sutra’ containing six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
→ Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices.
→ Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand printed material of various types.
→ Chinese paper reached Europe through the silk route.
→ Italians began producing books with wood blocks and soon the technology spread to other parts of Europe.
→ The book sellers employed more scribes – more than fifty scribes for one bookseller.
→ Wood blocks were used In Europe to print textiles, playing cards and religious pictures.
→ Johann Gutenberg developed the first known printing press In the 1430s.
→ Gutenberg, the son of a merchant saw wine and olive presses In his childhood.
→ The olive Pr,s provided the model for the printing press.
→ Moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet.
→ He perfected the system by 1448. The first Book printed by him was the Bible.
→ He printed about 180 copies of the Bible In three years.
→ At first the printed books resembled the manuscripts. The metal letters Imitated the ornamental handwritten styles.
→ Between 1450 and 1550, printing presses were set up In most countries of Europe.
→ As the number of printing presses grew, book production boomed.
→ The Second half of the fifteenth century saw 20 million copies In the markets of Europe.
→ The number went up to 200 million copies In the sixteenth century.
→ The Print Revolution transformed the lives of people.
→ It Influenced popular perceptions and opened up new ways of looking at things.
→ With the printing press, printing reduced the cost of books.
→ Books flooded the market reaching out to an ever growing readership.
→ People heard the sacred texts read out, ballads recited and folk tales narrated.
→ Knowledge was transferred orally; people collectively heard a story or saw a performance.
→ New books could reach out to wider sections. Hearing public became reading public.
→ The rate of literacy was low till the twentieth century In most European countries.
→ To reach listening public and to make books poular printers beagn publishing popular ballads illustrated with pictures. Thus oral culture entered print.
→ Printed material was orally transmitted
→ Gradually oral and reading cultures did not remain separated. The hearing public and reading public became Intermingled.
→ Print helped wide drculation it opened up new world of debate and dlscssion also.
→ It was feared that if there was no control over Print rebellious and irreliglous thoughts might spread.
→ The authority of valuable literature would be destryed: this criticism 9 the new printed Literature began to circulate.
→ In 1517, the religious reformer, Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising most of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
→ Luther’s writings were reproduced in vast numbes and read widely.
→ Luther’s writing led to a divison in the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
→ Luther’s translation of the New Testament was received well by the people. It sold 5000 copies within a few weeks. Its second edition appeared within three months.
→ Luther was deeply grateful to print. He said Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.
→ Thus, printing brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new ideas that led to the Reformation.
→ Print stimulated many dlstlnctlve indlvldaal interpretations of faith even among little educated working pople.
→ Menocchio was a miller in Italy. He read books available in his locality.
→ He reinterpreted the message of the Bible. He formulated a view of God and creation. His views enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
→ Menocchio was executed for spreading heretical ideas, which were considered a threat to the right of the church.
→ As a result the Roman church imposed severe controls over publishers and booksellers. lt began to maintain an index of prohibited books from 1558.
→ Literacy rates went up through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in most parts of Europe.
→ It resulted In a reading mania; books were produced in large numbers.
→ Booksellers employed pedlars, they roamed around villages carrying little books for sale – caiendars ballads and ‘folk tles reading matter for entertainnint and chaphooks, sold for a penny.
→ In France there were ‘Billottieque Bleue’, the low priced small boais printed on poor quality paper with cheap blue covers.
→ There were newspapers and journals with information about current affairs, entertainment, war and trade and new developments at various places.
→ Scientists and philosophers became more accessible to common people. Isaac Newton. Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau and many others.
→ By the mid eighteenth centuty, it was believed heved that books were a means of spreading progress and enlightenment.
→ France declared. The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion, is the torce that will sweep depotism away.
→ Print helped to bring enlightenment and destroying the basis of despotism.
→ Meier proclaimed. Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world! Tremble before the virtuil writer”
→ Three types of arguments were put forward connecting print culture and French Revoluion.
→ The writings of the Enlightenment thinkers provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism. They argued for the rule of reason but not custom. They demanded that everything should be judged through the application of reason and rationality They attacked the authority of the church. The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau made the people see the world through new eyes. Their approach was questioning critical and rational.
→ Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. People became aware of the power of reason. They recognised the need to question the existing ideas and beliefs. New ideas of social revolution came into being within the public culture.
→ The vast literature mocked the royalty and criticised their morailty by the 1780s. It raised questns about the existing social order. The monarchy was absorbed in sensual pleures. The common people suffered many handshlps. As a result they developed hostile sentiments against the monarchy.
→ Print helped the spread of ideas. People read the ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau. They did not read one kind of literature only They were also exposed to monarchical and church propaganda. They were not totally influenced by what they read or saw. They accepted some ideas and rejected others. They interpreted things in their owi way. Print did not entirely shape their minds. It opened up the possibility of thlnidng differently.
→ The mneteenth century saw many readers among children, women and workers.
→ When primary education became compulsory from the late nineteenth century, children became an important category of readers.
→ children’s press was set up In France In 1857 and published new worics and old tales also.
→ The Grimm Brothers in Germany compiled folk tales gatherd from peasants.
→ Anything, unsuitable to children or appeared vulgar to the elites was not published.
→ Rural folk tales acquired a new form. Print not only recorded old tales but alsoichanged them to suit the children.
→ Women became important readers as well as writers penny novels were available especially or women.
→ Women became imp&tant readers when novels began to be written in the nineteenth century.
→ Some of the best known novelists women-Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters and George Eliot.
→ The writings defined a new type of woman – a woman of will, strength of persordity, deteimination and the power to think.
→ In the nineteenth century, in England, lending libraries helped to educate whit A collar workers, artisans and lower middle class people.
→ Some self-educated working class people wrote for themselves as they founl time for: self Improvement and self expression. They wrote political tracts and autobiographies in large numbers.
→ By the late eighteenth century there were a series of further innovations in printing technoiogy
→ Richard M.Hoe of New York perfected power driven cylindrical press It could print 8000 sheets per hour. It was highly useful for printing newspapers.
→ There were many developments in the methods of feeding paper and quallty of plates became better. Automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour were introduced. All these improvements changed the appearance of the printed texts.
→ Printers and publishers continuously developed new strategies of selling their product.
→ Senalised noveis in periodicals gave birth to a particular way of writing novels.
→ Cheap series called shilling serles were sold.
→ The book Jacket or the dust cover was an innovation of the twentieth century.
→ There was a Great Depression in the 1930s. Publishes feared a decline In book purchases. To sustain buying they brought out cheap paper back editions.
→ Ideas and information were circulated before printing began in India.
→ India had a very rich and old tradition of handwritten manuscripts In Sanskrit, Arabic,Persian and various Vernacular languages.
→ They were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
→ They were produced till the late nineteenth centry, even after the Introduction of print.
→ Manuscripts were expensive and fragile. As the script was written in different styles, it could not be read easily.
→ Manuscripts were not widelyused In everyday life.
→ Teachers dictated portions of the texts from their memory students wrote them down.
→ Many Indians, thus became literate, without reading texts.
→ The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries In the mid sixteenth century.
→ By 1674 about 50 books were printed In the Konkani and Kanara languages.
→ The first Tamil book was printed in 1579 in Cochin by the Catholic priests. They printed the first Malayalam book in 1713.
→ By 1710 Dutch Protestant missionaries printed 32 Tamil texts, many of them were the translations of older works.
→ The English East india company began to import presses from the late seventeenth century.
→ From 1780 James Augustus Hickey began to edit the Bengal ‘Gazette, a private English enterprise. It was a weekly magazine.
→ He published advertisements related to the import and sale of slaves: gossip about : the East India Company’s senior officlals In India.
→ The Governor General Warren Hastings was enraged and persecuted Hickey.
→ Warren Hastings encouraged the publication of the officially sanctioned newspapers to counter the damage, to the Image of the colonial government.
→ Indians began to publish Indian newspapers by the close of the eighteenth century.
→ The first Indian weeldy was ‘Bengal Gazettee brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya. He was close to Rainmohan Roy.
→ There were intense debates around religious issues from the early nineteenth century.
→ Different groups offered a variety of new Interpretations of the beliefs of different religions.
→ Some criticised the existing practices and compaigned for reform while some others countered the arguments of reformers.
→ The debates appeared in Print. The newspapers spread the new ideas. They shaped the nature of the debate.
→ A wider public participated and new ideas emerged through the clashes of opinions.
→ There were controversies between the reformers and the Hindu orthodoxy over matters like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmlnical priesthood and idolatry.
→ As the debate developed, the newspapers circulated a variety of arguments.
→ The ideas were printed in the spoken language of the ordinary people.
→ The great reformer Rammohan Roy published, the Sanibad Kaumidi from 1821.
→ The Hindu orthodoxy published the Samachar Chandrika to oppose his opinions.
→ In North India the ‘ulma’ were deeply anxious about the collapse of Muslim dynasties.
→ The Muslims feared that the colonial rulers would encourage conversion and change Muslim personal laws.
→ They published the Persian and Urdu translations of the holy scriptures to counter it.
→ The Deoband seminary was founded in 1867. It published thousands and thousands of fatwas. They told Muslim readers how to conduct themselves In their everyday lives. They explained the meanings of the Islamic doctrines.
→ Muslim sects and seminaries gave different interpretations of faith to counter the influence of their opponents.
→ Urdu print helped them conduct the battles in public.
→ Print encouraged the reading of the religious texts among the HIndus.
→ ‘The Ramacharitamanas’, a sixteenth century text of Tulsldas, was printed Calcfltta in 1810.
→ Naval Kishore Press in Lucknow and Sri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published many religious texts in vernaculars from the 1880s.
→ The books were printed in protable form. They could be read by the faithful people at any place and time. They could also be read out to laige groups of illiterate men and women.
→ Print published conflicting opinions. At the same time it connected communities and people in different parts of India.
→ Religious texts reached a very wide circle of people. They encouraged discussions, debates and controversies among different religions.
→ Printing created an appetite for new kinds of writing. People wanted their own lives, experiences, emotions and relationships reflected in what they read.
→ The novel which was developed in Europe catered to this need.
→ It soon acquired Indian forms and styles.
→ It opened up new worlds of experience and gave a sense of diversity of human lives.
→ Other new literary forms also entered the world of reading – lyrics, short stories, essays about social and political matters.
→ They reinforced the new emphasis on human lives and intimate feelings, about the : political and social rules that shaped such things.
→ A new visual culture began taking shape by the end of the nineteenth century.
→ Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation.
→ Cheap prints and calendars were easily available in the market, poor people bought them,to decorate the walls of their homes and places of work. They shaped popular ideas about tradition, politics, society and culture.
→ Carricatures and cartoons were published in journals and newspapers by the 1870s commenting on social and political issues.
→ Some carricatures ridiculed the educated Indians fascination with western tastes and clothes.
→ There were imperial carricatures lampooning nationalists, nationalist cartoons criticised the Imperial rule.
→ Women’s reading Increased in middle class homes. Their husbands and fathers encouraged them by sending them to schools.
→ Women’s schools were setup in the mid nineteenth century.
→ Many Journals carried the writings of women and explained why women should be educated. They carried a syllabus with suitable reading matter for home based schooling.
→ All families were not liberal. Conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed.
→ Muslims feared that educated women would be corrupted by reading Urdu romances.
→ Some rebel women defied the prohibition.
→ In a conservative Muslim family in North India, a girl was asked to read only the Arabic Quran which she did not understand. She secretly learnt to read and write in Urdd.
→ An orthodox Hindu girl Rashsundari Debi learnt to read In the secrecy of her kitchen. She wrote her autobiography Amar Jiban. which was published in 1876.
→ Social reforms and novels created a great Interest in women’s lives and emotions.
→ From the 1860s Bengali women began to write books Kallashbashlnl wrote books highlighting the miserable experiences of women.
→ In the 1880s, the Maharashtra women Tarabal Shinde and Pandlta Ramabai wrote with passionate anger about the miserable lives of the upper caste Hindu women, especially widows.
→ A woman in a Tamll novel expressed the benefits of education to women who were confined by social regulations. She said,‘For various reasons my world is small More than half of my life’s happiness has come from books.”
→ Hindi printing began from the 1870s. Most of it was devoted to the education of women.
→ Journals written for and edited by women be came very popular in the early twentieth century.
→ They discussed womens education, widowhood, widow remarriage and the national movement.
→ There were fashion lessons to women.
→ Short stories and seriallsed novels gave entertainment to women.
→ Folk literature was widely printed In the Punjab from the early twentieth century.
→ Rama Chaddlia published the fast selling ‘Istrl Dharm Vicha? to teach women how to be obedient wives. The Khalsa Tract society published cheap booklets with a similar message. Many of them were in the form of dialogues, about the qualities of a good woman.
→ The Battala was an area in central Calcutta. There were cheap popular books on religion, scriptures and scandalous literature.
→ The books were illustrated with wood cuts, useful to women to read during their leisure time.
→ Wry cheap small books were available in Madras in the nineteenth century. They were sold at cross roads to poor people travelling to markets to buy them.
→ There were libraries in cities, towns and prosperous villages they were set up from the early twentieth cntury expanding the access to book.
→ Many essays were written on casteiscrimination.
→ Jyotlba Phule was a Maratha pioneer of low caste protest movements. He wròte about the injustices of the caste system in his ‘Gulamgirl’ (1871)
→ B.R Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. Ramaswami Naicker in Madras wrote powefully on the caste system.
→ Local protest movements and sects created popular journals for a new and just future.
→ Workers, though they did not have much education, began to write books.
→ Kashlbaba a mill worker wrote and published ‘Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal in 1938 presenting caste and class exploitation.
→ A Kanpur mill worker wrote under the name of Sudarshan Chakr between 1935 and 1955. He published the collection Sacchi Kavitayan.
→ The Bangalore cotton mill workers set up libraries by the 1930s.
→ The social reformers tried to restrict excessive drinking, bring literacy and propagate the message of nationalism.
→ The East India Company was not much concerned with Print censorship before 1798.
→ There was criticism against some company officers. The company was worried about Its effect on trade In India.
→ The Calcutta Supreme Court passed certain regulations to control press freedom by the 1820s.
→ When there were petitions from editors of newspapers, Governor-General Bentlnck agreed to revise press laws.
→ Macaulay a liberal colonial offidal formulated new rules to restore the earlier freedom.
→ The attitude to the freedom of the press changed after the 1857 revoit.
→ The vernacular newspapers supported nationalism. So the government decided to control them.
→ in 1878. the Vernacular Press Act was passed giving rights to government.
→ When there was a seditious report, the newspaper was warned. If the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.
→ Despite warnings by the British Government, the number of the nationalist papers in India grew.
→ They reported on colonial misrule and encouraged the nationalist activities.
→ There were a cycle of persecution and protests.
→ Balgangadhar Tilak wrote with great sympathy on the Punjab revolutionaries in his newspaper ‘Kesarl.
→ Tilak was Imprisoned in 1908 and there were protests all over India.
→ Platen : In letter press printing, platen is a board, pressed on to the back of the paper to get the impression.
→ Bailad : A historical account or folk tale in verse usually sung or redted, a verse of four lines.
→ Taverns : Places where people gathered to drink alcohol to be served food and to meet friends and exchange news.
→ Heretical : Beliefs which do not follow the accepted teachings of the church.
→ Satiety : The state of being fulfilled.
→ Seditious : Action, speech or writing that is seen as opposing the government.
→ Despotism : Absolute power exercised by a person; uses unjustly: tyranny.
→ Throttle : Seize tightly by the throat to stop breathing.
→ Persecution : Treat cruelly and cause to suffer.
→ Caricature : Ar of making a representation of someone In a drawing or painting.
→ Lampooning : A wiiting, attacking a person or government.
→ Woodblock : It Is a form of relief printing and is based on the principle that parts that are not to be printed are cut out, Instead colours are pressed on the raised parts, applied like a relief and this would then be rubbed onto a piece of paper or pushed through the press, in which case, the reliefs would be reversed.
→ Calligraphy : It is an ancient writing technique using flat edged pens to create artistic lettering using thick and thin lines depding on the direction of the storke.
→ Diamond Sutra : The oldest Japanese book printed in AD 868 containing six sheets of texts and woodcut illustrations.
→ Print Revolution : The shift from hand printing to mechanical printing is known as the print revolution.
→ Hand printing : Printed or put on a surface by hand rather than by machine.
→ Penny Magazines : They were illustrated magazines which were read extensively by working class and women In 19th century Britain. They dealt with teaching proper manners and techniques related to housekeeping for women.
→ Cylindrical Press : A printing press in which a rotating cylinder rolls the paper against a printing surface lying on a flat usually horizontal reciprocating bed.
→ ManuscrIpt : Book or document written by hand. It can also be termed as the original copy – hand – written or typed but not printed.
→ Vernacular Language : It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by the inhabiting people of a particular country or region.
→ Ulama : A body of Muslim scholars who are recognized as – having specialist knowledge of islamic sacred law and, theology.
→ Vernacular Press Act : Vernacular Press Act en-acted in 1878s in British India was to curtail the freedom of the Indian language press.