Q.1  Imagine that you are Marco Polo. Write a letter from China to describe the world of print which you have seen there .

[Hint :  Students write letter themselves mentioning the following description of the world of print in China ]

The description of the world of print in China is as under :

1. The textbooks are produced by the woodblock print technology.

2. They are further duplicated by the skilled scribes.

DISCUSS

Q.1 Write briefly why some people feared that the development of print could lead to the growth of dissenting idea.

Some people from upper or elite classes of Europe thought that the printed material could spread messages of revolution against the existing monarchical and religious system. This made them fearful of print material.

ACTIVITY

Q.1 Imagine that you are a cartoonist in France before the revolution. Design a cartoon as it would have appeared in a pamphlet.

[Hint : The cartoon must show the hard times and miserable conditions of the common peasants, artisans and workers, Also, it should show aristocracy enjoying good meal and inscurious comforts with their wives. ]

DISCUSS

Q.1 Why do some historians think that print culture created the basis for the French Revolution ?

The following arguments are given in favour of the facts that the print culture created conditions for the French Revolution :

1. Printing popularized the ideas of enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Rouseaue.

2. Collectively their writings provided a critical commentary on tradition , superstition and despotism. they propagated “ reasons”. This influenced people ‘s mind to rebel against monarchy.

3. Printing created new culture of dialogue and debate between old religious and political ideas and the new politico religious ideas. This led to the spread of new ideas of social revolution.

4. Cartoon and caricatures that came into being through print technology, mocked monarchy and expressed the sufferings of common people. This also inflamed the fire of revolution.

ACTIVITY

Q.1  Look at figure 13. What impact do such advertisements have on the public mind? Do you think everyone reacts to printed material in the same way ?

Such advertisements influence people’s minds immensely. they divert their thoughts and provoke them to buy the advertised products.

No. everyone does not react to printed material in the same way.

ACTIVITY

Q.1  (i) What comments are the artists making on the social changes taking place in society ?

(ii) What changes in society  were taking place to provoke this reaction ?

(iii) Do you agree with the artist’s view?    

(i) (a) In fig 19 a man is dominated by his wife, and he is dominating his mother. Artist comments that tradition of mother- in – law dominating the daughter – in – law through her son has reversed, due to the new social changes taking place.

(b) In figure 20, the role between men  and women have reversed as women enjoys Hooka and a man plays Veena in order to entertain  his  wife.

(c) In figure 21, artist sends a message that social changes do not affect the English families.

(ii) The changes such as empowerment and upliftment of women through  western education were occurring in the society. These changes provoked artists to depict such images of families in India.

• According to me, artist’s view in the illustrations 19,20,21 are more extreme than the actual situation. They are partially out of focus or over assumed. The artist could have been moderate in their comments on the social changes taking place in Indian society.

 EXERCISE

Write in Brief

Q.1  Give reasons for the following

(a) Wood block print only came to Europe after 1295.

(b) Martin  Luther was in favour of print and spoke out in praise of it.

(c) The Roman Catholic Church began keeping Index of prohibited books from the mid – sixteenth century.

(d) Gandhi said the fight for Swaraj is a fight for liberty of speech,

liberty of press and freedom of association.   

(a) It was in 1295 , that the Italian explorer Marco polo returned from his long stay in China, where the woodblock printing was popular. He brought this technique with him to Europe.

(b) Through the publication of his protestant ideas, Martin Luther challenged the orthodox practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.When he translated the New Testament, 5000 copies were sold in a very short time. This was impossible without the print  technology. Therefor, he was in favor of print and spoke out in praise of it.

(c) The Roman Catholic Church had to face many dissents from mid- 16^th century inwards. People had written many books that interpreted the god and the creation in their own ways or as they like. Therefore , the church banned such books and kept the record of such banned books. It was called the index of prohibited books.

(d) Liberty of speech, press and freedom of association, were three there most powerful vehicles of expressing and cultivating public opinion, according of Gandhi. Therefore, he said the flight for Swaraj was a fight  for liberty of speech, press and freedom for association. 

Q.2 Write short notes to show what you  know about .

(a) The Gutenberg Press

(b) Erasmus’s idea of printed book.

(c) The Vernacular Press Act.

(a) The Gutenberg Press : 

•   It was a developed form of the olive press

•  The lead moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the

•  By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the system

•  The first book be printed was Bible.

• He produced 180 copies of Bible in 3 years, which was much faster by the standards of the time, at that time.

(b) Erasmus’s idea of Printed book :

•  Erasmus was a Latin scholar and a catholic reformer

•  He criticized the printing of books.

• He thought that most of the books are stupid, ignorant, slanderous, scandalous, raving, irreligious and seditious.

•  According to him such books devaluate the valuable books

(c) The vernacular Press Act :  The vernacular press Act o 1878 had following

•  It was modeled on the Irish Press Laws.

• It provided the colonial government with extension right to censor reports and editorials of the Vernacular press.

• If a report was found to be seditious, the newspaper was warned, and if the warning was ignored, the press was liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.

Q.3  What did the spread of print culture in 19^th century India mean to :

(a) Women

(b) The poor

(c) Reformers

(a) Women

•  The spread of the print culture in 19^th century India. Benefited Indian women.

•  The liberal families, supported the education of women, but on the other hand, the conservative families prevented women to study or read.

•  This led to the counter reaction , as most of the oppressed women began to study and read books and learnt writing in the secret ways ( in kitchens)

•  They latter expressed their lives in the biographical accounts which were published much after they were written.

•  Overall, the print culture helped in spread of the feelings of self- reliance among Indian women.

(b)  The poor

(i) The poor people found the mouthpieces in the learned and aware social leaders such as Ambedkar, periyar, phul, etc.

(ii) The poor people’s wretched lives were also depict in various novels that were written  abundantly during the 19^th century.

•  Those who worked as woodcutters, four employment in the pawnshops.

•  In this way the poor people, benefited from the development of print culture in India.

(c)  The Reformers

(i) Indian reforms of 19^th century utilized print culture as the most potent means of spreading their reformist ideas.

(ii) They began publishing various Vernacular and English and Hindi  newspapers through which they spread the words against immolation, child marriage monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry.

• Print culture provided them a space for attacking religious orthodoxy and to spread modern social and political ideas.

DISCUSS

Q.1 Why did some people in 18^th century Europe think that the print culture would bring enlightenment and end despotism ?

Many people in the 18^th century Europe, like Louise – Sebastien Mercier, thought that the print culture is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion . it has the force of sweeping out despotism and spread enlightenment.

Q.2  Why did some people fear the effect of easily available printed books? Choose one example from Europe and one from India.

Some people feared the effect of easily available printed books because.

•  They feared that rebellions and irreligious thoughts light spread due to it.

Examples

• Europe :- Roman Catholic Church tried to curb the printed book though the index prohibited books.

• India :- the vernacular Press Act imposed restrictions on Indian Press and various local newspapers.

Q.3   What were the effects of the spread of print culture for poor people in 19^th century India ?

The spread of print culture in 19^th century India had following  effects on the poor  people :

1. Many of them got employment in print shops

2. They got aware of national, international and local news through cheap printed material.

3. With the Vernacular press, the national made home in the minds of poor people.

4. Caste discrimination, brought up through culture, associated poor people with national freedom struggle.

5. The noble messages such as restriction on excessive drinking, increase in literacy among poors, etc . were spread through the print culture.

Q.4    Explain how print culture assisted the growth of nationalism in India ?

The print culture immensely helped in the growth of nationalism in India in the  following ways :

1. Through Vernacular press, exploitative methods of colonial government were reported.

2. The misrule of government and its initiative on curbing the freedom press,, spread the nationalist ideas, that demanded freedom of press

3. Revolutionary ideas were also secretly spread by the print culture.

4. National newspaper , always worked to mobilize public opinion of Indian masses

5. The progress of new forms such as novels, essays, journal and newspapers, spread the feelings of value among the readers.

6. Education, spread through print culture, prepared fertile minds which were influenced by the reformist and nationalist ideas of the Indian leaders like Raja Rammohun Roy and Gandhi.

PROJECT

Q.1      Find out more about the changes in print technology in the last 100 year. Write  about the ………………… explaining why they have taken place, what    consequences have been.

(i)  Eighteenth century innovations:

At the end of the eighteenth century, there were several remarkable innovations in the graphic techniques and those that were utilized to make their materials. Bewick developed  the method of using engraving tools on the end of the wood. Senefelder discovered lithography. Blake made relief etchings.

(ii) Nineteenth century innovations :

• Early in the nineteenth century Stan hope, George E. Clymer, Koenig and others introduced new kinds of type presses, which for strength surpassed anything that had previously been known.

• Bryan Donkin developed a comerical application of Fourdrinier machine and invented the composition roller.

(iii)  Twentieth century innovation

Books and newspaper  are printed  using the technique of offset lithography. Other common techniques include

•  Flexography used for packaging, labels, newspaper

•  Relief print,(mainly used for catalogues),

•  Screen printing From T – shirt to floor tiles

•  Rotogravure mainly used for magazines and packaging.

• Inkjet used typically to print a small  number of books or packaging , and also to print a variety of material from high quality papers stimulate offset printing floor tiles; Inkjet is also used to apply mailing addresses to direct mail pieces.

•  Hot wax dry transfer

• Laser printing mainly used in office transactional printing (bills, bank documents printing is commonly used by direct mail compound to create variable data letters or coupons, etc.

•  Gravure : 

For gravure printing. The image to be printed is made up of small holes sunk into the surface of the printing plate. The cells are filled with ink  and the excess is scraped off the surface.  Then a rubber – covered roller presses paper into the surface of the plate  and into contact with the ink in the cells. The printing  plates are usually made from copper and may be produced by engraving etching. Gravure printing  is used for long, high – quality print runs such as magazines, mail – order catalogues, packaging, and printing onto fabric and wallpaper . it is also used for printing postage stamps and decorative plastic laminates such as kitchen worktops.

•  Digital Printing :

Printing at home or in an office or engineering environment is subdivided into :

•  Small format ( up to ledger size paper sheets) , as used in business offices and libraries

• Wide format ( up to 3’ or 914 m wide rolls of paper ), as used in drafting and design establishments.

Some of the more common technologies are

•  Line printing – Where pre – formed characters are applied to the paper by lines

•  Daisy wheel – where pre-formed characters are applied individually

•  Dot- matrix – which produces arbitrary patterns of dots with an array of printing studs

•  Heat transfer – like early fax machines or modern receipt printers that apply heat to special paper, which turns black to form the printed image

•  Laser – where toner consisting primarily of polymer with pigment of the desired colors is melted and applied directly to the paper to create the desired image

•  Reasons and consequences behind these changes :

Vendors typically stress the total cost to operate the equipment, involving complex calculations that include all cost factors involved in the operation as well as the capital equipment costs, amortization , etc. for the most part, toner systems beat inkjet in the long  run, whereas inkjets are less expensive in the initial purchase price.

Professional digital printing (using toner) primarily uses an electrical charge to transfer toner or liquid ink to the substrate it is printed on. Digital print quality has steadily improved from early  colour digital presses like the Xerox iGen3, the Kodak express and the HP Indigo  Digital press series. The iGen3 and Express use tenor particles  and the Indigo uses liquid ink. All three are made for small runs and variable data, and rival offset in quality. Digital offset presses are called direct imaging presses; although these receive computer files and automatically turn them into – print – ready plates, they cannot insert variable data.

Small  press and fanzines generally use digital printing or more rarely xerography. Prior to the introduction of cheap photocopying, the use of machines such as the spirit duplicator, hectograph, and mimeograph was common.

ADDITIONAL QUESTION

Short Answer Type Question  ( 30 words )

Q.1  How were Chinese book made long – long ago?   

•  Long – long ago, when paper was invented in China, it was rubbed against the inked surface of wooden blocks, from one side only.

• This was the traditional Chinese “accordion book” in which paper was folded and stitched at side. Later it was duplicated by skilled men.

Q.2  For what purpose, books were printed in imperial China?

• Imperial China had a system of large bureaucracy. Then men were selected to it, through a written examination.

•  Candidates who wrote this, needed textbooks to prepare for the same.

Q.3  How did the development of urban culture in China help in increase of printed material?

With  the development of the urban culture in China, readership increase due to following reasons :

•  Merchants used print materials to collect trade information.

•  People began to read for leisure.

•  Rich women began to read.

Short Answer Type Question (60-80 Words)

Q.4  Write a note of printing in Japan.

•  Handwritten printing was introduced in Japan by Buddhist monks.

•  Diamond Surat is the oldest printed book of Japan. It contains six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.

•  In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were regularly nublished and ……………………………..

…………. Printed collections of the urban centres like Edo (Tokyo) depicted artists, courtesans and tea house. Gatherings.

•  Libraries and bookstores had various hand printed material on blooks on women, musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony, flower arrangements, proper etiquettle, cooking and famous places.

Q.5  Who was Louise – Sebastien Mercier?

• Louise – Sebastien Mercier was a French novelist in 18^th

• He declared, “The printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion is the force that would sweep despotism a way.”

• He believed books will bring enlightenment of society and thus tyranny would end.

Long Answer Type Question (100-125 words)

Q.6  Describe the earliest printed book of Europe after Gutenberg invented the printing press.

The main features of the earliest printed books of Europe after Gutenberg invented the printing press were as under :

•  Printed books at first closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout.

•  The metal letters imitated the ornamental hand written styles.

•  Borders of the printed books were illuminated by hand with foliage and other patterns.

•  Illustrations were painted.

•  In the book printed for the rich, space for decoration was kept blank on the printed page.

• It was done so that each purchaser could choose the design and decide on the painting school that would do the illustrations.