History _ Print Culture and Modern World L-3

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Print Culture and Modern World
What we will
learn in this ● Development of print, from its
chapter? beginnings in East Asia to its
expansion in Europe and in India
● Impact of the spread of

technology and consider how
social lives and cultures changed
with the coming of print
● The earliest kind of print
technology was
developed in China,
Japan and Korea.
● This was a system of
hand printing.
PRINT IN CHINA
From AD 594 onwards, books in China printed
by rubbing paper – also invented there –
against the inked surface of woodblocks.
As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not

be printed, the traditional Chinese ‘accordion
book’ was folded and stitched at the side
Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate,

with remarkable accuracy, the beauty of
calligraphy.
● The imperial state in China was the
major producer of printed material
● China possessed a huge bureaucratic

system which recruited its personnel
through civil service examinations.
● Textbooks for this examination were

printed in vast numbers under the
sponsorship of the imperial state
● From the 16th century, the no. of

examination candidates went up and
that increased the volume of print.
Diversified uses of print
By the 17th century, as urban culture bloomed

in China, the uses of print diversified
Print was no longer used just by scholar

officials. Merchants used print in their
everyday life, as they collected trade
information.
Preference of new readers: fictional

narratives, poetry, autobiographies,
anthologies of literary masterpieces, and
romantic plays.
Diversified uses of print
Wives of scholar-officials published

their works and courtesans wrote
about their lives
Rich women began to read, and

many women began publishing their
poetry and plays.
The New Reading Culture
● Accompanied by a new technology
● Western printing techniques and mechanical

presses were imported in the late 19th century
as Western powers established their outposts
in China
● Shanghai became the hub of the new print

culture, catering to the Western-style schools.
● From hand printing there was now a gradual

shift to mechanical printing
PRINT IN JAPAN
● Buddhist missionaries from China
introduced hand-printing technology into
Japan around AD 768-770.
● The oldest Japanese book, printed in AD

868, is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra,
containing six sheets of text and woodcut
illustrations
● Pictures were printed on textiles, playing
cards and paper money.
● In medieval Japan, poets and prose

writers were regularly published, and
books were cheap and abundant.
Printing of visual material led to
interesting publishing practices.
In the late 18th century, in the flourishing urban circles at

Edo (Tokyo), illustrated collections of paintings depicted
an elegant urban culture, involving artists, courtesans,
and teahouse gatherings.
Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-

printed material of various types – books on women,
musical instruments, calculations, tea ceremony,
etc
A morning scene, ukiyo print by
Shunman Kubo, late eighteenth
century
A man looks out of the window at

the snowfall while women prepare
tea and perform other domestic
duties
PRINT COMES TO EUROPE
● For centuries, silk and spices from China flowed into Europe through the silk route.
● In the 11th century, Chinese paper reached Europe via the same route.
MARCO POLO
● In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer,

returned to Italy after many years of
exploration in China
● Marco Polo brought the knowledge of

woodblock painting from China back
with him.
● Italians began producing books with

woodblocks, & soon the technology
spread to Europe
● Luxury editions still handwritten on
expensive vellum, meant for
aristocratic circles & rich monastic
libraries which scoffed at printed books
as cheap vulgarities
● Merchants and students in the

university towns bought the cheaper
printed copies
Vellum: A parchment made from the skin of
animals
As the demand for books increased, booksellers all over
Europe began exporting books to many different countries.
Book fairs were held at different places
Production of handwritten Scribes or skilled handwriters were

manuscripts was also no longer solely employed by
organised in new ways to meet wealthy or influential patrons but
the expanded demand. increasingly by booksellers as well.
More than 50 scribes often worked for one bookseller

Why does
production of
Manuscripts were fragile, handwritten
Copying was an awkward to handle, and manuscripts failed?
expensive, laborious could not be carried
& time-consuming around or read easily. Their
business circulation therefore
remained limited.
With the growing By the early 15th century,

demand for books, woodblocks were being
woodblock printing widely used in Europe to
gradually became print textiles, playing
more and more cards, and religious
popular. pictures with simple, brief
texts
There was great need for even quicker & cheaper reproduction of texts.
The breakthrough
This could only occurred at
be with the Strasbourg, Germany,
where Johann
invention of a Gutenberg developed
new print the first-known
technology printing press in the
1430s
Gutenberg
and the
Printing
Press
Johann Gutenberg
● Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and

grew up on a large agricultural estate
● From his childhood he had seen wine and
olive presses
● He learnt the art of polishing stones,
became a master Goldsmith, and also
acquired the expertise to create lead
moulds used for making trinkets
● GutenberĀ adapted existing technology
to design his innovation.
● The olive press provided the model for the
printing press, and moulds were used for
casting the metal types for the letters of
the alphabet.
Johann Gutenberg
● By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the

system
● The first book he printed was the
Bible.
● About 180 copies were printed and
it took 3 years to produce them
● By the standards of the time this
was fast production
Pages of Gutenberg’s Bible,

first printed book in Europe
The new technology
did not entirely
In fact, printed
displace the existing
books at first
art of producing
closely resembled
books by hand
the written
manuscripts in
appearance and The metal letters
layout imitated the
ornamental
handwritten
styles.
Borders were illuminated by hand with foliage and
other patterns, and illustrations were painted.
● In between 1450 and 1550,
printing presses were set up in
In the books printed for the rich, most countries of Europe.
space for decoration was kept
blank on the printed page. ● Printers from Germany travelled
to other countries, seeking work
and helping start new presses.
● As the number of printing presses

grew, book production boomed.
Each purchaser could choose the ● The second half of the 15th
design and decide on the painting century saw 20 million copies of
school that would do the printed books flooding the
illustrations markets in Europe.
● The number went up in the 16th

century to about 200 million
copies.
This shift from hand printing to mechanical printing
led to the
PRINT REVOLUTION
Gutenberg Printing Press
Platen
In letterpress printing, platen

is a board which is pressed
onto the back of the paper to
get the impression from the
type.
At one time it used to be a

wooden board; later it was
made of steel
| shimon_joseph Periodic Table | Class 11 | Mega Marathon
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This picture depicts what a printer’s shop looked like in the 16th century. All the
activities are going on under one roof. In the foreground on the right, compositors
are at work, while on the left galleys are being prepared and ink is being applied
on the metal types; in the background, the printers are turning the screws of the
press, and near them proofreaders are at work. Right in front
Compositor
The person who composes
the text for printing
Galley
Metal frame in which types
are laid and the text
composed
Print Revolution & its impact
What was the Print Revolution?
● A new way of producing books; it transformed

the lives of people, changing their relationship
to information and knowledge, and with
institutions and authorities.
● It influenced popular perceptions and opened

up new ways of looking at things.
A New Reading Public
● Printing press led to a new
reading public.
● Printing reduced the cost of

books.
● The time and labour required to

produce each book came down
● Markets were flooded with books

reaching out to an ever-growing
readership.
Situation before Age of Print (access to books)
Reading was restricted to the elites. Common people lived in a world of

oral culture
They heard sacred texts read out, ballads recited, and folk tales narrated.
Knowledge was transferred orally.
Before the age of print, books were not only expensive but they could not
be produced in sufficient numbers
Now books could reach out to wider sections off people.
Now a reading public came into being. But the transition was not so
simple.
Books could be read only by the literate
How, then, could publishers persuade the

common people to welcome the printed book?
Wider reach of the So printers began

printed work: even publishing popular These were then sung
those who did not ballads and folk tales, and recited at
read could certainly and such books would gatherings in villages
enjoy listening to be illustrated with and in taverns in towns.
books being read out pictures
Ballad
A historical account or folk
tale in verse, usually sung
or recited
Taverns
Places where people gathered to
drink alcohol, to be served food,
and to meet friends and
exchange news
● Oral culture thus entered print
and printed material was orally
transmitted.
● The line that seperated the oral

and reading cultures became
blurred
● And the hearing public and

reading public became
intermingled.
Religious Debates and the
Fear of Print
Print created the possibility of wide circulation of
ideas, and introduced a new world of debate and
discussion.
Even those who disagreed with established authorities

could now print and circulate their ideas
Through the printed message, they could persuade

people to think differently, and move them to
action.
This had significance in different spheres of

life.
● This is one of the many images produced
in early modern Europe, celebrating the
coming of print.
● You can see the printing press

descending from heaven, carried by a
Goddess.
● On two sides of the Goddess, blessing the

machine, are Minerva (the Goddess of
wisdom) and Mercury (the messenĀer
God).
● The women in the foreground are holding

plaques with the portraits of six pioneer
printers of different countries.
● In the middle ground on the left (figure

encircled) is the portrait of Gutenberg. J.V. Schley, L’Imprimerie, 1739.
● Not everyone welcomed the printed book, and those who did also had fears
about it.
● Many were apprehensive of the effects that the easier access to the printed
word and the wider circulation of books, could have on people’s minds.
● It was feared that if there was no control over what was printed and read then
rebellious and irreligious thoughts might spread.
● If that happened, the authority of ‘valuable’ literature would be destroyed
● Expressed by religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and

artists, this anxiety was the basis of widespread criticism of the new printed
literature that had begun to circulate.
Implication of Print Culture in Religious sphere of life in
early modern Europe
● In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety

Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of
the Roman Catholic Church.
● A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in

Wittenberg.
● It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
● Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast

numbers and read widely.
● This lead to a division within the Church and to the

beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
Protestant Reformation
● A 16th century movement

to reform the Catholic
Church dominated by
Rome. Martin Luther was
one of the main Protestant
reformers.
● Several traditions of anti-

Catholic Christianity
developed out of the
movement
Print and Dissent
Print and popular religious literature stimulated many
distinctive individual interpretations of faith even among
little-educated working people
In the 16th century, He reinterpreted the message of When Roman Church began
Menocchio, a miller in the Bible and formulated a view its inquisition to repress
Italy, began to read of God and Creation that heretical ideas, Menocchio
books that were enraged the Roman Catholic was hauled up twice and
available in his locality. Church. ultimately executed
Inquisition Heretical
A former Roman Catholic court for Beliefs which do not follow the accepted
teachings of the Church. In medieval
identifying and punishing heretics times, heresy was seen as a threat to the
right of the Church to decide on what
should be believed and what should not.
Heretical beliefs were severely punished.
Troubled by such effects of popular
readings & questionings of faith, the
Roman Church, imposed severe
controls over publishers &
booksellers & maintained an Index
of Prohibited Books from 1558.
The Reading Mania
Situation during 17th & 18th Century
● Literacy rates went up in most parts of Europe. Churches of

diff. denominations (sub groups within a religion) set up
schools in villages, carrying literacy to peasants and artisans.
● By the end of the 18th century, in some parts of Europe

literacy rates were as high as 60 to 80%.
● As literacy and schools spread in European

countries, there was a virtual reading mania
● People wanted books to read and printers

produced books in ever increasinĀ numbers.
Almanac
Meaning of Almanac ● New forms of popular literature ,

targeting new audiences.
An annual publication giving
astronomical data, information ● Booksellers employed pedlars
about the movements of the sun ● There were almanacs or ritual
and moon, timing of full tides and calendars, along with ballads and
eclipses, and much else that was of
importance in the everyday life of folktales
people ● largely for entertainment
● In England, penny chapbooks were carried by
petty pedlars known as chapmen, and sold for a
penny, so that even the poor could buy them
● In France, “Biliotheque Bleue”, low-priced small

books printed on poor quality paper, and bound
in cheap blue covers
● Then there were the romances, printed on four to

six pages, and the more substantial ‘histories’
which were stories about the past
● Books were of various sizes, serving many

different purposes and interests
The periodical press developed Ideas about
from the early 18th century, science, reason
and rationality
combining information about found their way
current affairs with entertainment into popular
literature
Newspapers and journals carried

information about wars and trade,
as well as news of developments in
other places
Ideas of scientists & philosophers now became
more accessible to the common people
Ancient and medieval scientific texts were

compiled and published, and maps and
scientific diaĀrams were widely printed
When scientists like Isaac Newton began to publish

their discoveries, they could influence a much wider
circle of scientifically minded readers
Writings of thinkers such as Thomas Paine,

Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were also
widely printed and read
Issac Newton
By the mid-18th century, there was a common
conviction that books were a means of spreading
progress and enlightenment
Many believed that books could change the

world, liberate society from despotism and
tyranny, and herald a time when reason and
intellect would rule.
● Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in 18th-
century France, declared: The printing press is
the most powerful engine of progress and
public opinion is the force that will sweep
despotism away.’
● In many of Mercier’s novels, the heroes are

transformed by acts of reading
● Convinced of the power of print in bringing

enlightenment and destroying the basis of
despotism, Mercier proclaimed:
Tremble, therefore, tyrants of the world!

Tremble before the virtual writer!
Louise-Sebastien Mercier
Print Culture & French Revolution
Many historians have argued that print
culture created the conditions within which
French Revolution occurred
Three types of
arguments have been
usually put forward
1 Print popularised the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers
● Their writings provided critical commentary on tradition,

superstition & despotism
● Argued for the rule of reason rather than custom, and

demanded that everything be judged through the
application of reason and rationality
● They attacked the sacred authority of the Church and the

despotic power of state, thus eroding the legitimacy of
social order based on tradition.
2 Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate
● All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated

and discussed by a public that had become aware of
the power of reason, and recoĀnised the need to
question existing ideas and beliefs
● Within this public culture, new ideas of social revolution

came into being
By 1780s there was an outpouring of literature that
3 mocked the royalty and criticised their morality
● It raised questions about the existing social order
● Cartoons and caricatures typically suggested that

monarchy remained absorbed only in sensual
pleasures while common people suffered immense
hardships
● This literature circulated underground and led to the

growth of hostile sentiments against the monarchy.
● There can be no doubt that print helps the
spread of ideas
● But we must remember that people did not
read just one kind of literature
● If they read ideas of Voltaire and Rousseau,
they were also exposed to monarchical and
Church propaganda
● They were not influenced directly by
everything they read or saw
● They accepted some ideas and rejected others
● They interpreted things their own way
● Print did not directly shape their minds, but it
did open up the possibility of thinking
differently
The Nineteenth Century
The 19th century saw vast leaps in
mass literacy in Europe, bringing in
large numbers of new readers
among children, women and
workers
Children, Women and Workers
Children- Important Category of Readers
Production of school textbooks became critical for the
publishing industry
A children’s press, devoted to literature for

children alone, was set up in France in 1857
This press published new works as well

as old fairy tales and folktales
The Grimm Brothers in Germany

spent years compiling traditional
folk tales gathered from peasants
Censorship of Reading Materials
What Grimm Brothers collected was edited before the

stories were published in a collection in 1812
Anything that was considered unsuitable for

children or would appear vulgar to the elites,
was not included in the published version
Rural folk tales thus acquired a new

form. In this way, print recorded old
tales but also changed them.
Penny magazines were especially When novels began to be written in the
meant for women, as were 19th century, women were seen as
manuals teaching proper
important readers
behaviour and housekeeping
Women
Readers and
Writers
Writings became important in defining a new

type of woman:
-A person with will
-Strength of personality
-Determination
-Power to think
Some of the best known novelists were women
The Bronte
Jane Austen George Eliot
sisters
Workers, Artisans and Lower-Middle Class Readers
In 19th century lending libraries in England became instruments for

educating white-collar workers, artisans & lower-middle-class people
Sometimes, self-educated working class people wrote for themselves
After working day was gradually shortened from the mid-nineteenth

century, workers had some time for self-improvement and self-
expression
They wrote political tracts and autobiographies in larĀe numbers.

Further Innovations
By the late eighteenth
century, the press came to
be made out of metal
Through the 19th century,

there were a series of further
innovations in printing
technology
Innovations during mid-19th Century
Richard M. Hoe of New York had

perfected the power-driven cylindrical
press, which was particularly useful for
printing newspaper
This was capable of printing 8,000

sheets per hour
Innovations during late-19th Century
The offset press was developed which could print up

to six colours at a time
From the turn of the 20th century, electrically operated
presses accelerated printing operations.
Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates

became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric
controls of the colour register were introduced.
The accumulation of several individual mechanical

improvements transformed the appearance of printed texts
● Printers and publishers continuously developed new strategies to sell their
product.
● 19th century periodicals serialised important novels, which gave birth to a

particular way of writing novels.
● In the 1920s in England, popular works were sold in cheap series, called the
Shilling Series. The dust cover or the book jacket is also a 20th century
innovation.
● With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, publishers feared a decline in
book purchases.
● To sustain buying, they brought out cheap paperback editions

Advertisements at a railway station in England, a lithograph by Alfred Concanen, 1874
Printed advertisements & notices were plastered on street walls, railway platforms & public buildings
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History | Class 10 | Print Culture and Modern World
Let us see when printing began in India and how ideas and
information were written before the age of print
Pages from the Gita Govinda of

Jayadeva, 18th century
This is a palm-leaf
handwritten manuscript in
accordion forma
Manuscripts Before Age of 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.
Pages were sometimes beautifully
illustrated
They would be either pressed between

wooden covers or sewn together to
ensure preservation
Manuscripts continued to be produced

till well after the introduction of print,
down to the late 19th century
Features of
Manuscript
Highly Handled Difficult to

Fragile
expensive carefully read
The script was written in different styles.

So manuscripts were not widely used in everyday life
Even though pre-colonial Bengal had developed an extensive

network of village primary schools, students very often did
not read texts
They only learnt to write
Teachers dictated portions of texts from memory and

students wrote them down.
Many thus became literate without ever actually reading any

kinds of texts
Print Comes to India
The printing press first came to Goa with

Portuguese missionaries in the mid-16th century.
Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed

several tracts.
By 1674, about 50 books had been printed

in the Konkani and in Kanara languages.
Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579

at Cochin, and in 1713 the first Malayalam book was
printed by them.
By 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had

printed 32 Tamil texts, many of them
translations ofolder works
The English language press did not grow in

India till quite late even though the English
East India Company began to import
presses from the late 17th century
THE BENGAL GAZETTE

From 1780, James Augustus Hickey began to edit this weekly magazine
It was private English

enterprise, proud of its
independence from colonial
influence, that began English
printing in India
Hickey published a lot of

advertisements, including
those that related to the
import and sale of slaves.
Magazine was described as ‘a commercial paper open to all, but influenced by none.’
THE BENGAL GAZETTE
Hickey published a lot of gossip

about Company’s senior officials in
India, this enraged the Governor-
General Warren Hastings, who later
persecuted him
He encouraged the publication of

officially sanctioned newspapers
that could counter the flow of
information that damaged the
image of the colonial government
1. By the close of the 18th century, a

number of newspapers and journals
appeared in print.
2. There were Indians, too, who began to
publish Indian newspapers
3. The first to appear was the weekly
Bengal Gazette, brought out by
Gangadhar Bhattacharya, who was
close to Rammohun Roy.
RELIGIOUS REFORMS AND PUBLIC DEBATES
From the early 19th century, there were intense

debates around religious issues
Different groups confronted the changes

happening within colonial society in different
ways, and offered a variety of new interpretations
of the beliefs of different religions
Some criticised existing practices and

campaigned for reform, while others countered
the arguments of reformers
These debates were carried out in public and in print

1. Printed tracts and newspapers not

only spread the new ideas, but they
shaped the nature of the debate
2. A wider public could now
participate in these public
discussions and express their views
3. New ideas emerged through these
clashes of opinions
Period of intense controversies between social and

religious reformers & the Hindu orthodoxy over
matters
Example: widow immolation, monotheism,

Brahmanical priesthood and idolatry.
In Bengal, as the debate developed,

tracts and newspapers proliferated,
circulating a variety of arguments.
To reach a wider audience, the ideas were

printed in the everyday, spoken language of
ordinary people
Rammohan Roy published the Sambad

Kaumudi from 1821 and the Hindu orthodoxy
commissioned the Samachar Chandrika to
oppose his opinions
From 1822, two Persian newspapers

were published, Jam-i-Jahan Nama &
Shamsul Akhbar.
In the same year, a Gujarati

newspaper, the Bombay Samachar,
made its appearance
1. In north India, the ulama (legal scholars of Islam and the sharia) were deeply
anxious about the collapse of Muslim dynasties.
2. They feared that colonial rulers would encourage conversion, change the Muslim
personal laws.
3. To counter this, they used cheap lithographic presses, published Persian and Urdu
translations of holy scriptures, and printed reliĀious newspapers and tracts.
4. The Deoband Seminary, founded in 1867, published thousands upon thousands of
fatwas telling Muslim readers how to conduct themselves in their everyday lives,
and explaining the meanings of Islamic doctrines.
What is
Fatwa?
Fatwa: A legal pronouncement on Islamic law usually given by a

mufti (legal scholar) to clarify issues on which the law is
uncertain
Among Hindus, too, print encouraged the reading of

religious texts, especially in the vernacular languages.
● All through the 19th
century, a number of
Muslim sects and ● The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of
seminaries appeared, Tulsidas, a 16th century text, came out ÿrom
each with a different Calcutta in 1810.
interpretation of faith,
each keen on enlarging ● By the mid-19th century, cheap lithographic
its following and editions flooded north Indian markets From the
countering the 1880s,the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and the
influence of its Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published
opponents numerous religious texts in vernaculars.
● Urdu print helped them ● In their printed and portable form, these could be
conduct these battles in read easily by the faithful at any place and time.
public They could also be read out to large groups of
illiterate men and women
Religious texts, therefore, reached a

very wide circle of people,
encouraging discussions, debates
and controversies within and
among different religions
Print did not only stimulate the publication

of conflicting opinions amongst
communities, but it also connected
communities and people in different parts
of India
Newspapers conveyed news ÿrom one

place to another, creating pan-Indian
identities.
Demand for new kinds of writing
As more and more people could now read, they wanted to see their own
1 lives, experiences, emotions and relationships reflected in what they read.
In Europe, the novel, a literary firm, was developed to cater to the needs
2 of people who acquired Indian forms and styles.
3 It soon acquired distinctively Indian forms and styles.
For readers, it opened up new worlds of experience, and gave a vivid

4 sense of the diversity of human lives
Emergence of Other new literary forms
Essays
Short (Social &
Lyrics
stories Political
matters)
In different ways, they reinforced the new emphasis on

human lives and intimate feelings, about the political and
social rules that shaped such things
New visual culture took shape by the end of 19th century
With the setting up of an increasing

number of printing presses, visual
images could be easily reproduced in
multiple copies.
Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced

images for mass circulation.
Poor wood engravers who made

woodblocks set up shop near the
letterpresses, and were employed by
print shops
Raja Ravi Varma
Cheap prints and calendars, easily

available in the bazaar, could be bought
even by the poor to decorate the walls of
their homes or places of work
These prints began shaping popular

ideas about modernity and tradition,
religion and politics, and society and
culture.
By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were

being published in journals and newspapers,
commentinĀ on social and political issues
Some caricatures ridiculed the educated

Indians fascination with Western tastes and
clothes, while others expressed the fear of
social change
There were imperial caricatures lampooninĀ

nationalists, as well as nationalist cartoons
criticisinĀ imperial rule
Women and Print
● Lives and feelings of women began to be written in

particularly vivid and intense ways.
● Women’s reading, therefore, increased enormously in
middle-class homes.
● Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their
womenfolk at home, and sent them to schools when
women’s schools were set up in the cities and towns
aÿter the mid-19th century.
● Many journals began carrying writings by women, and
explained why women should be educated.
● They also carried a syllabus and attached suitable
reading matter which could be used for home-based
schooling
Not All Families were Liberals
Muslims feared
Conservative
that educated Sometimes, rebel
Hindus believed
women would be
that a literate women defied
corrupted by
girl would be
reading Urdu such prohibition
widowed
romances
1 STORY
● A girl in a conservative Muslim

family of north India who secretly
learnt to read and write in Urdu.
● Her family wanted her to read only

the Arabic Quran which she did not
understand
● So she insisted on learning to read

a language that was her own
2 STORY
● In East Bengal, in the early nineteenth

century, Rashsundari Debi, a young
married girl in a very orthodox
household, learnt to read in the secrecy
of her kitchen.
● Later, she wrote her autobiography

Amar Jiban which was published in
1876.
● It was first full-length autobiography

published in Bengali language
Since social reforms and novels had already created a

great interest in women’s lives and emotions, there was
also an interest in what women would have to say about
their own lives
● From the 1860s, a few Bengali

women like Kailashbashini Debi
wrote books 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 1880s, in present-day

Maharashtra, Tarabai Shinde and
Pandita Ramabai wrote with
Tarabai
passionate anger about the
Shinde
miserable lives of upper-caste Hindu
women, especially widows
Pandita
Ramabai
A woman in a Tamil novel expressed what reading meant to

women who were so greatly confined by social regulations:
‘For various reasons,

my world is small …
More than half my
life’s happiness has
come from books
While Urdu, Tamil, Bengali and Marathi print culture had developed early,
1 Hindi printing began seriously only from the 1870s.
2 Soon large segment of it was devoted to the education of women.
3 In the early 20th century, journals, written for and sometimes edited by
women, became extremely popular.
They discussed issues like women’s education, widowhood, widow

4 remarriage and the national movement.
Some of them offered household and fashion lessons to women and

5 brought entertainment through short stories and serialised novels
In Punjab In Bengal
● A similar folk literature was

● In central Calcutta – Battala –
widely printed from the early
was devoted to printing of
20th century
popular books.
● Ram Chaddha published fast-
● Here you could buy cheap
selling Istri Dharm Vichar to
editions of scriptures
teach women how to be
obedient wives ● By the late 19th century, a lot of
these books were being profusely
● Khalsa Tract Society published
illustrated with woodcuts and
cheap booklets with a similar
coloured lithographs
message
● Pedlars took Battala publications
● Many of these were in form of
to homes, enabling women to
dialogues about qualities of
read them in their leisure time
good woman
Print and the poor people
Cheap small books brought

to markets in 19th-century Public libraries were set up
Madras towns & sold at from the early 20th
crossroads, allowing poor century, expanding the
people travelling to access to books.
markets to buy them.
These libraries were

For rich local patrons,
located mostly in cities and
setting up a library was a
towns, and at times in
way of acquiring prestige
prosperous villages
In the late 19th century, caste discrimination started coming up in many

printed tracts and essays
Jyotiba Phule, the

Maratha pioneer of ‘low
caste’ protest
movements, wrote
about the injustices of
the caste system in his
Gulamgiri (1871)
In the 20th Century
● B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra

and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker in
Madras, better known as Periyar,
wrote powerfully on caste and
their writings were read by people
all over India.
● Local protest movements created
a lot of popular journals and
tracts criticising ancient
scriptures and envisioning a new
and just future
Workers in factories
were too overworked
and lacked the
education to write
much about their
experiences
Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote By the 1930s, Bangalore cotton

and published “Chhote Aur Bade Ka millworkers set up libraries to
Sawal” in 1938 to show links b/w caste & educate themselves, following the
class exploitation example of Bombay workers.
These were sponsored by social

Poems of another Kanpur millworker,
reformers who tried to restrict
who wrote under the name of
excessive drinking among them, to
Sudarshan Chakr b/w 1935 & 1955, were
bring literacy and, sometimes, to
brought together and published in a
propagate the message of
collection called Sacchi Kavitayan.
nationalism
Print and Censorship

Chemistry | Class 10 | Marathon | Carbon and its Compounds
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● Impact of the spread of

As both sides of the thin, porous sheet could not

Superbly skilled craftsmen could duplicate,

● China possessed a huge bureaucratic

● Textbooks for this examination were

● From the 16th century, the no. of

By the 17th century, as urban culture bloomed

Print was no longer used just by scholar

Preference of new readers: fictional

Wives of scholar-officials published

Rich women began to read, and

● Accompanied by a new technology

● Western printing techniques and mechanical

● Shanghai became the hub of the new print

● From hand printing there was now a gradual

● The oldest Japanese book, printed in AD

● In medieval Japan, poets and prose

In the late 18th century, in the flourishing urban circles at

Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-

A man looks out of the window at

● In 1295, Marco Polo, a great explorer,

● Marco Polo brought the knowledge of

● Italians began producing books with

● Merchants and students in the

Book fairs were held at different places

Production of handwritten Scribes or skilled handwriters were

More than 50 scribes often worked for one bookseller

With the growing By the early 15th century,

● Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and

● By 1448, Gutenberg perfected the

Pages of Gutenberg’s Bible,

● As the number of printing presses

● The number went up in the 16th

In letterpress printing, platen

At one time it used to be a

● A new way of producing books; it transformed

● It influenced popular perceptions and opened

● Printing reduced the cost of

● The time and labour required to

● Markets were flooded with books

Reading was restricted to the elites. Common people lived in a world of

Now books could reach out to wider sections off people.

How, then, could publishers persuade the

Wider reach of the So printers began

● The line that seperated the oral

● And the hearing public and

Even those who disagreed with established authorities

Through the printed message, they could persuade

This had significance in different spheres of

● You can see the printing press

● On two sides of the Goddess, blessing the

● The women in the foreground are holding

● In the middle ground on the left (figure

● If that happened, the authority of ‘valuable’ literature would be destroyed

● Expressed by religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and

● In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote Ninety

● A printed copy of this was posted on a church door in

● It challenged the Church to debate his ideas.

● Luther’s writings were immediately reproduced in vast