Chapter 4 - The Mechanical Press, 1800–1900

Summary

This chapter begins in England in the early nineteenth century, when the printing industry, which had previously been conducted exclusively through manual labor, was rapidly mechanized through the application of steam power. It considers the major events in the industrialization of print such as the development of lithography and machine-made paper; the application of the steam engine to printing; and the worldwide distribution of books aided by steam ships and railways. Reader demonstrates that any scholarly investigation of the literary legacy of steam-driven presses must leave behind narrow disciplinary boundaries: “Literary scholars wishing to assert the importance of machine printing must necessarily place texts in relation not only to other works of literature but also to competing media: journalism, advertising, and other products of the print industry.”