A Basic History Signal fire Hebrew

A Basic History

Signal fire

Hebrew shofar

Roman bucina

Cavalry bugle

Semaphore tower

Writing

What is writing? Turning sound symbols (talking) into visual symbols n Sound symbols are gone in an instant n Visual symbols can last forever n

Lascoux Cave painting ca. 17, 000 BCE n Just a noun and a verb

Marriage contract ca. 17, 000 BCE pictures reduced to essentials

Pictures for abstractions

Means “Man”

Means “Soul”

Hieroglyph syllables

Hieroglyph letter - L

Evolution of pictures to symbols

Cuneiform

Phoenician traders

Symbols become an alphabet Phoenician ca. 1050 BCE

ST What’s the word?

Greek alphabet added vowels

Caen

L’chaim loch

Hand written lasted 1000 years

Illuminated text

First change from handwriting to printing came in 888 CE The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, created with block printing

Chinese block printing – ca. 1000 CE

Entire page with one block

Chinese type – entire words ca. 1040 CE

Another little side trip

The Black Death – 1347 -1351

n After the Black Death people had two things: n Lots of money n A desire to enjoy life n Fun and games like fairs and celebrations n The fanciest clothes they could afford

The rich wore silk and gold wire n The middle class wore woolens n Everyone wore linen, especially -n

Linen underwear

What this has to do with printing What was necessary to printing was paper n The only thing available up to this time was parchment, expensive and uncommon n Linen sheets and underwear wore out and were thrown away n Linen rags can be turned into paper n

n Now there’s plenty of paper n Everyone uses it as trade and investing increases n Contracts n Record keeping However, because of the Black Death there weren’t enough scribes for all the paperwork n Something had to be done n

The next, and greatest change in printing came in 1450 CE

Johannes Gutenberg c. 1398 -1468

Moveable Type

Gutenberg Press

William Caxton – First printer in English

Spelling was idiosyncratic

Knight

Knife

First Folio of Shakespeare

Images could be printed

Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette

American Magazine - 1758

Poor Richard’s Almanack

Paine’s Common Sense

Sheet-fed rotary press - 1863

Roll-fed rotary press - 1866

Mergenthaler’s Linotype Machine 1884

Newspapers Started in the early 1600 s n Corontos, one page Dutch news sheets imported to England n Diurnals – English news sheets started 1641 n

First American newspaper

Boston News-Letter – 1704

New-England Courant

Zenger’s Weekly Journal

Effects of these 3 newspapers a newspaper with popular support could challenge authority n financial independence can lead to editorial independence n government should not control the press because it can stifle the truth n

The Daily Sun

Joseph Pulitzer

William Randolph Hearst

Explosion of USS Maine in Havana Harbor

Canons of Journalism and Statement of Principles – 1923 “The right of a newspaper to attract and hold readers is restricted by nothing but considerations of public welfare. ” The beginnings of the modern ideal of journalism: be objective, don’t be sensationalistic, operate for the public good

Magazines

American magazines – 1740 s

Saturday Evening Post

Keys to success Rapidly rising literacy rates n Lower printing costs n Spread of social movements like abolition and labor reform n n n Made for compelling reading The use of specialty writers rather than general reporters or book authors

Growth of magazines Rise of women’s magazines that advertisers loved n Postal Act of 1879 that lower mailing rates for magazines n Railroads crisscrossing the entire country n Made magazines the first truly national medium n

Life Magazine