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Questions and Answers
Questions and Answers
Which ancient civilization developed the earliest form of print technology?
Which ancient civilization developed the earliest form of print technology?
- India
- Japan
- China (correct)
- Europe
Books in China were printed by rubbing paper against inked woodblocks, and both sides of the porous sheet were printed.
Books in China were printed by rubbing paper against inked woodblocks, and both sides of the porous sheet were printed.
False (B)
What is calligraphy and why was it important in the age before print?
What is calligraphy and why was it important in the age before print?
Calligraphy is the art of beautiful and stylized writing. It was important before print as writing and illustrating by hand were essential forms of art.
The imperial state in China was a major producer of printed material because it sponsored textbooks for civil service examinations, which required a huge __________ system.
The imperial state in China was a major producer of printed material because it sponsored textbooks for civil service examinations, which required a huge __________ system.
What was the oldest Japanese book printed in AD 868?
What was the oldest Japanese book printed in AD 868?
By the seventeenth century, reading in China had exclusively remained a scholarly activity.
By the seventeenth century, reading in China had exclusively remained a scholarly activity.
How did Western printing techniques influence Chinese print culture in the late nineteenth century?
How did Western printing techniques influence Chinese print culture in the late nineteenth century?
The Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of Buddhist scriptures, was engraved on about 80,000 woodblocks and was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in __________.
The Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of Buddhist scriptures, was engraved on about 80,000 woodblocks and was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in __________.
Who introduced hand-printing technology into Japan?
Who introduced hand-printing technology into Japan?
Ukiyo-e refers to pictures of the floating world or depictions of ordinary human experiences, especially urban ones.
Ukiyo-e refers to pictures of the floating world or depictions of ordinary human experiences, especially urban ones.
Before the age of print, what materials were used for bookmaking in India, and how were these books preserved?
Before the age of print, what materials were used for bookmaking in India, and how were these books preserved?
Marco Polo returned to Italy in __________ after many years of exploration in China, bringing knowledge of woodblock printing with him.
Marco Polo returned to Italy in __________ after many years of exploration in China, bringing knowledge of woodblock printing with him.
What type of material was vellum made from?
What type of material was vellum made from?
Manuscripts were preferable to early printed books for their ease of circulation and handling.
Manuscripts were preferable to early printed books for their ease of circulation and handling.
What was the primary model Johannes Gutenberg adapted for the printing press?
What was the primary model Johannes Gutenberg adapted for the printing press?
The first book printed by Gutenberg was the __________.
The first book printed by Gutenberg was the __________.
In letterpress printing, what is a platen?
In letterpress printing, what is a platen?
Early printed books entirely displaced handwritten manuscripts and had a completely different appearance.
Early printed books entirely displaced handwritten manuscripts and had a completely different appearance.
Explain the concept of 'reading mania' in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Explain the concept of 'reading mania' in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
A historical account or folk tale in verse, usually sung or recited, is known as a __________.
A historical account or folk tale in verse, usually sung or recited, is known as a __________.
Which of these terms describes pocket-size books sold by travelling pedlars for a penny?
Which of these terms describes pocket-size books sold by travelling pedlars for a penny?
Louise-Sebastien Mercier believed that the printing press was a powerful engine of progress that could eliminate despotism.
Louise-Sebastien Mercier believed that the printing press was a powerful engine of progress that could eliminate despotism.
How did print popularize the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers?
How did print popularize the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers?
Martin Luther's Ninety Five Theses, which criticized the Roman Catholic Church, led to the beginning of the __________ Reformation.
Martin Luther's Ninety Five Theses, which criticized the Roman Catholic Church, led to the beginning of the __________ Reformation.
Match the following Indian publications/individuals with their significance in print culture:
Match the following Indian publications/individuals with their significance in print culture:
What was the primary fear expressed by religious authorities and monarchs regarding the wider circulation of printed books?
What was the primary fear expressed by religious authorities and monarchs regarding the wider circulation of printed books?
The Roman Catholic Church maintained an 'Index of Prohibited Books' to control the spread of what it considered heretical texts.
The Roman Catholic Church maintained an 'Index of Prohibited Books' to control the spread of what it considered heretical texts.
How did the printing press help expand readership among children and women in the nineteenth century?
How did the printing press help expand readership among children and women in the nineteenth century?
Richard M. Hoe of New York perfected the power-driven cylindrical press, capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour, which was particularly useful for printing __________.
Richard M. Hoe of New York perfected the power-driven cylindrical press, capable of printing 8,000 sheets per hour, which was particularly useful for printing __________.
What was the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 designed to do?
What was the Vernacular Press Act of 1878 designed to do?
Questions and Answers
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Flashcards
Flashcards
Print Culture
Print Culture
The system and impact of printed materials on society, including books, journals, newspapers, and other printed forms, which has shaped the modern world.
Calligraphy
Calligraphy
The art of beautiful and stylized writing.
Hand Printing in China
Hand Printing in China
The earliest form of print technology from AD 594 in China, where books were printed by rubbing paper against inked woodblocks, creating 'accordion books'.
Imperial State's Role in Print
Imperial State's Role in Print
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Diversification of Print Use in China
Diversification of Print Use in China
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Print in Japan
Print in Japan
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Ukiyo
Ukiyo
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Woodblock Printing in Europe
Woodblock Printing in Europe
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Vellum
Vellum
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Limitations of Manuscripts
Limitations of Manuscripts
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Johann Gutenberg
Johann Gutenberg
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Gutenberg Bible
Gutenberg Bible
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Platen
Platen
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Print Revolution
Print Revolution
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Compositor
Compositor
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Galley
Galley
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New Reading Public
New Reading Public
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Overlap of Oral and Print Cultures
Overlap of Oral and Print Cultures
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Religious Debates and Print
Religious Debates and Print
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Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
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Inquisition
Inquisition
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Heretical Beliefs (Heretics)
Heretical Beliefs (Heretics)
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Index of Prohibited Books
Index of Prohibited Books
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Despotism
Despotism
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Enlightenment Thinkers and Print
Enlightenment Thinkers and Print
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Reading Mania
Reading Mania
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Chapbook
Chapbook
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Almanac
Almanac
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Nineteenth-Century Print Innovations
Nineteenth-Century Print Innovations
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Manuscripts in India
Manuscripts in India
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Study Notes
Study Notes
Print Culture's Origins in East Asia
- The earliest print technology, hand printing, emerged in China, Japan, and Korea.
- In China, starting from AD 594, books were produced by rubbing paper against inked woodblocks.
- Due to the thinness of Chinese paper, printing could only occur on one side, leading to the "accordion book" design folded and stitched at the side.
- Highly skilled artisans produced calligraphy with great precision.
- The Chinese imperial state was the primary producer of printed content, supporting its large bureaucracy recruitment through civil service examination textbooks.
- The volume of printed material increased significantly from the sixteenth century as more candidates took the civil service examinations.
- By the seventeenth century, print usage diversified beyond scholar-officials to include merchants using it for trade information and the general public for leisure reading, embracing fictional narratives, poetry, and plays.
- Women, including wealthy women, scholar-officials' wives, and courtesans, became active readers and publishers of their own works.
- Western printing techniques and mechanical presses arrived in China in the late nineteenth century, with Shanghai becoming a central hub for Western-style print and a transition from hand to mechanical printing.
- Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand-printing to Japan around AD 768-770, with the oldest known Japanese book, the Buddhist Diamond Sutra, printed in 868, featuring six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
- Printing in medieval Japan extended to playing cards and paper money, making books affordable and abundant, and leading to the regular publication of poets and prose writers.
- The flourishing urban culture of Edo (Tokyo) in the late eighteenth century saw illustrated collections of paintings depicting elegant urban life, with libraries and bookstores offering diverse hand-printed materials on subjects like women, music, calculations, tea ceremonies, and famous places.
- Kitagawa Utamaro (born 1753, Edo) was renowned for his ukiyo art ("pictures of the floating world") portraying urban life, influencing Western artists like Manet, Monet, and Van Gogh.
- Ukiyo prints were made through a process where artists' outlines were transferred to woodblocks for carving, resulting in the destruction of the original drawing after prints were made.
- The Tripitaka Koreana, a mid-13th century Korean collection of Buddhist scriptures, was engraved on approximately 80,000 woodblocks and is listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register (2007).
Print's Arrival and Impact in Europe
- Chinese paper reached Europe via the silk route by the eleventh century, enabling the creation of carefully written manuscripts by scribes.
- In 1295, Marco Polo introduced woodblock printing technology to Italy after his explorations in China, which then spread across Europe.
- Early European printed books served different markets: expensive, handwritten vellum editions for aristocrats and monastic libraries, and cheaper printed copies for merchants and students.
- The demand for books surged, leading to booksellers exporting across Europe, book fairs, and new methods for manuscript production, with some booksellers employing over 50 scribes.
- The labor-intensive, costly, and fragile nature of handwritten manuscripts limited their circulation and failed to meet the growing demand for books.
- By the early fifteenth century, woodblock printing was widely used in Europe for textiles, playing cards, and religious images with short texts.
- The need for faster and cheaper text reproduction led to Johann Gutenberg's invention of the first printing press in Strasbourg, Germany, in the 1430s.
Gutenberg's Printing Press and the Print Revolution
- Johann Gutenberg, drawing on his experience with wine and olive presses and metal moulding, perfected his printing system by 1448.
- Gutenberg's first printed book was the Bible, with about 180 copies produced in three years, considered fast for the era.
- Early printed books mimicked handwritten manuscripts, featuring metal types that imitated handwritten styles, hand-illuminated borders, and painted illustrations.
- Wealthy buyers could customize their books by selecting designs and illustrators, and color was added by hand to highlight significant words.
- Between 1450 and 1550, printing presses rapidly spread across Europe, leading to a boom in book production with an estimated 20 million copies by the late fifteenth century and 200 million by the sixteenth century.
- The transformation from hand printing to mechanical printing marked the beginning of the print revolution, significantly changing access to information and knowledge, and influencing societal perceptions.
The Rise of a New Reading Public
- The printing press made books more affordable and easier to produce, leading to a flood of books and an expanding readership.
- This accessibility fostered a new reading culture, moving beyond the elite to include common people who previously engaged in oral culture through hearing sacred texts, ballads, and folk tales.
- While literacy rates remained low in Europe until the twentieth century, publishers engaged non-literate audiences by producing illustrated popular ballads and folk tales, which were read aloud in public settings like villages and taverns.
- The blurring lines between oral and reading cultures led to an intermingling of the "hearing public" and the "reading public."
Print, Religious Debates, and Dissent
- Print facilitated the widespread circulation of ideas, fostering new debates and allowing those who challenged established authorities to publicize their viewpoints, thus influencing public opinion and triggering action.
- The widespread availability of printed materials raised concerns among religious authorities, monarchs, writers, and artists about the potential spread of rebellious and irreligious thoughts, fearing the destruction of "valuable" literature.
- In early modern Europe, print significantly impacted religion, exemplified by Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, which criticized the Roman Catholic Church.
- Luther's printed criticisms rapidly circulated, leading to widespread discussion, the division within the Church, and the start of the Protestant Reformation.
- Luther's translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies in weeks, with a second edition following quickly, leading him to praise print as "the ultimate gift of God."
- Scholars credit print with fostering a new intellectual environment that supported the spread of ideas contributing to the Reformation.
- In the sixteenth century, the widespread reading of popular religious literature led to diverse interpretations of faith, even among less-educated individuals.
- Menocchio, an Italian miller, reinterpreted the Bible, leading to his execution by the Roman Catholic Church's Inquisition for heresy.
- Concerned by the social impact of popular readings, the Roman Catholic Church implemented strict controls on publishers and booksellers, establishing an "Index of Prohibited Books" in 1558.
- Erasmus, a Latin scholar, voiced concerns about the overwhelming quantity of new books and the potential for "stupid, ignorant, slanderous, scandalous, raving, irreligious and seditious books" to obscure valuable publications.
The Reading Mania and Broader Impact
- Literacy rates in Europe significantly increased during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reaching 60-80% in some regions by the late eighteenth century, driven by schools set up by various religious denominations for peasants and artisans.
- This rise in literacy fueled a "reading mania," with printers producing an increasing number of books to meet demand.
- New forms of popular literature emerged, including almanacs, ritual calendars, ballads, and folktales, along with entertainment-focused reading materials for the general public.
- In England, "penny chapbooks," inexpensive pocket-sized books, were sold by traveling pedlars called chapmen.
- In France, "Bibliothèque Bleue" books were cheap, small, printed on poor quality paper with blue covers, alongside longer romances and "histories."
- This new reading culture brought almanacs containing astronomical data and tidal information to wider audiences, connecting people with current affairs, wars, and trade through newspapers and journals.
- The ideas of scientists and philosophers, including Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Jean Jacques Rousseau, became more accessible through widely printed books, maps, and scientific diagrams, fostering science, reason, and rationality in popular literature.
- By the mid-eighteenth century, books were widely seen as instruments of progress and enlightenment, capable of transforming society, liberating it from despotism, and ushering in an era of reason, as articulated by novelist Louise-Sebastien Mercier.
- Many historians suggest print culture was instrumental in creating the conditions for the French Revolution by popularizing Enlightenment ideas, fostering a culture of dialogue and debate, and circulating critical literature that mocked royalty.
- Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau, through their printed works, provided critical commentary on tradition, superstition, and despotism, advocating for reason and rationality, which led to people questioning existing social orders.
- The extensive output of critical literature, including cartoons and caricatures, in the 1780s, fueled hostile sentiments against the monarchy.
- While print significantly spread ideas, readers were exposed to diverse viewpoints, including monarchical and Church propaganda, interpreting texts in their own ways, thus fostering different thinking rather than direct influence.
Nineteenth-Century Developments in Print
- The nineteenth century saw mass literacy grow across Europe, bringing children, women, and workers into the readership.
- Compulsory primary education made children a key reading demographic, boosting the production of school textbooks.
- In 1857, France established a children's press publishing new and traditional fairy tales; the Grimm Brothers in Germany collected and edited rural folk tales, publishing them in 1812, adapting them to be suitable for children and elite tastes.
- Women became significant as both readers and writers, with penny magazines and manuals on proper behavior and housekeeping targeting them specifically.
- The rise of novels highlighted women as important readers, and female novelists like Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and George Eliot contributed to shaping a new perception of women as strong, thoughtful individuals.
- Lending libraries, existing since the seventeenth century, expanded in the nineteenth century in England to serve white-collar workers, artisans, and the lower-middle class.
- With shortened working days, workers had more leisure time for self-improvement and self-expression, leading to the popular production of political tracts and autobiographies.
- Accounts such as Thomas Wood's recollection of renting old newspapers and reading by firelight, or Maxim Gorky's "My Childhood" and "My University," highlight the struggles of poor individuals to access education through books.
Further Innovations in Printing Technology
- In the late eighteenth century, printing presses transitioned from wood to metal.
- The nineteenth century brought significant printing innovations, including Richard M. Hoe's power-driven cylindrical press (18,000 sheets per hour) for newspapers, and the offset press (up to six colors) for multi-color printing.
- The turn of the twentieth century saw the introduction of electrically operated presses, along with improvements in paper feeding, plate quality, automatic paper reels, and photoelectric controls for color registration, all transforming the appearance of printed texts.
- Publishers developed new strategies to sell books, such as serializing novels in periodicals and selling popular works in cheap series (like the Shilling Series) in the 1920s in England.
- The dust cover or book jacket was a twentieth-century innovation, and during the Great Depression of the 1930s, cheap paperback editions were introduced to sustain book sales.
Print in India Before and During the Print Age
- India had a rich tradition of handwritten manuscripts in various languages like Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and vernaculars, copied on palm leaves or handmade paper.
- Manuscripts were often beautifully illustrated, preserved between wooden covers or by sewing, and continued to be produced until the late nineteenth century.
- Manuscripts were expensive, fragile, difficult to handle and read, and restricted in availability, meaning they were not used widely in everyday life.
- In pre-colonial Bengal, students, despite extensive primary schools, often learned to write from memory rather than reading texts.
- The printing press arrived in Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century; Jesuit priests learned Konkani, printing numerous tracts, and by 1674, about 50 books were printed in Konkani and Kanara.
- The first Tamil book was printed by Catholic priests in 1579 in Cochin, and the first Malayalam book in 1713; Dutch Protestant missionaries printed 32 Tamil texts by 1710.
- The English language press didn't significantly develop in India until later, despite the East India Company importing presses from the late seventeenth century.
- James Augustus Hickey launched the "Bengal Gazette" in 1780, an English weekly magazine that was 'a commercial paper open to all, but influenced by none', covering everything from advertisements (including slave sales) to gossip about Company officials.
- Governor-General Warren Hastings persecuted Hickey and promoted officially sanctioned newspapers to counteract negative information about the colonial government.
- By the late eighteenth century, various newspapers and journals emerged, including Indian-published ones, with Gangadhar Bhattacharya's weekly "Bengal Gazette" being one of the first.
- In 1768, William Bolts noted the absence of a printing press in Calcutta as a "great disadvantage in business," planning to encourage printers.
Religious Reform and Public Debates in India
- The early nineteenth century saw intense public debates on religious issues, with different groups interpreting religious beliefs in colonial society, advocating for reform, or defending traditional practices.
- Printed tracts and newspapers spread new ideas and shaped these debates, allowing a wider public to participate and express their views, leading to new opinions.
- This era was marked by controversies between social and religious reformers and orthodox Hindus on topics like widow immolation, monotheism, Brahmanical priesthood, and idolatry.
- In Bengal, tracts and newspapers flourished, circulating arguments in everyday spoken language to reach a broader audience.
- Rammohun Roy published "Sambad Kaumudi" in 1821, while the Hindu orthodoxy responded with "Samachar Chandrika."
- By 1822, Persian newspapers "Jam-i-Jahan Nama" and "Shamsul Akhbar," and the Gujarati newspaper "Bombay Samachar," were launched.
- In north India, concerned about the decline of Muslim dynasties and the potential influence of colonial rule on Muslim personal laws, the ulama (legal scholars of Islam) used cheap lithographic presses to publish Persian and Urdu translations of scriptures and religious texts.
- The Deoband Seminary (founded in 1867) published thousands of fatwas (legal pronouncements) to guide everyday Muslim life and explain Islamic doctrines.
- Urdu print played a key role in public debates among various Muslim sects and seminaries, each vying to expand its following.
- Among Hindus, print also encouraged the reading of religious texts, particularly in vernacular languages.
- Tulsidas's sixteenth-century text, "Ramcharitmanas," was printed in Calcutta in 1810, and by the mid-nineteenth century, cheap lithographic editions proliferated in north Indian markets.
- From the 1880s, presses like Naval Kishore Press (Lucknow) and Shri Venkateshwar Press (Bombay) published numerous religious texts in vernaculars, making them portable and accessible for individual reading or large group recitations for both literate and illiterate audiences.
- Religious texts stimulated wide-ranging discussions and controversies within and among different religious communities.
- Print fostered the exchange of conflicting opinions and connected communities across India, with newspapers conveying news and contributing to pan-Indian identities.
- Native newspapers, like the proposed Marathi "Newspaper" in Poona (1849) and "Native Opinion" (1870), aimed to provide local information, promote free discussion, and critically examine government policy, functioning as an opposition.
New Forms of Publication in India
- Print stimulated an demand for new types of literature, especially novels, which provided readers with insights into diverse human experiences and emotions, often developing unique Indian forms and styles.
- Other new literary forms, such as lyrics, short stories, and essays on social and political topics, reinforced the focus on human lives, intimate feelings, and the societal rules shaping them.
- By the late nineteenth century, a new visual culture emerged, facilitated by printing presses that rapidly reproduced images.
- Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation; wood engravers created woodblocks for print shops.
- Cheap prints and calendars became widely available to decorate homes and workplaces, influencing popular ideas about modernity, tradition, religion, politics, society, and culture.
- From the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons published in journals and newspapers commented on social and political issues, mocking educated Indians' adoption of Western styles, expressing fears of social change, and criticizing imperial rule.
Women and Print in India
- Print enabled vivid portrayals of women's lives and emotions, significantly increasing women's readership in middle-class homes.
- Liberal families began educating women at home and enrolling them in schools after women's schools were established in cities from the mid-nineteenth century.
- Journals published writings by women, advocated for female education, and provided syllabi and reading materials for home schooling.
- Despite conservative resistance from Hindus (fearing widowhood for literate girls) and Muslims (fearing corruption from Urdu romances), many women defied prohibitions.
- A Muslim girl in north India secretly learned Urdu, choosing it over Arabic Quran, which she did not understand.
- In early nineteenth-century East Bengal, Rashsundari Debi secretly learned to read in her kitchen and later published "Amar Jiban," the first full-length autobiography in Bengali (1876).
- The existing interest in women's lives from social reforms and novels spurred interest in women's own narratives.
- From the 1860s, Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi wrote about their confinement, ignorance, domestic labor, and unjust treatment.
- In the 1880s, Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai in Maharashtra wrote passionately about the plight of upper-caste Hindu widows.
- A woman in a Tamil novel expressed the profound joy and freedom found in books, highlighting their significance for women's confined lives.
- While Urdu, Tamil, Bengali, and Marathi print cultures developed early, Hindi printing began seriously in the 1870s, with a large segment dedicated to women's education.
- Women's journals in the early twentieth century discussed education, widowhood, remarriage, and the national movement, offering household tips, fashion, and entertainment through stories and serialized novels.
- In Punjab, Ram Chaddha's "Istri Dharm Vichar" and cheap booklets from the Khalsa Tract Society taught women how to be obedient wives, often through dialogues.
- The Battala area in central Calcutta became a hub for printing popular books, offering cheap religious tracts, scriptures, and literature, often profusely illustrated with woodcuts and colored lithographs that pedlars sold directly to homes, providing women with leisure reading.
- Visual caricatures in late nineteenth-century journals, like "Indian Charivari," often depicted imperial British figures as authoritative, dictating terms to servile Indian natives, who were shown with copies of British satirical journals as models.
Print and the Poor People in India
- Very cheap books were sold at markets and crossroads in nineteenth-century Madras and other towns, increasing access for the poor.
- Public libraries, established from the early twentieth century in cities, towns, and prosperous villages, further expanded access to books, also serving as a means for wealthy patrons to gain prestige.
- From the late nineteenth century, print became a platform for writing about caste discrimination.
- Jyotiba Phule, a Maratha leader of 'low caste' movements, wrote "Gulamgiri" (1871) condemning caste system injustices.
- In the twentieth century, B.R. Ambedkar in Maharashtra and E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker ('Periyar') in Madras wrote extensively on caste, and their works were widely read across India.
- Local protest movements and sects used popular journals and tracts to criticize ancient scriptures and advocate for a new, just future.
- Factory workers, despite their demanding work and limited education, also contributed to print culture.
- Kashibaba, a Kanpur millworker, wrote "Chhote Aur Bade Ka Sawal" (1938) linking caste and class exploitation.
- Another Kanpur millworker, Sudarshan Chakr, published his poems in "Sacchi Kavitayan" (collected 1935-1955).
- By the 1930s, cotton millworkers in Bangalore (following Bombay workers' example) established libraries for self-education, often sponsored by social reformers aiming to reduce drinking, promote literacy, and spread nationalism.
- Lakshminath Bezbaruah (1868-1938), a prominent Assamese writer, known for "Burhi Aair Sadhu" (Grandma's Tales) and the popular song 'O Mor Apunar Desh.'
Print and Censorship in India
- Before 1798, the East India Company's early censorship efforts targeted Englishmen in India who criticized Company misrule, fearing it could be used by critics in England to attack its trade monopoly.
- By the 1820s, the Calcutta Supreme Court regulated press freedom, and the Company promoted pro-British newspapers.
- In 1835, Governor-General Bentinck, influenced by liberal colonial official Thomas Macaulay, revised press laws to restore earlier freedoms.
- After the Revolt of 1857, British attitudes toward press freedom changed dramatically, leading to demands for stricter controls on the 'native' press due to its increasingly nationalist tone.
- The Vernacular Press Act of 1878, modeled on the Irish Press Laws, granted the government extensive rights to censor vernacular newspaper reports and editorials, with warnings issued for seditious content and potential confiscation of printing machinery.
- Despite repressive measures, nationalist newspapers continued to grow, reporting on colonial misrule and fostering nationalist activities, leading to cycles of persecution and protest.
- The imprisonment of Balgangadhar Tilak in 1908 for his sympathetic writings about Punjab revolutionaries in "Kesari" (1907) sparked widespread protests across India.
- The power of print led governments to seek to regulate and suppress it.
- During World War I, under the Defence of India Rules, 22 newspapers had to furnish securities, leading 18 to shut down, and the Sedition Committee Report (1919) strengthened controls and penalties.
- At the start of World War II, the Defence of India Act permitted censoring war-related reports and all content related to the Quit India movement, leading to the suppression of approximately 90 newspapers in August 1942.
- Mahatma Gandhi in 1922 equated the fight for Swaraj and Khilafat with the fight for "liberty of speech, liberty of the press, freedom of association," opposing the government's attempts to suppress these "three powerful vehicles of expressing and cultivating public opinion."
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