Because only a few paper mills were established in Colonial America between 1690 and the Revolution, the growing American print industry was largely dependent on an imported supply of paper. In the 1760s, Britain exploited this vulnerability by placing taxes on paper, sparking tensions that would lead to Revolution.
As our nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the Library of Congress is producing a series of short films that present items from our collections related to American history and culture. Check out the latest films in the series!
As students and teachers across the country begin a new school year, the Rare Book Classroom invites K-12 and university-level classes to explore the Library of Congress’s materials both on-site and remotely.
1922 was a pivotal year in the modernist literary movement, highlighted by the first edition publications of both James Joyce’s Ulysses and T.S. Eliot’s groundbreaking poem “The Waste Land.” In Eliot’s negotiations over publication rights to the poem, he utilized and tested an emerging network of modernist institutions.
In another installment in Bibliomania's series on how books were made in the 15th-18th centuries, this post describes the processes of making woodcut illustrations, copperplate engravings, and etchings.
In the digital age, we have all been spoiled by the ease with which we can share our written ideas with others, but let's take a moment to appreciate the skill, time, and resources that were once required to bring a text into print. This post examines the processes involved in operating a printing press in the 15th-18th centuries.
During the hand press era, composing the text of a book was among the most technical elements of the printing process. This post describes the labor involved in typesetting and imposition.
Most of us learned in school that Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which is not entirely accurate. He is, however, conventionally credited with inventing the process of mass-producing individual pieces of type. These innovations in moveable type allowed for books to be efficiently produced in large quantities and revolutionized the human ability to share ideas. This post explains the multi-step process of mass-producing metal letters to be used in printing texts.
Before today's thin, brittle paper made from wood pulp became standard, paper was handcrafted by experts using linen rags as the essential material. This post explains the process by which rag paper was made in Europe for centuries.
