More History than Expected

Paper

In the town where I grew up, there was a paper mill.  It doesn't produce as much now, mainly gets the paper shipped to them where they package it, but at the time when it was producing paper, it wasn't pretty.  It smelled and put a lot out into the air.  That is my one and only personal experience with paper making.

It's not something you think about when you pick up a book.  I can't say I've ever picked up a book and thought, "How did they make this?" But that has been my task this past week.  I needed to look at my little prayer book and think about the paper.

I wish you could really see and touch the paper.  I can't take a good enough picture to show you this time.  The pages are soft, except for the ones with the illustrations.  Those pages are thicker, but still smooth.  On the regular pages, you can see the fibers of the paper.  Where the illustrated pages are smooth and white, the regular pages have a grainy texture to them.

With an educated guess to the timeframe of when my book was printed and knowing the book was printed in Germany, led me on a discovery of papermaking history in Germany.

 The German papermakers contributed to the art of making paper by hand. The nomadic Germans travelled around both their own countries and Europe, sharing the secrets and terminology of paper making that was not written down or put in print. The papermakers eventually settled in small groups, teaching the craft at conventions attended by masters and companions. A companion, surprisingly, had the upper hand in the relationship of master and companion, being able to reprimand the master.  A companion was not allowed to work with a reprimanded master.

The craft of papermaking was strong in Germany at the end of the 16th century that Niklaus Durr, papermaker of Basel said, "No emperor nor king, nor prince, is able to resist the will of the German handcraft." (Dabrowski)

Central Europe then moved to paper mills and manufactured paper in that way.  Handmaking paper is now a thing of the past for the most part, other than in artist books, but never for commercial books.

Works Cited
Dąbrowski, Józef. Paper Manufacture in C entral and Eastern Europe Before the Introduction of Paper-making Machines. N.p., July 2008. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.