Solutions for Chapter 5, Print Culture and the Modern World, Ratna Sagar Integrated Social Science Class 7

1) Calligraphy : The art of beautiful and stylised writing.

2) Vellum : A parchment made from the skin of animals.

3) Scribes : Skilled people who copy manuscripts or handwriters of ancient and medieval periods before the invention of printing.

4) Manuscripts : Book or document written by hand , author’s original copy handwritten or typed, not printed.

5) Ballad : A historical account or folk tale in verse , poem or song usually sung or recited.

6) Taverns : Places where people gathered to drink alcohol, to be served  food and to meet friends and  exchange news.

7) Protestant Reformation : A 16th century movement to reform the Catholic church dominated by Rome.

8) Inquisition : A former Roman Catholic court for identifying and punishing heretics.

9) Heretical : Belief which do not follow the accepted teaching of the Church.

10) Denomination : Sub groups within a religion.

11) Almanac : An annual calendar that  gives astronomical data , information about movement of the Sun , moon , eclipses etc.

12) Chapbook : A small pamphlet or pocket book containing tales , ballads sold by pedlars.

13) Despotism : A system of governance in which absolute power is exercised by an individual, unregulated by legal and constitutional checks.

14) Caricature : A picture or imitation of a person or thing in order to create comic effect.

15) Monotheism : The doctrine or belief that there is only one god.

16) Ulama: Legal scholars of Islam and the Sharia.

17) Seminary : A school of training religious leaders such as priest.

18) Fatwa : A ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognised authority.

Printing in the World

AD 594 onwards – Printing done in China by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.

768-770 – Buddhist missionaries from China introduced hand printing technology into Japan.

11th century – Paper reached Europe from China.

1295- Marco Polo brought woodblock printing technology to Europe from China.

1448- Gutenberg invented the printing press.

1500- Printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe.

1508-  Erasmus, a Latin scholar and a catholic reformer wrote in Adages.

1517- Martin Luther wrote ‘Ninety Five Theses’

1558- The Roman Church begins maintaining an Index of Prohibited Books.

1812- Fairy Tales printed by the Grimm Brothers.

1857 – A press devoted to literature for children alone set up in France.

Print in Japan

Print Comes to Europe

Gutenberg was the son of a German merchant. He developed the first printing press in the 1430s.

His knowledge for the olive press provided the model for new printing press and moulds were used for casting the metal types for the letters of the alphabet.

The first book printed by Gutenberg was Bible. The printed books at first were closely resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layouts. Later printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe in between 1450 to 1550. This shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the print revolution. Books could now be produced much faster than before. The Gutenberg press could print 50 sheets on one side per hour.

In 1517, Martin Luther wrote ‘Ninety Five Theses’ criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.

His writings were immediately reproduced in vast numbers and read widely. It led to the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.”

Print and popular religious literature stimulated many distinctive individual interpretations of faith even among little-educated working people.

In the 16th century, Menocchio (a miller in Italy), reinterpreted the message of the Bible but his interpretation made the Roman Catholic Church angry.

When the Roman Church began its inquisition to repress heretical ideas, Menocchio was executed. Then, the Roman Church imposed severe controls over publishers and book-sellers and began to maintain an Index of Prohibited Books from 1558.

Erasmus, a Latin scholar and a Catholic reformer, expressed a deep anxiety about printing.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the literacy rates increased in most parts of Europe. Churches of different denominations set up schools in villages, carrying literacy to peasants and artisans.

By the end of 18th century, people wanted to read books and printers produced books in large numbers.

New forms of popular literature appeared in print, targeting new audiences. Pedlars roamed around villages, carrying little books of different interests for sale. The new forms of literature were as follows

1) There were almanacs or ritual calendars, along with ballads and folktales.

2) In England, penny chapbooks were sold for a penny, so that even the poor could buy them.

3) In France, the Biliotheque Bleue were low priced books printed on poor quality paper and bounded in cheap blue covers.

4) The discoveries of Isaac Newton and the writings of thinkers like Thomas Paine, Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau were widely printed and read. Thus, their ideas about science, reason and rationality found their way into popular literature.

In the mid-18th century, a lot of people believed that books could change the world, liberate society from despotism and tyranny and make a society which would be ruled by reason and intellect.

Louise-Sebastien Mercier, a novelist in 18th century France, declared that the printing press is the most powerful engine of progress and public opinion.

Many historians argued that print culture created the conditions within which French Revolution occurred.

Three types of arguments have been usually put forward

1) First Print popularised the ideas of the enlightened thinkers. Their writings provided a critical commentary on tradition, superstition and despotism.

2) Second Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and discussed by public.

3) Third By the 1780s, there was a flow of literature, especially cartoon and caricatures that mocked or insulted the royalty and criticised their morality.

As primary education became compulsory from the late 19th century, children became an important category of readers. The Grimm Brothers in Germany compiled traditional folk tales collected from peasants and published them in 1812.

The children’s press was set up in France in 1857 which published fairy tales and folk tales for children. Anything that was considered unsuitable for children or would appear vulgar to the elites, was not included in the published version.

Women became important as readers as well as writers. Penny magazines were especially meant for women, as these were full of essays about proper behaviour and house keeping.

Some of the best-known women novelists were Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Bronte sisters (Anne, Emily and Charlotte).

In the late 19th century, lending libraries in England became instruments for educating white collar workers, artisans and lower-middle class people.

After the working day was shortened from the mid-19th century, workers had some time for self-improvement and self-expression. They wrote political traits and autobiographies in large numbers at that time.

By the mid-19th century, Richard M Hoe of New York had perfected the power-driven cylindrical press which could print 8000 sheets per hour. It was particularly useful for printing newspapers.

In the late 19th century, the offset press was developed which could print upto six colours at a time.

In 20th century, electrically operated presses began printing operations. Methods of feeding paper improved, the quality of plates became better, automatic paper reels and photoelectric controls of the colour register were introduced.

Some new strategies to sell books were incorporated in 19th century. These were periodicals with serialised novels, cheap/shilling series and cheap paper back Editions.

The dust cover on the book jacket was a twentieth century innovation. To sustain buying, publishers brought out cheap paperback editions.

India had a very rich and ancient tradition of hand written manuscripts in Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian as well as in various vernacular languages. These manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.

Manuscripts were highly expensive and got damage easily. They had to be handled carefully and were not widely used in everyday life.

The first printing press came to Goa with the Portuguese missionaries in the mid-16th century.

Jesuit priests learnt Konkani and printed several books. About 50 books had been printed in Konkani and Kanara languages in 1674.

Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 in Cochin and the first Malayalam book was printed in 1713.

In 1710, Dutch Protestant missionaries had printed 32 Tamil books.

The English East India Company began to import presses from the late 17th century in India.

From 1780, Bengal Gazette a weekly English magazine was edited by James Augustus Hickey.

James published a lot of gossip about the company’s senior officials, so the Governor General Warren Hastings prosecuted him.

By the end of the 18th century, a number of newspapers and journals began to publish.

The first was the weekly Bengali newspaper ‘Bengal Gazette’, brought out by Gangadhar Bhattacharya in 1780, who was close to Raja Rammohun Roy.

From the early nineteenth century, the religious debates were carried out in public and in print. Printed tracts and newspapers spread the new ideas and shaped the nature of the debate.

It was a time of intense controversies between social and religious reformers and Hindu Orthodox people over matters of widow persecution, monotheism”, Brahmanical priesthood and idol worship.

Raja Rammohan Roy published the Sambad Kaumudi in 1821 and the Hindu Orthodox commissioned the ‘Samachar Chandrika’ to oppose his views.

In North India, The Ulama were very anxious about the collapse of Muslim dynasties. They feared that colonial rulers would encourage conversion and change the Muslim Personal Laws. Thus, they published Persian and Urdu translations of holy scriptures and printed religious newspapers and tracts (short piece of writings on religious, moral and political subjects).

In North India, the Deoband Seminary was founded in 1867 which published thousands of fatwas telling the Muslims how to conduct their everyday life and explained the meanings of Islamic doctrines.

The first printed edition of the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas was published in 1810 from Calcutta.

From the 1880s, the Naval Kishore Press at Lucknow and Shri Venkateshwar Press in Bombay published religious texts in vernacular. Religious texts encouraged discussion and debates among different religions.

From 1822, two Persian newspapers were published Jam-i- Jahan Nama and Shamsul Akhbar. In the same year, a Gujarati newspaper, the Bombay Samachar was started publishing.

Printing created need for new kinds of writings. The ewont novel which had developed in Europe catered to this need. It required different Indian forms and styles. Besides novels, other new literary forms like lyrics, short stories and essays about social and political matters entered the world of reading.

By the end of the 19th century, a new visual culture was taking shape. Painters like Raja Ravi Varma produced images for mass circulation. Even poor could easily buy the calendars and cheap prints for the decoration of his house and office. These prints began shaping popular ideas about modernity and tradition, religion and politics and society and culture.

By the 1870s, caricatures and cartoons were being published in journals and newspapers, commenting on social and political issues. Some caricatures mocked western taste,while some expressed the fear of social change.

Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their women folk at home and sent them to schools.

After the mid-19th century, women’s schools were set up in the cities and towns. Many journals began carrying the writings of women and explained why women should be educated.

Many women contributed to print culture. Prominent among them were:

1) Rashsundari Debi: In East Bengal, Rashsundari Debi, a young married girl in a very orthodox family, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen. She wrote her autobiography ‘Amar Jiban’ in 1876.

2) Kailashbashini Debi : From the 1860s, some Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi, highlighted the experiences of women i.e. how they were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard domestic work and treated unjustly.

3) Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai : In the 1880s, women writers like Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai both from Maharashtra, wrote about the miserable lives of upper caste Hindu women, especially widows.

4) Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein: In 1926, famous educationist and literary figure, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossein disapproved men for withholding education from women in the name of religion.

Print Culture and Women Education

Print and the Poor People

Print and Casteism