History of the Book - Hand Press Period, 1450-1800
This guide is designed to provide a broad overview of printing technologies during the hand press period.
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Gutenberg Press or Wooden Press - Later called a Common Press
Printing: Letterpress printing occurred on wooden or "common" presses throughout the hand press period. Letterpress is a relief printing process, and involves taking an impression from raised types or blocks. The earliest printing presses were platen presses, and remained largely unchanged for 350 years. Typically, two men worked the press, taking turns inking the forme and pulling the bar. Working in pairs, pressmen could produce around 240 impressions per hour, or four impressions per minute. Over the course of a 10 hour work day, a press could routinely produce 2,400 impressions, or 1,200 two-sided sheets.
- International Printing Museum Tour: Introduction to Printing (24:21 sec)The International Printing Museum’s curator, Mark Barbour, takes you on a working tour of the museum’s galleries. He highlights the history of printing from the Chinese invention and Gutenberg’s development of typecasting to Ben Franklin’s colonial printing shop.
- International Printing Museum Tour: The Gutenberg Press (13:56 sec)The International Printing Museum’s curator, Mark Barbour, takes you on a working tour of the museum’s galleries. He highlights the history of printing from the Chinese invention and Gutenberg’s development of typecasting to Ben Franklin’s colonial printing shop.
- How a Gutenberg Printing Press Works (3:14 sec)Demonstration on the only working model of a Gutenberg printing press--Crandall Historical Printing Museum.
- The Print Workshop in the Fifteenth Century (5:02 sec)An introduction to the printing of books as it would have been done in the fifteenth century. The film uses equipment in the Cambridge University Library's Historical Printing Room
- The Making of a Renaissance Book (21:21 sec)Originally issued in 1969; remastered 2004. Shot on location at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, produced by Dana Atchley, and distributed by the American Friends of the Plantin-Moretus Museum. All rights now owned by the Book Arts Press (Rare Book School). Topics covered include: cutting a type punch; making a copper strike and justifying the matrix; casting and dressing the type; composition, imposition, and proof-reading; inking and running off the sheets; stop-press corrections.
- Jack Williams Demonstrates his Wooden Press (1:44 sec)Jack Williams, of Effingham, New Hampshire, demonstrates his wooden common press at Strawbery Banke in Porstmouth, New Hampshire on Friday, October 24, 2008. The demonstration was part of the New Hampshire Writers' Project's Portsmouth Literary Festival.
- Printing and Binding a Handmade Book (3:29 sec)This video from the Victoria & Albert Museum shows the stages involved in creating a hand-printed, hand-bound book in octavo format (8 pages per sheet).
- Printing a Newspaper - Colonial Williamsburg (49:22 sec)Join Journeyman Printers Chad Jones and David Wilson to see how newspapers were printed in the 18th century. They will discuss the full process from making ink and preparing inkballs all the way to the finished product.