Family Tree USA – September 2019

8 FAMILY TREE MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019

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Paper Pushers

3000 B.C.

Egyptians produce papyrus, a mat

fashioned from strips of woven

grass. Though it may have given us

our word for “paper,” papyrus wasn’t

true paper as we defi ne it today.

GUTENBERG’S 15THCENTURY INVENTION of movable-type print-

ing gets all the press (so to speak) for launching mass communica-

tion. But without innovation from a Chinese eunuch more than

1,300 years earlier (and several inventors in the centuries since),

Gutenberg wouldn’t have had anything to print on.

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TIMELINE

105

Cai Lun, chief eunuch in the court

of Han Emperor He, creates the

fi rst true paper and pioneers

papermaking. His method

requires softening plants, then

mixing them with water until each

fi ber is completely separate. A

screen then lifts the material from

the vat, catching fi bers in a thin

layer that hardens when dried. Cai

Lun may have used hemp, mul-

berry bark and even old fi shing

nets. But his work likely included

silk rags; the Chinese ideogram for

“paper” derives from that for “silk.”

751

Captured Chinese papermakers reveal

their secrets in Samarkand, bringing

papermaking to the Arab world and making

Samarkand a center of the trade. Through

conquest, the Moors bring papermaking

to Spain in the 12th century. Then

Egyptians bring it to Italy in the 1200s.

1690

William Rittenhouse founds

America’s fi rst paper mill

in 1690. Rags become so in-

demand that the Rittenhouse

Mill is the subject of a poem:

“Kind friend, when thy old shift

is rent,/Let it to the paper mill

be sent.”

1439

Johannes Gutenberg becomes the fi rst Euro-

pean to use moveable type when he invents

theGutenberg printing press. Over time, his

invention drastically lowers the manufacturing

cost of books, making them more accessible

status symbols for the elite (and thus, driving

demand for paper on which to print).

1500 |^1600 |

everythingggs’ relative