Vidya Sanskaar International Public School

Class 10 -2024-25
History- Print Culture and The Modern World

“It is difficult to imagine a world without printed matter”. Justify the statement giving any three suitable
examples
● We find print everywhere around us in books, newspapers, journals, magazines, famous paintings, official
circulars, calendars, diaries, advertisements and cinema posters.
● We read printed literature, books, novels and stories.
● We read newspapers everyday and track public debates.

Print in China
● The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and Korea.
● From 594 AD onwards books in China were printed by rubbing paper against the inked surface of woodblocks.
● Earliest Chinese books were made in ‘accordion’ style.
● Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture.
● The art of beautiful and stylish writing is called Calligraphy.

‘ The imperial State in China, was the major producer of printed material’. Support this statement with
examples.
● China had a bureaucratic system which conducted civil service examinations to recruit its personnel.
● Textbooks for this examination were printed in large numbers, under the sponsorship of the imperial state.
● From the sixteenth century, the number of candidates, who were taking examinations, went up. It led to increased
volume of printed materials.

Print in Japan
Describe the progress of print in Japan.
● Buddhist Missionaries from China introduced hand-printing technology into Japan around AD 768-770.
● The oldest Japanese book printed in AD 868 is the Buddhist ‘Diamond Sutra’.
● Pictures were printed on textiles, playing cards and paper money. In medieval Japan, poets and prose writers were
regularly published, and books were cheap and abundant.
● Libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed materials of various types.

Print comes to Europe

How did the knowledge of wood-block printing come to Europe? Explain.
● In the 11th century Chinese paper reached Europe through silk routes.
● In 1295 Marco Polo brought the knowledge of woodblock printing technology to Italy. ● Now Italians began to
produce books with wood blocks technology.
● Soon the technology spread to other parts of Europe.

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 Why couldn’t the production of handwritten manuscripts satisfy the ever increasing demand for
books ?
● Copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
● Manuscripts were fragile and difficult to handle.
● They were not easily carried around or read easily.

Factors that helped in the rise of print culture in Europe:

● Handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever increasing demand for books.
● Copying was an expensive, laborious and time consuming business.
● Manuscripts were fragile, that's why circulation was limited.
● Woodlock were used for printing by the early 15th century but this couldn’t cater to the ever increasing demand
for print materials.
● Need for quicker and cheaper reproduction of books.

Gutenberg and the Printing Press:

Who invented the printing press? How did he develop the printing technology? Johann Gutenberg:
Gutenberg was the son of a merchant and grew up on a large agricultural estate. From his childhood he had seen
wine and olive presses.
Subsequently he learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith and also acquired the expertise to
create lead moulds used for making trinkets.
Drawing on this knowledge he used to design his new innovation.

The Printing Press:

The olive press provided the model for the printing press and the moulds were used for casting the metal types for
the letters of the alphabet.
By 1448 he perfected this system and the first book he printed was the Bible. Printed books at first closely
resembled the written manuscripts in appearance and layout. Between 1450-1550 printing presses were set up in
most countries of Europe.

The Print Revolution and Its Impact

“ The Print Revolution had transformed the lives of people changing their relationship to information and
knowledge”. Analyse the statement.
● It created a new dimension to human lives and made them more informed and knowledgeable,
● It created awareness among people and made them think practically.
● It influenced popular perceptions and beliefs and opened up ways to look beyond what they perceived.
● Print opened up horizons for debate and discussions as people began to question the existing thought and belief.

How did print bring the reading public and hearing public closer?
Print brought the reading public and hearing public closer in the following ways.
● Printing reduced the cost of books and multiple copies could now be produced easily. Books flooded in the
market and led to the increase of reading public.
● The literacy rate of Europeans was very low. Publishers reached out to people by making them listen to books
being read out by a literate person.

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● People gathered around the reader and listened.
● To keep the hearing public intact, publishers published popular ballads and folktales. Oral culture thus found its
route into print.
● Printed material was orally transmitted, which blurred the line separating reading and hearing public.

Religious Debates and the Fear of Print

What was Protestant Reformation?
● Protestant Reformation was a movement dedicated to reform the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth
century. Martin Luther was its chief preacher.
● He wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church in 1517
in which he challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
● This led to division of church and beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther remarked, “Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.” Explain his remarks
in the light of religious reforms that took place in Europe.
Religious reforms that took place in Europe were as follows.
● Martin Luther wrote Ninety Five Theses criticising the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church. These
were reproduced in large numbers and read by a large number of people.
● This led to the division within the church into Catholics and Protestants.
● This print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere, which helped in the spread of new ideas. This also paved
the way for the reformation in the practices of the church.
● The message in the Bible began to be reinterpreted.
● Print encouraged people to think reasonably and question the customs followed in the Church, which enraged the
Roman Catholics

Explain with examples the role of print culture in the bringing of the French Revolution. The following
points show the role of print culture in the bringing of the French Revolution.
● Print popularised the ideas of the enlightenment thinkers. The writings of Voltaire and Rousseau were read
widely.
● These thinkers argued for the rule of reason rather than custom and demanded that everything should be judged
through the application of reason and rationality.
● Print created a new culture of dialogue and debate. All values, norms and institutions were re-evaluated and
discussed by a public that had become aware of the power of reason and recognised the need to question existing
ideas and beliefs.
● By the 1780s, there was an outpouring of literature that mocked the royalty and criticised their morality. In the
process, it raised questions about the existing social order.
● Print did not directly shape their minds, but it did open up the possibility of thinking differently.

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How did a large number of new readers among children, women and workers increase in nineteenth
century Europe? Explain with examples.
New readers among children, women and workers increased in following ways;
● As primary education became compulsory in the late-nineteenth century, children became an important category
of readers. School textbooks had to be published. In France, a children's press was started which published new
works as well as old fairy tales.
● Women became important as readers as well as writers. Penney magazines were meant for
women, as also manuals teaching proper behaviour and housekeeping. When novels were written in the 19th
century, women became important readers. Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters and George Eliot were important
women writers.
● In the 19th century, lending libraries in England sent books to white-collar workers, artisans and lower-middle
class people and became instruments in educating them. They also wrote political tracts and autobiographies.

Further Innovations
● By the mid 19th Century, Richard M. Hoe perfected the power driven cylindrical press.
● In the late 19th century an offset press was developed that can print up to six colours at a time.
● By the 20th century, electrically operated presses accelerated printing operations.

India and the World of Print

What were the limitations of written manuscripts in India? Explain.
The following were the limitations of written manuscripts in India
● Manuscripts were very expensive and fragile. They had to be treated carefully and they were difficult to read as the
script was written in different styles.
● Manuscripts were not widely used in everyday life. Even though pre-colonial Bengal had developed a vast network
of village primary schools, students usually did not read texts.
● Students only learnt to write. Teachers read out parts of texts from memory and students wrote them down on
paper. Students thus became literate without ever actually reading any kind of texts.

Explain any three features of handwritten manuscripts before the age of print in India.
The following were the three features of handwritten manuscripts before the age of print in India.
● Manuscripts were copied on palm leaves or on handmade paper.
● Pages were sometimes beautifully illustrated.
● They would be either pressed between wooden covers or sewn together to ensure preservation.
● Manuscripts, however, were highly expensive and fragile. This had to be handled carefully and could not be read
easily as the script was written in different styles.
● They were written in different styles using vernacular language.

Print comes to India

Explain the role of missionaries in the growth of press in India.
● The printing press first came to Goa with Portuguese missionaries in the mid-sixteenth century. ● By 1674, about
50 books had been printed in the Konkani and in kanara language.
● Catholic priests printed the first Tamil book in 1579 at Cochin and in 1713 the first Malayalam book was printed
by them.
● From 1780 James Augustus Hickey began to edit a weekly magazine - The Bengal Gazette.
● Gangadhar Bhattacharya began to publish the Bengal Gazette.

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How did print introduce debate and discussions? Explain any three points. Print introduced diverse reading
material to masses, which they interpreted in their own way and developed their own thoughts. This gave rise to
debate and discussion in the following ways.
● Varied opinions: People developed reasoning and hence began to debate on religious, social and economic
issues. They developed different opinions. Social reformers offered a variety of interpretations of various beliefs and
practices.
● Shaped opinions: Published matter not only spread new ideas and views but also shaped the nature of debate. A
wider section of people could now participate in public discussion and express their views. New ideas emerged due
to clash of opinions.
● Social reforms: This was a time of intense controversies between social and religious reformers and orthodoxy
over social customs and politics. People began to reason and discuss critically the established social and religious
norms. Samachar Chandrika opposed the opinions of Raja Rammohan Roy, which were published in Sambad
Kaumudi in 1821.

“By the end of the 19th century a new visual culture was taking shape.” Explain.

The nineteenth century saw the new visual culture taking shape. It was because of the following developments.
● Along with the printed material, visual images could also be published and reproduced easily in multiple copies.
● Painters like Raja Ravi Varma used print culture to produce images for mass circulation. Wood improvers began
to be employed in print houses for making woodblocks.
● People good at funny sketching developed cartoons and caricatures commenting on social and political issues.
Some openly criticised imperial rule, western tastes and clothes which attracted large masses.
● Mass production of visual images reduced the cost of production. Cheap prints and calendars were available in
the market and even the poor could buy them to decorate the walls of their homes.
● The new visual culture acquired a distinctively Indian form and style, as artists began to depict scenes from Hindu
religious mythology.

“Printing technology gave women a chance to share their feelings with the world outside.” Support the
statement with any five suitable examples.
Printing technology gave women a chance to share their feelings with the world outside. The following are the
examples supporting the statement.
● Rashundari Devi, a young married girl in a very orthodox household, learnt to read in the secrecy of her kitchen.
Later she wrote her autobiography Amar Jiban which was published in 1876. It was the first full length
autobiography in Bengali.
● Many other women writers, like Kailashbhashini Debi, highlighted experiences of women like their imprisonment
at home, ignorance and unjust treatment in their writings.
● Tarabai Shinde and Pandita Ramabai narrated the plight of upper caste Hindu women, especially the widows.
● Tamil writers expressed the poor status of women.
● By the early twentieth century, journals written by women became popular, which highlighted issues like women’s
education, widowhood and widow- remarriage. Some of them highlighted fashion lessons to women and
entertainment through short stories and serialised novels.

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What was the attitude of liberal and conservative Indians towards women’s reading? How did women like
Kailashbhashini Debi respond to this in their writings?
The following points sum up the attitude of liberal and conservative Indians towards women’s reading.
● Liberal husbands and fathers began educating their womenfolk at home.
● They sent them to schools when women’s schools were set up in the cities and towns after the mid-nineteenth
century.
● While conservative Hindus believed that a literate girl would be widowed, muslims feared that reading Urdu
romances would corrupt Muslim women. Women like Kailashbhashini Debi responded to this in their writings in
the following ways.
● Lives and feelings of women began to be written in particularly vivid and intense ways. From the 1860s, a few
Bengali women like Kailashbashini Debi wrote books highlighting the experiences of women.
● Kailashbhashini wrote about how women were imprisoned at home, kept in ignorance, forced to do hard
domestic labour and treated unjustly by the very people they served.

“Printing press played a major role in shaping the Indian society of the 19th century.” Analyse the
statement.
The printing press played the following role in shaping the Indian society of the 19th century.
● Print media opened an era of debates and discussions on various socio-religious issues. It spread many new ideas.
All the ideas were accepted only after logical thinking rather than accepting blindly.
● Socio-religious reformers are able to spread their ideas against several evil religious customs such as sati, female
infanticide etc. Example: Gulamgiri of Jyotiba Phule.
● In north India the Muslim saints, the Ulemas, used cheap lithographic presses to print the religious newspapers.
They wrote against British policy of religious conversion and changing of the Muslim personal laws.
● Among Hindus, it encouraged the reading of religious texts.
● It connected communities and people in different parts of India.
● By converging news from one place to another, newspapers created pan-Indian identities.
How were magazines different from novels? Write any three differences.
Magazines were different from the novels in the following ways.
● Magazines had several stories along with varied contents. Novels presented just one story.
● Magazines were published periodically but the novels were published only once.
● The writers of the magazines could be several. Novel was written by one author.
● Magazines contained advertisements as compared to novels.
● Magazines had written as well as pictorial representations while novels had only content.

The Role of Print culture in encouraging the role of Nationalism in India.

● Despite repression nationalist newspapers were reaching every nook and corner of the country.
● They brought to light the misrule of the British.
● Revolutionary Bal Gangadhar Tilak started the newspaper named Kesari.
● Bal Gangadhar Tilak was imprisoned in 1908 which led to widespread protest all over India.

Reason for Vernacular Press Act passed in India:

● As vernacular newspapers became more assertive the colonial government sought to crush it.
● In 1878, the Vernacular Press Act was passed.
● From now on the government can track the vernacular newspapers.
Steps taken by the British to curb the freedom of press in India:
● After the revolt of 1857, enraged Englishmen demanded a clamp down on the native press
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 ● The Vernacular Press Act, 1878 was passed. It provided the government with extensive rights to censor reports
in the vernacular press.
● Government kept regular track of the vernacular newspapers.
● When a report was judged as seditious, the newspaper was warned and if the warning was ignored the press was
liable to be seized and the printing machinery confiscated.