Today walking up to a printer and either pushing a button on your computer or scanning your school ID is as complicated as it gets when it come to printing, but a little over 500 years ago, things looked a lot different. In order for there to be a copy of a book made, it all had to be done by hand.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages mechanics and engineers all over the world began to play around with the idea of mechanized printing. Some countries actually made leaps and bound for this engineering pursuit. For example, China in the 13th century came up with the idea of carving wooden blocks that could be rearranged and pressing them onto paper with ink. While this is great, and we now refer to it as "stamping," it was time consuming, so there was still room for growth.
Johannes Gutenberg
Luckily Germany was working on something pretty cool. Around 1440 Johannes Gutenberg created a way to engineer wood panels to fall and rise in order to mechanically print ink to paper. This is called the Printing Press! Gutenberg came from a Nobel family and was a practiced stonecutter and goldsmith.l These skills lead to helping him develop the perfect alloy metal composition of the metal blocks.
The printing press was invented during the Renaissance propelling that time of creativity and enlightenment further than it had even gone before. The rigidity the the Middle Ages made everyone, especially the lower and middle class, very aware of how knowledge gave the upper class great power over them. The only way to learn these new Enlightenment era ideas was either through word of mouth or reading them.
Knowledge has always been power, and until the 15th century, power had only been for the wealthy due to the high price of books and education. The invention of the printing press changed everything for the poor. Now because of the low production cost of books, knowledge was now the power of the public.
But this process did take time. Originally, Gutenberg tried to keep the mechanics of the press a secret because of the great power it held to change the world. And before they knew it, word had traveled, quite literally. Within 50 years of the presses invention, 2500 European cities had their own press.
One of Gutenberg's first projects was the infamous Gutenberg Bible which he produced 200 copies. These expensive and ornate books were only accessible to the rich, but eventually the press allowed the Bible to be produced in mass. This development changed how the church would read the Bible, and then eventually how the Gospel would spread across the world.
a preserved Gutenberg
Without the printing press the Church would not be the same, and without the church and the division that was caused somewhat by personal interpretation, America would not be what she is today. Knowledge propelled creativity, and thanks to the creativity of the Renaissance we live in a society of free thought.
So in short, we have a lot to thank the printing press for.
sources:
https://users.manchester.edu/FacStaff/SSNaragon/Kant/lp/Readings/11-Kreis,%20Printing%20Press.pdf
https://www.britannica.com/technology/printing-press
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