On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History

530 Pages·2013·7.47 MB·English

by  Nicholas A. Basbanes

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2013 by Nicholas A. Basbanes All rights reserved. Published in the United States by
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York,
and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House
Companies.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-38535044-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Basbanes, Nicholas A., [date]
On paper : the everything of its two-thousand-year history / Nicholas A. Basbanes.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-307-26642-2
1. Paper—History. 2. Papermaking—History. 3. Paper industry—History. I. Title.
Z247.B34 2013
676.09—dc23
2012050267
Cover design by Jason Booher v3.1
FOR CONNIE
My wife and companion on the paper trail,
With love and gratitude
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Preface
PART I
1. Common Bond
2. Goddess by the Stream
3. Road Trip
4. Rags to Riches
5. The Sound of Money
6. One and Done
PART II
7. Fiery Consequences
8. Papers, Please
9. Hard Copy
10. Metamorphosis
11. Face Value
12. On Paper
PART III
13. Things Unknown
14. The Drawing Board
15. Sleight of Hand
16. In the Mold
17. At the Crossroads
18. Elegy in Fragments
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
A Note About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Illustrations
p1.1 Statue of the poet Xue Tao. Author photograph.
1.1 Wood cut image from The Diamond Sutra. The British
Library/Wikimedia Commons.
1.2 Duan Win Mao, outside Tengchong. Author photograph.
1.3 Wife of Duan Win Mao. Author photograph.
1.4 Papermaking, village of Longzhu. Author photograph.
1.5 Papermaking, village of Ma. Author photograph.
2.1 The Japanese technique of papermaking by Tachibana Minko,
Tokyo, 1770. Author’s collection.
2.2 The Shinto shrine of Kawakama Gozen, Echizen, Japan. Author
photograph.
2.3 Schematic drawing of design for paper bombs. Smithsonian
Institution.
2.4 A Japanese mulberry paper balloon reinflated. U.S. Army
photograph/Wikimedia Commons.
2.5 Papermaker Ichibei Iwano IX. Author photograph.
2.6 “The Joy of Living with Paper.” Ichibei Iwano IX. Author
photograph.
3.1 Papermaker and tools. From Kashmiri manuscript, c. 1850–1860.
Copyright The British Library Board (Add. Or. 1699), used with
permission.
3.2 Paper mill of Ulman Stromer. Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. Wikimedia
Commons.
3.3 Early German paper mill, by Jost Amman. Book of Trades, 1568.
From a facsimile copy in the author’s collection.
3.4 A stamping mill for preparing paper pulp, Novo Teatro di Machine, by
Vittorio Zonca, 1607. From a facsimile copy in the author’s
collection.
3.5 Jacob Christian Schäffer’s experiments with papermaking fibers.
Robert C. Williams Paper Museum/Institute of Paper Science and
Technology. Author photograph.
4.1 Embossed duty stamps from the Stamp Act of 1765. Massachusetts
Historical Society. Author photograph.
4.2 William Bradford’s Pennsylvania Journal of October 31, 1765, at the
Library Company of Philadelphia. Author photograph.
5.1 Zenas Crane testing waters of the Housatonic River, Dalton,
Massachusetts. Nat White. Courtesy Crane and Company.
5.2 A public appeal for rags, 1801. Courtesy Crane and Company.
5.3 Douglas A. Crane. Author photograph.
5.4 U. S. currency paper, Crane and Company mill, Dalton,
Massachusetts. Author photograph.
6.1 Seth Wheeler’s 1891 patent for rolled toilet paper. United States
Patent and Trademark Office.
7.1 A group of sepoys, Lucknow, India. Illustrated London News, October
1857. Wikimedia Commons.
7.2 A soldier with paper cartridge pouch, drawing, Alfred A. Waud,
1864. J. P. Morgan Collection of Civil War Drawings, Library of
Congress/Wikimedia Commons.
7.3 Cover illustration for Sunset magazine, 1904 Art and Architecture
Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and
Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden
Foundations, used with permission.
8.1 British gunners with propaganda leaflets, Holland, January 1945.
Imperial War Museums (IWM) London/Wikimedia Commons.
9.1 Antilittering sign, Washington, D.C., metro station. Author
photograph.
9.2 The Law for the Safeguard of German Blood and German Honor that
barred marriage between Jews and other Germans. National
Archives and Records Administration Gift Collection.
9.3 Hitler’s signature on the Law for the Protection of German Blood and
German Honor. National Archives and Records Administration Gift
Collection.
9.4 Nineteenth-century political petitions, the National Archives and
Records Administration preservation laboratory in College Park,
Maryland. Author photograph.
9.5 Storage alcoves, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland.
Author photograph.
10.1 Scrap paper, Marcal Paper Mills, Elmwood Park, New Jersey.
Author photograph.
11.1 Productive use for worthless Weimar reichsmarks, 1923. Deutsches
Bundesarchiv, Bild 102–00104/Pahl, Georg/CC-BY-SA/Wikimedia
Commons.
11.2 A 100-trillion-dollar Zimbabwe banknote, 2006. Author’s
collection.
11.3 A Dunlap copy of the Declaration of Independence. Records of the
Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional
Convention, 1765–1821, National Archives and Records
Administration.
12.1 Letter from William Bradford to John Winthrop, 1638, and
Winthrop’s reply. Massachusetts Historical Society. Author
photograph.
12.2 A volume of John Quincy Adams’s diary. Author photograph.
12.3 Entryway to the subterranean treasure vault of the Folger
Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. Author photograph.
12.4 Harvard College Library Charging Book for 1786, being restored at
Weissman Preservation Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Author
photograph.
13.1 Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing on paper, “Vitruvian Man,” c. 1487.
Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice/Wikimedia Commons.
13.2 Piano Sonata in A Major, Opus 101 (Allegro), manuscript sketch in
Beethoven’s handwriting, 1816. The Moldenhauer Archives at the
Library of Congress.