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Article: Printing Industry
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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PRINTING INDUSTRY
PRINTING INDUSTRY.
The origin of printing would seem to be inextricably bound up with that of literacy. While that may indeed have been the case, at this remove it is difficult to be certain. The essence of printing is that multiple copies are made of a sample of written language. How large a sample is reproduced depends on the flexibility of the printing technique in question. The history of printing is to a great extent also the history of paper and of publishing.
Early History of Printing
In classical times, an edition of a written work was produced by having it copied by scribes, usually literate slaves devoted entirely to that purpose. The availability of slave ...