Did You Know...Fascinating Printing Facts

Did you know... Boy Scouts can earn badges for printing? Graphic Arts and Pulp & Paper merit badges are awarded to Boy Scouts who complete a day-long workshop, where the youths get hands-on training at 12 learning/activity stations.

Did you know... The Black Death significantly contributed to the evolution of the printing process? The dead left a surplus of clothes, which were inherited by the living, who could now dispose of their old, worn garments. The discarded clothes were used to make "rag paper," which became an inexpensive alternative to parchment (sheepskin) and vellum (calfskin)—the only materials used in bookmaking at the time.

Rag paper was a real bargain compared to the hundreds of calfskins and sheepskins it took to make one copy of the Bible—which was the staple text being produced.

Did you know... The deaths of hundreds of monks in Western European monasteries marked a milestone, leading to the invention of the printing press? After many of the monks (who copied Bibles) had succumbed to the Black Death, there was a massive void of bookmakers, which drastically increased the cost of copying Bibles. At the same time, the cost of rag paper was continually decreasing. Ultimately, the mass production of cheap paper, combined with an absence of bookmakers, became incentives to create a better printing process. PI