As Readership Expanded
The battle between industrial-commercial publishers (fortified
by ever more potent technologies) and the arts and
craftsmanship crowd never ceased and it is raging now as
fiercely as ever in numerous discussion lists, fora, tomes,
and conferences. William Morris started the "private press"
movement in England in the 19th century to counter what he
regarded as the callous commercialization of book publishing.
When the printing press was invented, it was put to commercial
use by private entrepreneurs (traders) of the day. Established
"publishers" (monasteries), with a few exceptions (e.g., in
Augsburg, Germany and in Subiaco, Italy) shunned it and
regarded it as a major threat to culture and civilization.
Their attacks on printing read like the litanies against self-
publishing or corporate-controlled publishing today.
But, as readership expanded (women and the poor became
increasingly literate), market forces reacted. The number of
publishers multiplied relentlessly. At the beginning of the
19th century, innovative lithographic and offset processes
allowed publishers in the West to add illustrations (at first,
black and white and then in color), tables, detailed maps and
anatomical charts, and other graphics to their books.
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