The Influence Of The Printing Press

The expansion of Western influence was in accord with developing technologies. Technology gained popularity as it began making things easier and more efficient, opening new possibilities for improvement and growth. A notable factor in the 14th and 15th centuries was the first printing press. The outcome of improvements upon this idea is still heavily influential today.

Societal traditions slowed the success of the printing press significantly. The market for books had its place in culture, with scribes hand copying manuscripts for requests from wealthy people. This system was slow and tedious but had become the normal way to spread books. Improvements in paper and how it was contained were accepted and mixed into the market, but the idea of a printing press was one that was taken with controversy and caution. (Pettegree)

Those who owned books were often very wealthy, because the cost of these hand scribed writings were high. They felt that the printing press would make books too affordable for people of lower social classes, which was undesirable. This idea was commented on in The Book in the Renaissance, “[The wealthy book owners felt that] a flood of cheap books encouraged the wrong sorts of readers.”

Years passed and many inventions and practices can be traced back to the Gutenberg printing press. This is true of all sorts of printing processes, even up to modern times. The ideas have all just built off of the original press process. An 1822 example of this is the table in mathematics. This shows how the design of the printing press went beyond publishing and books. According to Media Technology and Society: A History from the Telegraph to the Internet, “From the simple multiplication table of the schoolroom to the complex topics such as lists of air densities as a function of altitude at a given time, the table, thanks to the printing press, is a basic tool of scientific culture.” (Winston