Papermaking is an ancient craft. Legend credits Ts’ai-Lun, a Chinese eunuch in the emperor’s court, with inventing paper about 105 AD. Specimens were found in the Great Wall of China which date back 200 years earlier. These papers were made from hemp.

Papermaking was a guarded secret in China for centuries but traveled to Korea then Japan (about 600 AD). It spread westward along the silk trade routes when the Samarkand people gained the knowledge about 750. (The papermakers were tortured to get them to reveal the methods.) India (800-900 AD) and the Arab world adapted the technology to their own materials and uses and soon completely replaced papyrus (which is not paper).

The first mills in Europe were built by the Moors in Spain and Italy during the 11th century. Vellum and parchment (calfskin and sheepskin) were preferred by the church and court scribes. The invention of moveable type and the printing press in 1455 increased demand for paper enormously. Access to ideas and knowledge changed the world. Millions of books (copies) were printed by 1500.

Pulp in the Western World was made from old clothes – hemp, cotton, linen until the end of the 19th century. All paper was made by hand until the beginning of the 19th century when various mechanical paper machines were invented. Large commercial mills have worked steadily since 1840. Paper can be made from about 400 different cellulose fibers, including hemp, kenaf, corn stalk, sugar cane, straw, bamboo, banana, mulberry. Agricultural waste (stalks and husks) from many of our foods can make strong, attractive papers. Paper can be made to be very temporary (newsprint) or can last more than one thousand years. The paper in books printed before the 19th century is still in excellent condition because it was not made from wood pulp.

See a short, related article by William Morris

The Use of Wood for Paper

During the Industrial Revolution fast machines printed books and newspapers. Demand for paper skyrocketed. There weren’t enough rags. The Civil War stopped most cotton production and the war effort needed rags for bandages. The shortage of raw materials after the Civil War was critical. All sorts of fibers were tested for commercial papermaking during the 19th century (including cow dung!) Rag was mixed with straw from about 1840 to 1900.

The first use of paper made from wood pulp was little more than 100 years ago (1872). Printers would have nothing to do with it, causing the first wood pulp mills to go out of business. A desperate New England mill shipped wood pulp paper to a Boston newspaper claiming it was rag and straw. The rag and wood mix was found to work well on the press. Industrial chemical (sulfur) and logging suppliers consolidated during the early 1900′s and “cheap” paper (as we now assume all paper is!) eventually dominated the marketplace.

Half of all trees felled each year are used for paper, and some estimates cite remaining old growth rest worldwide to be only 2%. The sulfite (wood chip) paper process creates downstream dioxins and the resulting paper doesn’t hold up over time, most cannot be recycled if it is glossy or coated. Uncoated woodpulp paper can only be recycled once or twice, whereas hemp, kenaf and cotton can be recycled many times.

Four Periods of Chinese Paper Making

Early Period. (206 BC – 220 AD) West Ham Dynasty to East Han Dynasty.

Silk was already availabe for writing and hemp & silk paper was invented in China at this time and produced from fabric scraps. Paper was not yet a popular medium.

Development Period. (265-581 AD) West Jin Dynasty to Sui Dynasty.

The papermaking industry flourished and paper surpassed silk and bamboo as the preferred medium for art and calligraphy.

Leap Period (618-1279) Tang and Song Dynasty.

Varied styles of Chinese paper emerged to suit the needs of the artist.

Peak Period. (1271 – 1911) Yuan, Ming & Qing Dynasties.

After generations of constant development, the technique of making art paper reached its summit. During the period of Shuen-De (1426-1436) in the Ming Dynasty, the excellent art paper made from the fibers of the Qin-tan bush and Sa-Tan rice straw became highly valued for calligraphy and art.

From Kelmscott Doves and Ashendene. The Private Press Credos. Printed in 1952 by Ward Ritchie of Pasadena for the Typophiles. (Originally from Arts and Crafts Essays by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, London, Rivington, Percival and Co., 1893 and “A Note On His Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press,” Kelmscott House, Upper Hall, Hammersmith, November 11, 1895)

I began printing books with the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye, or trouble the intellect of the reader by eccentricity of form in the letters. I have always been a great admirer of the calligraphy of the Middle Ages, and of the earlier printing which took its place. As to the fifteenth-century books, I had noticed that they were always beautiful by force of the mere typography, even without the added ornament, with which many of them are so lavishly supplied. And it was the essence of my undertaking to produce books which it would be a pleasure to look upon as pieces of printing and arrangements of type. Looking at my adventure from this point of view then, I found I had to consider chiefly the following things: the paper, the form of the type, the relative spacing of the letters, the words, and the lives; and lastly the position of the printed matter on the page.

It was a matter of course that I should consider it necessary that the paper should be hand-made, both for the sake of durability and appearance. It would be a very false economy to stint in the quality of the paper as to price: so I had only to think about the kind of hand-made paper. On this head I came to two conclusions: 1st, that the paper must be wholly of linen (most hand-made papers are of cotton today), and must be quite ‘hard,’ i.e., thoroughly well-sized; and 2nd, that, though it must be ‘laid’ and not ‘wove’ (i.e., made on a mould made of obvious wires), the lines caused by the wires of the mould must not be too strong, so as to give a ribbed appearance. I found that on these points I was at one with the practice of the papermakers of the fifteenth century; so I took as my model a Bolognese paper of about 1473. My friend Mr. Batchelor, of Little Chart, Kent, carried out my views very satisfactorily, and produced from the first the excellent paper which I still use.

It may be said that though there is some good paper made now, it is never used except for very expensive books, although it would not materially increase the cost in all but the very cheapest. The paper that is used for ordinary books is exceedingly bad even in this country, but is beaten in the race for vileness by that made in America, which is the worst conceivable. There seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made, even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article is cheap, e.g. the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface, which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost. One fruitful source of badness in paper is the habit that publishers have of eking out a thin volume by printing it on thick paper almost of the substance of cardboard, a device which deceives nobody, and makes a book very npleasant to read. On the whole a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent. The paper used for printing the small highly ornamented French service-books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect, being thin, tough, and opaque. However, the fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper cannot in the nature of things be made of so good a texture as that made by hand.

William Morris
1834-1896