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How Did Johannes Gutenberg Influence The Printing Press

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Johannes Gutenberg Johannes Gutenberg was born into a merchant family in 1395 in Mainz, Germany. He was the third son of Freile zum Gensfleisch and Else Wirick zum Gutenberg. When living in Mainz, Gutenberg apprenticed as a goldsmith. After a craftsman revolt against the noble class occurred in Mainz in 1428, Gutenberg's family was exiled. Gutenberg and his family eventually settled in Strasbourg, France. It was in Strasbourg where Gutenberg started to experiment with printing. Gutenberg was able to develop a casting system and metal alloys to make movable type production easier. Gutenberg moved back to Mainz in 1448, where he started operating a print shop in 1450. Johannes Gutenberg needed to buy specific equipment and tools for …show more content…

The printing press made books easier and cheaper to produce than the hand written works. This gave more people access to books rather than just the upper class members. The new production of books allowed more people to gain access to education and also exposed the readers to new ideas and places. The large increase in production of books led to a very large increase in the number of people that were able to read. Before Gutenberg's printing press, there were only a few thousand books in Europe. After Gutenberg's printing press this number increased to over 15 million. Along with the printing press, Gutenberg also created the ink that he used to print. Gutenberg also adapted a wine press, which allowed him to slide the paper in and out of the machine more easily. This made Gutenberg's innovation even more …show more content…

Each block was its own letter or character and it was very inefficient. This method of printing is known as movable type. This technique was used in Asia hundreds of years before Gutenberg. Gutenberg used a casting and metal alloy system to make movable type much more efficient. Life before the printing press was much different than it was after. Before the printing press, most documents were hand-written by scribes. There were few books compared to what there is now and only the rich, upper-class families owned books. Only the upper-class families were well educated and most of the lower-class members didn't even know how to read. There was very little spread of information in Europe before the printing press because of how inefficient and costly books were at the time. The printing press was one of the best technological advances of the Renaissance. I think I relate to Gutenberg in the sense that invented something that made printing much more efficient and I like to be as efficient as possible when I am doing something. Work Cited "Johannes Gutenberg." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 05 Sept.

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