This book, which relies on documents previously unavailable to both Western and Chinese researchers, demonstrates how Western technology and evolving traditional values resulted in the birth of a unique form of print capitalism whose influence on Chinese culture was far-reaching and irreversible. Under diverse social, political, and economic influences, this technological and cultural revolution saw woodblock printing replaced with Western mechanical processes. It finds the origins of that revolution in the country’s printing industries of the late imperial period and analyzes their subsequent development in the Republican era. Simon’s use of his patented process was primarily used for printing expensive wall coverings on silk, linen, paper and other fine fabrics.In the mid-1910s, what historians call the “Golden Age of Chinese Capitalism” began, accompanied by a technological transformation that included the drastic expansion of China’s “Gutenberg revolution.” Gutenberg in Shanghai is a brilliant examination of this process. While Europe was introduced to the process in the 18th century, it would take the affordability of silk mesh and commercial use of the process to make it more available. The Englishman Samuel Simon patented the screen printed form most familiar in the Western world in 1907. The use of a frame with these delicate stencils was called the Cyclostyle in the UK, and the Mimeograph in the USA, and used a fine and porous waxed paper called Yoshino. This took the process of screen printing further, by using wax paper handwriting stencils patented in 1877, but were then fixed into a frame, so that the ink could then be forced through them by using a rubber squeegee. In the Eighteenth Century, it found its way to Western Europe where it became a prominent method for printing and duplication. Perhaps the most important historical development of the screen printing process was made in the late 1880s in both America and the UK, using similar principles but going by different names. It was here that the practice of stretching silk over a frame to support stencils was initiated but it is now known by whom. Stiff brushes were still being used as a way to push ink through the mesh. In the 17th century silk screens were being used in France as a way of printing onto fabric. Stiff brushes were used to force ink through the mesh onto the fabric. Due to the scarcity and expense of silk in the rest of the world though, screen printing took a while to find its feet, until more readily available silk mesh was available in the 1700s, and interest in Western Europe began to get established. Japan took hold of the idea to use silk as a mesh, and advanced the process for many years. At this time stencils were cut out of paper and the mesh was woven from human hair. ![]() Silk screen printing may be the oldest and most practical printing technique dating back to ancient times. The history of silk screen printing has been traced back to China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD). This method first appeared in a recognizable form in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD).
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