#braodsheet

[riesenfeldcenter]

Suffrage Song

One hundred years ago today the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed the Senate and was submitted to the states for ratification. That got us digging into the collection and returned to raise our voices in song!

Our copy of Suffrage Song: to be sung to the tune of “America” was probably printed around 1910, the time other collections of ‘suffrage songs’ like The Suffrage Song Book are created and distributed. It is printed on a double sided broadsheet measuring 8” x 5-1/2” and has the Battle Hymn of the Republic which also appears in The Suffrage Song Book) printed on the reverse. It’s in rather good condition for an early 20th century broadsheet that wasn't probably intended to last past one or two uses!  

[alexischarrison-blog]

The Printing Press and the Impact of Printed Materials

The Gutenberg printing press was one of the defining inventions in the 1400s, even though very similar printing techniques had already been invented in Asian countries a long time before. The Gutenberg printing press is what really brought printed text to the west in such a huge wave. 

[This is a full size, working replica of the Gutenberg printing press, it is housed at the International Printing Museum in Carson, CA, (which I’ve been to, Its really amazing!), and it is a museum that’s definitely worth checking out. http://www.printmuseum.org/ They do all kinds of printing demos for you in all kinds of different printing presses, and allow you to try some yourself. They can also make your name out of movable type letters as a souvenir.]

Gutenberg’s printing press had the innovation of movable type, which made it so letters could be easily rearranged to make different pages and so it could be reused.

An example of movable type letters.

The printing press had an impact in the amount of books being published and such (incanabula), but it reached out to the masses through short printed leaflets that contained illustrations and writing, also known as Braodsheets. Here’s a weird one on the swine flu.

Anyway, there is no denying how widespread the printing press made print material acessible and it changed how information was distributed throughout the medieval world.