Leadership and Innovation: Gutenberg Sparked A Learning Revolution

 

Johannes Gutenberg didn't invent the printing press, contrary to popular belief.

What he did was far more complicated and important.

He took others' creations — such as ink, movable metal type and a simple paper press — and improved them.

The result was a complete system that could mass-produce any text.

Michael Hart, in "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History," argues that Gutenberg is the eighth most important person who ever lived (just ahead of Christopher Columbus): "Without him, the invention of modern printing might have been delayed for generations. His press was a major factor  — possibly even the crucial factor — in triggering the revolutionary developments of modern times."

In a 1998 Time-Life list of the greatest leaders and inventors of the past millennium, Gutenberg towered over all others.

Gutenberg (1398-1468) was born in Mainz, by the Rhine River in Germany, the youngest son of a well-to-do goldsmith who worked for the Catholic bishop's mint.

On The Go

When he was 13, the professional guilds tried to force the rich to reduce the cost of loans to Mainz, so the Gutenbergs moved down river to Eltville. Johannes graduated from college in nearby Erfurt in 1420 and returned to Mainz to work for the mint.

Nine years later he left, probably in reaction to another breakdown in negotiations between the guilds and the upper class.

By 1434, he was living in Strasbourg, where ideas for a new printing process came to him, as he put it, "like a ray of light." Two years later he set up a partnership with the owner of a paper mill and one of his former apprentices while he continued to work as a goldsmith.

But in 1439 he ran into financial problems when 32,000 metal mirrors he manufactured could not be immediately sold. They were designed for an Aachen holy-relic exhibit, which was postponed for a year due to floods.

To appease investors, he shared a secret: His printing press was in progress.

By 1450 he was back in Mainz operating his press, thanks to an investment by a businessman and a loan from Gutenberg's brother-in-law.

"There is a cliche about inventions that they burst to life in the minds of poverty-stricken loners, who struggle in garrets to turn brilliant novelties into material form," wrote John Man in "The Gutenberg Revolution." "But he was quite well off, he was a great team worker, and most of the materials and devices for his invention existed before he came along."

Gutenberg built his system on innovations that had made it possible to print limited copies:

• The Chinese invention of paper, introduced in Europe in the 12th century.

• The Roman screw press for agriculture, adapted to print on paper.

• Movable type, which meant producing letters or punctuation on wood or metal stems that could be reused to create new pages.

• Oil-based ink, which avoided smearing on wet paper, crucial in the printing process.

All of those innovations needed extensive improvement to make printing easier and faster — and Gutenberg made it happen.

He divided the printing process into two steps.

1. Making the type and setting it. Using his goldsmithing skills, he created an alloy from lead, tin and antimony and used it to cast type in molds. This produced tiny blocks that were strong and provided uniform figures. The type led to text for a page arranged in a frame to slide into the printer.

2. Printing. He invented a movable undertable for the press on which sheets could be changed quickly. He had to experiment to find the right type of paper for the new process, since most sheets were too hard or soft. He also tried out old ink recipes to find the best formula for using metal type on paper.

Gutenberg's lesson is to build on the achievements of others to create your own success.

Because Gutenberg did not print his name on what he published, speculation abounds over what he printed. His early publications are believed to have been church documents and a Latin textbook.

His best-known work was the Gutenberg Bible, of which he made 180 copies in two volumes totaling 1,275 pages each.

The first volume was published in 1454 and cost the equivalent of three years' wages for a clerk.

The Advantage

This was dramatically cheaper than handwritten versions, whether printed on paper or vellum, a product made from calfskin. Some of his Bibles were also lavishly illustrated by hand after printing and sold at a premium.

With only 5% of Europe's 50 million people literate in 1450, the prospects for mass consumption of pamphlets and books didn't seem bright.

And even the press system was labor-intensive.

One compositor could typeset just two pages a day. On top of that, several people had to operate each press, and once the pages were printed, they had to be dried, cut and compiled into bound books.

Gutenberg ended up employing as many as 30 people at a time.

Yet it all proved worth it.

"Gutenberg originally saw his innovation as a way to produce expensive texts for rich patrons more easily, such as his massive Bibles," Steven Goldman, author of the Teaching Co. audio course "Great Science Ideas That Changed the World," told IBD. "Soon enough, new opportunities enabled by this technology became apparent, and the market took off, much as it did for the Internet, which was originally designed for linking researchers in nuclear physics. Europeans became instantly print-drunk."

Onward

Gutenberg and progress were soon on a roll:

• The Protestant Reformation was driven in large part by mass distribution of its ideas.

• Martin Luther's first writings critical of the Catholic church sold 300,000 copies from 1518 to 1520.

• The first newspaper was published in Venice in 1556.

•Scientists could finally share discoveries easily.

• Latin declined in usage, as publications appeared in local languages, which inspired nationalism.

According to Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin in "The Coming of the Book," European printers by 1500 had produced 20 million texts. A century later the number had ballooned to 200 million.

"The explosion in books required a comparable increase in production of paper and ink, which required the creation of a whole new kind of industry, with larger mills, more raw materials, more investment, increased transportation capacity, more extensive marketing and distribution, and more workers who were technically trained," said Goldman, who is a professor of history and philosophy at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. "Publishers needed authors to create original content, which drove a book-selling industry, which created a demand for education, promoting further growth!"

Gutenberg himself didn't get rich. In 1456, just as money from his Bible production was about to roll in, his overdue investors cynically foreclosed on his print shop.

"Gutenberg never played the victim," wrote Man. "He stayed in Mainz and made a fighting comeback. Among other things, he published 300 copies of a 754-page Catholic encyclopedia in 1460, containing 5 million characters, twice the number in the Bible."

In 1462, war broke out between rival claimants to the archbishop of Mainz, and Gutenberg backed the loser. He had to move back to Eltvile, where he set up a small print shop. Then in 1865, the archbishop of Mainz pardoned his enemies to bring peace to the realm.

Three years later in Mainz, he died. His grave has been lost, but cemetery records note that he was "inventor of the art of printing, deserver of the best from all nations and tongues, to the immortal memory of his name."

Tue, Nov 12 2013 00:00:00 E A04_LS
By Scott Smith

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

11/11/2013