Paper Industry
According to ancient writings, the first paper was made by a person in the court of the Chinese emperor “Ho T”. He is said to have used mulberry bark.
The oldest paper that still exists today dates back to 150 AD.
China was for a long time the only country where paper was made, until the way it was made gradually reached Japan and then Central Asia. The Egyptians began making paper 900 years after Christ. In the twelfth century, a paper mill began operating in Spain, and the paper industry gradually spread to the rest of Europe. Britain built its first paper mill in 1495. It took almost 200 years for the first paper to be produced in the United States.In 1690, the first paper mill in Pennsylvania was built by William Rittenhouse, a German-trained paper maker. He was one of the first Germans to settle in the United States. Mr. Rittenhouse’s goal was to produce the best quality white paper from raw materials. During the American Revolution between 1775 and 1783, the Rittenhouse Paper Mill donated its papers to newspapers and leaflets. Paper mills spread everywhere as the market grew. Subsequently, paper producers were successful, settling closer to the cities where more raw materials and paper raw materials were available. By 1810, about 185 paper mills had been built in the United States. On January 14, 1863, the Boston Weekly became the first official newspaper in American history.As the world’s population grew, so did the paper industry. Paper technology improved day by day with the need for more production. The first practical paper machine was built in 1798 by a Frenchman named Nicolas Louis Robert. The British brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier built the more advanced model of the printing press in 1803. The first continuous paper-making machine was started in Denver by Thomas Gilpin.Gradually, other raw materials such as wood pulp and straw entered the paper industry, producing longer, wider papers at higher speeds. After 1990, the United States and Canada became the largest producers of pulp, and paper in the world, with the US paper industry accounting for one percent of its national income.In the late twentieth century, proponents of natural resources became concerned about the devastating effects of the paper industry on the environment. Unfortunately, paper mills were responsible for polluting water resources and destroying wildlife. After these controversies, the paper industry set a goal to produce 50% of paper by the end of the twentieth century by recycling waste paper. By 1999, it was found that the target was in fact a low number, and the paper industry was able to produce almost twice as much recycled paper as it had been discarded over the years.Another economic problem that has threatened the paper industry over the years has been the “paperless world” movement. Many people believed that with the advancement of technology and the machine world, the need for paper production disappears, but statistics show that with the advancement of technology, the demand for paper production also increases. One of the understandable reasons for this statistic is that paper is a cheap, universal commodity and it will cost more to replace it with electronic devices, so the methods of correspondence and communication with paper are still in use. The History of PaperFrom the beginning of the invention of writing, people have always sought to find something that was easier to write on than parchment paper and papyrus, as well as easier to make it and cheaper. It took almost 3,000 years for humans to achieve something called paper. As mentioned above, the first paper was made in the court of Emperor Ho T. The first person to make paper was a Chinese government man named Tsai Loon. He made the first paper by mixing crushed mulberry bark and torn hemp bags in water, crushing them to a flat surface, squeezing out excess water and then drying the final product in sunlight.
Paper arriving in Japan, Korea and Iran
Although people in China began to use paper, it took a thousand years for paper to reach all over Eurasia.
People started making paper in India 400 AD, and paper production began in Japan and Korea 600 AD.
700 years after Christ and during the Abbasid caliphate and with the expansion of Islamic lands to Pakistan, the paper industry entered Iran. The paper industry was quickly exploited by Silk Road traders and spread to other places.The paper absorbs the ink and it is not possible to remove it, but the ink stays only on the surface of the papyrus and parchment paper, and it was easily cleaned by washing, making it easy to forge the document.
When paper was widely distributed in Islamic lands and West Asia, people used it to print books, and before that the closest thing paper was used in the book were scrolls in East Asia and China.
History of paper in EuropeThroughout these times, Europeans continued to use parchment paper or to buy paper at exorbitant prices from Egyptian merchants; But in 1250, the Egyptian method of paper production reached Italy and from there to the rest of Europe and after that the first paper mill was built in Spain.
Paper in Mexico and the AmericasThe people of the Aztecs, or modern-day Mexico, independently invented paper with agave fibers and used it to print books. After the technology of paper production reached the United States, the paper industry gradually formed around the world to become what we know it today.
