Pulp (paper)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- Originally, the term pulp denoted cheap paper, first produced in the 1850s. Since then, it has also acquired the meaning of cheap literature: a host of maligned literary genres that probably begins with chivalric romances, then moves to dime novels and men's magazines.
Using wood to make paper is a fairly recent innovation. In the 1800s, cloth and linen were the primary material source. The advent of wood pulp led to dime novels or penny dreadfuls.
Wood pulp in stead of linen pulp (late 19th century)
Using wood to make paper is a fairly recent innovation. In the 1800s, fiber crops such as linen fibres were the primary material source, and paper was a relatively expensive commodity. The use of wood to make pulp for paper began with the development of mechanical pulping in Germany by F.G. Keller in the 1840s. Chemical processes quickly followed, first with J. Roth's use of sulfurous acid to treat wood, followed by B. Tilghman's US patent on the use of calcium bisulfite, Ca(HSO3)2, to pulp wood in 1867. Almost a decade later the first commercial sulfite pulp mill was built in Sweden. It used magnesium as the counter ion and was based on work by C.D. Eckman. By 1900 sulfite pulping had become the dominant means of producing wood pulp, surpassing mechanical pulping methods. The competing chemical pulping process, the sulfate or kraft process was developed by Carl Dahl in 1879 and the first kraft mill started (in Sweden) in 1890.
Paper remained expensive, at least in book-sized quantities, through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could make paper with fibres from wood pulp. Although older machines predated it, the Fourdrinier paper making machine became the basis for most modern papermaking. Together with the invention of the practical fountain pen and the mass produced pencil of the same period, and in conjunction with the advent of the steam driven rotary printing press, wood based paper caused a major transformation of the 19th century economy and society in industrialized countries. With the introduction of cheaper paper, schoolbooks, fiction, non-fiction, and newspapers became gradually available by 1900. Cheap wood based paper also meant that keeping personal diaries or writing letters became possible and so, by 1850, the clerk, or writer, ceased to be a high-status job.
The original wood-based paper was more acidic and more prone to disintegrate over time, through processes known as slow fires. Documents written on more expensive rag paper were more stable.
Chronology of the invention of wood pulp
1850 Friedrich Gottlob Keller of Germany devises a method of making paper from wood pulp. However the paper is of poor quality.
1852 Hugh Burgess, an Englishman, perfects the use of wood pulp by 'digesting' the wood with chemicals.
1867 C.B. Tilghman, an American chemist, improved the process of making paper from wood by using sulfites during the pulping process.
1879 C. F. Dahl, a Swede finally perfected the use of wood by adding yet another chemical. His 'sulfate' method spread rapidly and reached the United States in about 1907.
1883 Charles Stillwell invented a machine to make brown paper bags for groceries in Philadelphia. Today more than 20 million paper bags are used annually in supermarkets. Many of these are recycled into new bags and boxes.
1889 - 1900
Economical, mass produced paper became a reality. Paper production doubled to about 2.5 million tons per year. Newspapers, books, and magazines flourished. Paper found its way into schools, replacing the writing slate.
