Provided below is a rough and very-brief transcription of the history of papermaking as adapted from Dard Hunter's Papermaking: The History & Technique of an Ancient Craft.

For more up to date history of papermaking see:

Barrett, Timothy, European Hand Papermaking: Traditions, Tools, and Techniques, The Legacy Press, 2018

Barrett, Timothy,Japanese Papermaking: Traditions, Tools, and Techniques, Weatherhill, 1992

Bloom, Johnathan, Paper Before Print, The History & Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, Yale Press, 2001

Koretsky, Elaine, Killing Green: An Account of Hand Papermaking in China, The Legacy Press, 2009

Kurlansky, Mark, Paper- Paging Through History, Rauer Buchschnitt, 2016

Lee, Aimee, Hanji Unfurled: One Journey into Korean Papermaking, The Legacy Press, 2021

Premchand, Neeta, Off the Deckle Edge: A Papermaking Journey Through India, St Paul's Bibliographies, 1995

Soteriou, Alexandra, Gift of Conquerors: Hand Papermaking in India, Grantha Corp & Mapin Pub., 1999

Artifacts show that paper was invented by the Chinese and was in use as early as 200 BCE, and was used as an alternative writing surface to Papyrus and Silk. However, the first recorded recipe was made by T'sai Lun in 106 CE. The original paper recipe was a combination of hemp fish netting and boiled mulberry bark. The material was pounded with mallets into a pulp, suspended in water and captured onto a bamboo laid mould, couched and dried on boards.

Paper was a much-needed invention, as the Chinese empire was quickly expanding, and it needed a way to record laws, finances and spread religion. While paper products were traded along the Silk Road (into Europe through Istanbul), the method for manufacturing paper was kept a secret and to divulge how paper was made was a capital offense. As a result, the manufacturing of paper follows a more southerly rout, different than that of the Silk Road.

With the spread of Islamic forces into Mongolia (751 CE), the Arab-Muslim world gained the knowledge of papermaking and immediately brought it to Baghdad & Damascus. Paper is a much-needed resource for the expanding Arab-Muslim world and manufacturing becomes open source and it flourishes as an open market industry, thousands of papermills are established throughout the Arab-Muslim world.

The Arabs did not have the same kind of access to mulberry, so their papermaking recipe consisted of hemp, linen and eventually cotton rags. They made several innovations to the papermaking process, beating fibers with animal and water driven trip hammers (stampers) and replacing the bamboo laid mould with one of iron, copper and eventually brass. The Arabs also couched onto felting, pressed, loft dried, externally sized with animal skin glues and burnished the finished paper. Papermaking flourished under the Arab-Muslim world and by 1050 it was manufactured in Xativa, Spain (near Valencia).

Within two hundred years of paper entering Moorish Spain, the Christian army captured Valencia and with it, their first glimpse at how paper was manufactured. This knowledge was quickly sent to the Vatican, which sanctioned papermills in Italy, including the Fabriano papermill (1276). However, paper was seen as inferior to parchment & vellum (the skins of calves and goats), which was the primary writing surface for the manuscripts of the Catholic Church.

Papermaking in Europe took the back burner and was seldom used until Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450. Gutenberg sought to use his printing press to print 100 bibles, and to do that with parchment & vellum he would have needed to skin 22,000 animals! So, he, or his investors, looked to paper as the substrate for printing the Bible. Almost overnight papermaking using old hemp, linen and cotton rags moved to the forefront in Europe, quickly replacing the manufacturing of animal skin substrate. In the early days of the printing press, printmaking and papermaking were joined at the hip, with both studios often taking up space in the same building.

The primary way to render rag into pulp during this time was to collect rags from the community, rot them in urine pits and use the water powered stampers to hydrate and separate the fibers. In Holland, they did not have the mountain-fed rivers like the lower parts of Europe (Spain, France, Italy and Germany) and so they invented a new method for making pulp. Their method was to merge the hammer with the wheel; essentially putting hammers on a paddle boat wheel (like you would see in the Mississippi River). The wheel-stamper required less energy to operate and could be wind-powered. This machine is called the Hollander beater and was introduced in 1680. The Hollander very quickly replaced stampers throughout Europe.

The technology of making paper made its' way to the America's through the colonization of North America. Fortunately for the colonies, Europe was upgrading their mills to use Hollanders and was delighted to sell their old stampers overseas. Many of these sales were negotiated by Ben Franklin and were imperative for the colonies to develop independently of England. The manufacturing of paper arrived first to Philadelphia in 1691, and eventually spread throughout the colonies.

Paper was manufactured using old clothing until after the Civil War. With the continued industrialization of Europe and America, there was an increased demand for paper, through books, newspapers and packaging materials. As a result, there was not enough rag in the world to keep up with the demand for paper. A global rag shortage.

Rags to make paper was such a needed resource that in places like Germany there were laws designed to prevent its' waste; including the law that the deceased were not allowed to be buried in hemp, cotton or linen clothing, only wool. This was because paper is made from the cellulose in hemp, cotton & linen clothing; while wool is made from animal fiber and incapable or transforming into paper.

During the Civil War, the Confederate States controlled the trade of cotton and so the Northern Union States were desperate for rags and imported them from England and Germany. The English themselves were short on rag, so while they were colonizing Egypt they were exhuming hundreds of thousands of mummies from the ground, removing their wrappings and sending them to America for conversion into paper. One of the uses for this mummy wrapping paper was to make stamps! Today these stamps are worth millions of dollars!

Because of the rag shortages, western civilization looked to other sources of plant material (cellulose) for making paper. In the Midwest paper experiments were done using straw and corn husks, which was brittle and difficult to print and bind. In the north east, where the rich industrialists owned immense tracks of forested lands, research on making paper from trees commenced. It was not until 1878 that the code for making paper out of trees was cracked and a new era of papermaking was born. Almost immediately the 2000-year-old industry of making paper from old rags disappeared around the world. The last of the Traditional Islamic rag paper was phased out after WWI, with the rise of democracy and the industrialization of Turkey.

Hand papermaking went all but extinct until the Arts & Crafts movement in America during the 1920's. During this time a few artists and designers become interested in making their own paper as a way to take control of all the aspects of their artmaking media (writing their own text, designing their own type, making their own paper, printing their own prints and binding their own books).

Dard Hunter, a gentleman scholar from the Roycroft Institute in East Aurora, New York is credited with bringing the knowledge of papermaking back to practice. Hunter was turned onto paper while at the Roycroft Institute and dedicated his life to traveling the world and documenting the remaining hand paper industries. He followed what is now called the paper trail from America to England to Germany, Italy, France, Spain Morocco, Syria, Iraq, India, China, Korea and Japan.

Bloom, Johnathan, Paper Before Print, The History & Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, Yale Press, 2001

Diringer, David, The Book Before Printing, Dover Press, 1938

Hunter, Dard, Papermaking: A History of an Ancient Craft & Technique, Dover, 1934

Kurlansky, Mark: Paper- Paging Through History, Rauer Buchschnitt, 2016

Cellulose: Plant material that makes paper

Non-Cellulose: Animal and synthetic (polyester, nylon) materials that do not make paper

Rags: Cast off textiles used for papermaking (clothing, etc...)

Rag Paper: Paper made using old clothing and/or other textiles

Rag Picking: Gathering rags

Rag Picker: A person who gathers rags

Breaking Rag: Cutting and beating rags to a pulp

Beating to a pulp: Using a hammer, stamper or Hollander to hydrate and separate a cellulose for papermaking.

Stamper: A large wooden hammer that rises and falls onto rag, slowly generating pulp (used from ~800 BCE to ~1680 BCE). Invented by the Arabs, inventor unknown.

Hollander Beater: A machine that circulates and pounds textiles into pulp via a bladed roll. Invented in 1680 in Holland, inventor unknown.

Internal Sizing: Product of the 20th Century, added to pulp to slow the absorption of water after the sheet is dry.

External Sizing: Traditional method of sizing by dipping dry sheets of paper in a gelatin bath or brushing on starch-based pastes.

Waterleaf Paper: Paper without sizing, aka the University of Alabama-style.

Mould: frame with a laid or woven screen stretched on top. Used to catch, form and transfer sheets of wet paper.

Deckle: German word for top, open frame that sits on top of the mould. The Deckle gives the shape to the sheet of paper, i.e a heart shaped deckle will make a heart shaped piece of paper.

Vat: The basin used to put pulp and water for dipping the mould and deckle into to form sheets of paper

Charging the Vat: Adding pulp to the vat

Hogging the vat: Mixing the pulp in vat (jazz hands), this should be done every time before pulling a sheet

Bringing up the clouds: Same definition as "Hogging", except the preferred term in Alabama

Pulling a sheet: Dipping a mould & deckle into vat to form a sheet of paper

Shaking: Gently agitating the mould & deckle side to side and to and from, while holding level with the ground. This allows the fibers to co-mingle and create a smooth surface to the paper.

Couching: Pronounced "Cooching", from the French word couche, meaning to lay out. Transferring the freshly formed sheet of paper onto the interfacing. This is done by aligning the mould perpendicular to the interfacing and slowly lowering it down into full contact with the interfacing, then raising the mould up, by lifting one side of the mould and pressing down on the other side. This is the most difficult part of papermaking to master.

Post: A pile of interfacing on a board, used for couching freshly formed sheets of paper.

Stack: Same as post

Double couching: Layering sheets of freshly formed sheets of paper on top of one another

Double dipping: Dipping mould & deckle into the vat; often to form multi colored sheets of paper. Also used to create thicker sheets of paper

Pressing: Adding pressure to the stack of paper. This is done after the post is capped with a board and weight is added. Pressing can be as simple as standing on the stack, using ratchet straps to apply pressure, car pressing by driving a car over the stack, piling weights on top of the stack r loading into a 6, 12, 20, 50 or 100 ton hydraulic press. Most importantly: pressing pushes the fibers closer together, increasing the hydrogen bonding and making a stronger paper. Additionally, it removes excess water. The press is a very important step in the papermaking process.

Restraint Drier: Drying paper under restraint; hanging between interfacing, spur drying, drybox and the eastern method of laying wet sheets on glass are all examples of restraint drying

Drybox: A form of restraint drying by layering porous interfacing and wet sheets of paper in an enclosed area with a fan passing air through the layers. A product of the late 20th century.

Loft Drying: Hanging sheets to dry from a line

Spur Drying: After an initial press, layer 6 to 8 wet sheets atop of one another, press gently again and hang spurs from line to dry. This is the traditional method from 700 to 2000.

Peeling paper: Removing single sheets of paper after pressing or drying.

Hunter, Dard, Papermaking: The History & Technique of an Anciant Craft, Dover Publications, NY, 1947.

Forward:
Dard Hunter has traveled the world for four decades documenting the history of papermaking, often publishing his findings in rare fine press editions. This publication is intended combine elements of all his past publications into one trade edition to provide the history of paper for all who are interested in paper.

Chapter I- Before Paper: The Writing Substances of the Ancients.

Dard speculates that the development of man can be broken down into three 'broad headings': Speaking, Drawing & Printing. Speaking is defined as 'oral history.'

Drawing is defined as 'an innovation of creating characters that define sounds, using charcoal, engravings, brush or simple impressions on wood, metal, sand, stone, leather and eventually paper.' Drawings were used to keep accounts, tell stories and render law.

Paper is defined as 'a substance made in the form of thin sheets or leaves from rags, straw, bark, wood, or other fibrous material, for various uses.' Paper must be macerated, until the fibers are separated, intermixed in water and formed into thin sheets on a porous surface and left to dry.

Ts'ai Lun is accredited with inventing paper in 105 AD. In response to the growing demand for a substrate for brush and ink drawings, an alternative to woven textile surfaces was sought. The invention of paper allowed the third development of humanity: Printing.

Printing is defined as using a fixed matrix to impart a standard image onto a substrate. The first recorded printing was by the Japanese in 770 AD, but clearly has its origins in China. Pre-Paper surfaces: Stone, Bricks (inscribed and then baked clay), Brass, Copper (wills of soldiers inscribed on belt buckles) and Lead, Wood, Leaves of Trees, Bark or Tree...

Papyrus is made from the papyrus plant and is not paper, rather is vegetable lamination. The plant is cut when a few meters in height, stripped of flowers and leaves and cut into one-to-two foot lengths. The lengths are then split down the middle into thin strips. The strips are cross layered, coated with wheat paste and hammered together.

Parchment (split sheep skin, higher quality) and Vellum (calf skin, not split, lower in quality). Parchment is commonly in use starting from 1500 BC; however in 2nd Century BC King of Pergamum is accredited with its invention as it becomes the main writing substrate responding to the cessation of Papyrus export from Egypt (Emperor induced). Parchment and Vellum are made from stretching and treating skins with lye and scraping with curved knives.

Parchment and Vellum were replaced by paper by the 16th Century AD, as it was unable to keep up with the demands of the printing press. However, final drafts of documents by diplomats for Great Brittan and United States parchment was used: The United State Declaration of Independence is written on parchment. Original drafts were made by Holland Paper mills, presumably from linen rag.

Rice Paper is a misnomer for writing surface created from the inner pith of kung-shu tree (Tetrapanax papyriferum). The inner pith is sliced spirally from the inner tree. The misnomer comes from the English traders purchasing renderings from China.

Hunn-Yucatan Peninsula, Mayan civilization surface from cooked and hammered inner bark of Moraceous Tree. Amatl-Aztec more developed the process into an industry.

Tapa-bark paper, resembling the Amatl processes is made widely throughout the Pacific Islands. The exact origin of when the innovation came about is unknown. Paper used for writing and clothing.

Chinese scribes wrote on strips of wood and bamboo using a stylus until 3rd Century BC when Meng T'ien is accredited with inventing the brush and ink. Woven cloth surfaces were easier to store and took to brush and ink. Ts'ai Lun is accredited with formally announcing the use of macerated hemp netting and mulberry bark to make paper in 105 AD. Paper was used for calligraphy and was a highly guarded secret. However it traveled first to Korea because it was at that point part of China; then in the third century AD to Japan through a Buddhist monk named Dokyo.

The Japanese established papermaking communities throughout, developing the use of three primary fibers, Mulberry (primary), Gampi (wild growth, 9th Century introduction) & Mitsumata (yellow, introduction 16th Century AD).

Earliest Papers in existence are from China and are made of Mulberry and Hemp. They are from the 5th Century AD and demonstrate mastery of the craft. Chinese and Japanese paper was made using a flexible laid screen. Production was easy and therefore plentiful. Calligraphy is one of the highest forms of Chinese art and therefore paper craft in the east was held almost reverently.

Paper production made its way through trade to Samarkand, where it was made from raw hemp and flax. As the result of a battle in 751 AD, Chinese papermakers became prisoners of war and forced to make paper. Paper quickly spread to Bagdad (793 AD) where it continued to travel throughout the Arab Muslim world - Damascus, Egypt, Morocco and Spain. As paper spread through the Christian world, it was slowly accepted (not until it was needed in conjunction with the demands from printing press) because it was seen as being a product of the Jewish and Arab cultures, which were continually shunned.

The fibers used in eastern paper (mulberry & gampi) were softer and lent themselves to the development of block printing (770 AD). While western paper fibers (hemp & flax) co-joined with gelatin sizing created a rough and rigid paper that required more pressure for printing (thusly slowing the innovation of printing as it relied on more sophisticated design or metal type and the printing press).

Chapter III - Empress Shotoku and Her Million Printed Prayers: The First Text Printing Upon Paper to be Executed in the World.

Paper was introduced to Japan around 610 AD. Japanese culture emulated Chinese as students would travel to China to study and return to Japan and implement their learning. Wax seals and stamps were used for adorning letters and articles of clothing.

Small Pox epidemic hit Nara governed Japan in 735 AD followed rebellions of 764 AD. Around 770 AD, Empress Shotoku set out to make one-million prayers to ward off evil spirits. Each payer was to be printed on paper and housed in a miniature wooden pagoda. There were four different prayers printed 250,000 times. The paper was made from hemp and mulberry in Korea and Japan. The blocks are speculated by Hunter made by carvings in stone found in Korea. The prayers were distributed to 10 monasteries at one-hundred thousand each; less than 100 remain in existence.

Chapter IV - The Hand Mould: The Papermakers' Most Essential Tool, Upon Which Rest the Two Thousand Years of Papermaking History.

Dard theorizes that the first mould used to form sheets of paper was a woven mould. This, he figures makes sense, as the first sheets would have been made from tailings from woven material and it would be a logical conclusion that it is only a short side step to using the woven material to capture the beaten pulps. However, there are no records or artifacts that support Dard's supposition. If anything the artifacts that exist from 2nd Century speak to the development of the laid mould.

The woven mould would have lent itself to the pouring method that was probably in use, rather than the dipping. The pulp would have been poured onto a frame that was suspended in water, a sheet evenly formed and then the mould removed from the water and propped up to dry. Dard is uncertain as to when exactly the laid mould came to be but when it did it allowed for the development of the removable or flexible mould; enabling the re-use of the mould to make multiple sheets by passing them off to a stack. In this method, the mould would be held into place between a wooden frame, dipped into a vat and pulled out of the vat; the mould would be removed from the frame and the sheet couched. The laid screen was made from bamboo and sewn together using flax, rice straw or horse hair.

The moulds of Korea follow the dipping method introduced in China, using the flexible mould. Paper in Korea was used for flooring and windows in houses, among other uses. The moulds of Japan follow that of Korea, in that they are dipped and use a flexible mould referred to as the Su, which is comprised of bamboo laid under-support and a woven silk cover that allows very thin sheets of paper to be formed.

The moulds of Kashmir, Bengal and India are flexible and used similarly to that of the Korean and Chinese methods. The laid mould is made from grasses and horse hair, except in Bengal where bamboo is used. There are no standard sizes for the moulds. Little of the tools and processes for making paper have changed in these, often extremely, remote areas.

Moulds of Indo-China follow the Japanese method of a woven silk cover to complete the sugeta. Wiyh Moulds of Siam, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet, prepared paper-stock is poured onto a stretched woven cloth frame. The Mould is suspended in water, pulp poured and distributed and then the mould is removed from the water and placed out to dry.

European moulds adapted as a response to using rag pulps. The tightly fitted deckle (German name in origin: 'deckel') and fixed laid screen were used to aggressively form sheets and then couch them into a stack of paper, separated by felted interfacing. The Spanish Moors introduced the copper laid wire mould. Moulds were meticulously made, not too unlike they are today: wood selected based on hardness and resistance to warping. Two moulds were always fashioned to one deckle for production papermaking.

The woven mould was thought to have been introduced by John Baskerville (1759) who sought to print on paper that would not interfere with the print (laid moulds leave a watermarked texture that records with application of print, writing or drawing). Baskerville supposedly noted woven type paper as having less interference with his type. Whether or not Baskerville introduced woven paper or not, he used it extensively and was not singular in appreciating it for it smooth finish. Benjamin Franklin and many others of the time used the woven mould.

Dard indicates that he is partial to the laid mould as he feels it is more indicative of the long history of the development of the mould from the grass and bamboo screens to the rusty iron and beautiful brass laid moulds. A scholar can identify time and location of a sheet of paper by the chain and laid marks, based on spacing and material used to make the mould.

The earliest materials for paper in China are thought to be silk, with the later introduction of hemp, mulberry bark and bamboo. The fibers were macerated by hand using a mortar and pestle. Paper traveled west to Samarkand, where there was not an abundance of mulberry or bamboo; instead linen was used (751 AD). Spent rag was collected, fermented, cooked in lye and rinsed before beating. The fermenting took a very long time and was far from a perfect method, insomuch that it left a third of the fiber unusable. It is believed that much of the 'foxing' (brown and red spotting of early paper manuscripts and printed books is cause by the unstable fermenting process). The Arabs introduced the trip hammer, starting with a human powered teeter-totter that was used to pound the fibers. In some cases this was adapted and done with animals, but scarcity of food for animals rendered this method impractical. The trip hammer technique traveled both east and west, used in macerating mulberry, gampi, linen, hemp, cotton and jute rags.

In Xativa, Spain (outside Valencia; the first paper mill in Europe), the trip hammer was operated by water power. Harnessing the river's current greatly increased the production of fiber and use of fresh water helped clean the fibers. Three stages of beating were introduced: first stage the stampers used long iron spikes that aggressively combed the rag, separating it, then the fibers were beat with shorter iron spikes and lastly they were beat with flat spike-less hammers for finishing the fiber. At all stages water was run through the stamping holes (vat-holes) to hydrate and rinse the fibers. A horse hair screen was mounted on all stamping devices in order to catch beaten fiber, filtering the water run-off.

In Europe, rag was gathered and separated by fiber, tone and coarseness of weave. The shorter, more delicate fibers were fermented and macerated separately from the coarser fibers. They were added together at the vat, depending on tonality and quality of paper made from particular mills. White linen was the highest quality, followed by white linen/cotton mix, all other tones mixed generally for lower quality papers.

The Hollander increased the availability of pulp, but because of its rapid and abrasive cutting reduced the length of the fibers, arguably producing a lesser quality of paper. European mills were reluctant to switch over to the new technology, but quickly succumbed to the competitive edge that the Hollander provided, in regard to production.

I think that shorter cleaner fibers for paper is a decent trade-off for fermented spotted longer fibers from the processes used by the stamper, but one would need to look to Tim Barrett's research to see how the papers from the stampers differentiate from those made with the Hollander. Dard only mentions that the longer fibers are more desirable.

The Hollander has moved slowly to the east, but the aggressive cutting action is much less needed or desired for mulberry, gampi and other common fibers used in Indo-China, Korea, Japan and India; stampers, either by hand or mechanism is suffice.

Chapter VI - Early Papermaking Processes and Methods.

As has been mentioned in each previous chapter, paper was invented by the Chinese in 105 AD. Dard speculates that was done using macerated silk fibers (followed by hemp and mulberry) by pouring onto a woven mould. The poured method is still in use in India, Tibet, Burma, Nepal and parts of China. It is uncertain when paper was pulled instead of poured, but it is safe to say that it originated in China and moved to Korea and then Japan. Pulling sheets and couching moved westward through the Arab conquest of Mongolia and then to Europe through Moorish Spain.

Pulling sheets employed the development of the vat. Vats differed in design; in the west starting by converting wine barrels and eventually developed into more sophisticated designs. A heater was used to heat the vat; this was known as a 'pistolet'. This allowed for the water to be heated and thusly increased production of paper in the Northern or cooler climates. Developing as a result (or in conjunction with) production were the roles of the vatman and couchman.

As a means to churn the pulpy mass in the vat, a stick with holes in it known as a 'hog' was employed relatively early. Charging the vat with a hog is known as hogging the vat. Eventually a paddle wheel was used, as well as a gravity controlled dispenser for adding pulp. This replaced using buckets to add the pulp manually. Using rag fibers, versus the long fibers of mulberry and gampi, required the use of an interface to couch the fresh sheet on, separating it between sheets for pressing. As an interface, felts were used, probably due to the fact that that material was not pulp-able and did not compete with the use of rag for pulp itself. Felt has been in use since 900 BC as it was developed by the Greeks.

Following the completion of a stack of paper, it was pressed using a cantilever of stones or (more commonly in the west) a screw press (often referred to as a 'Samson'). Following the press the 'layman' would remove the pressed sheets from the stack, stacking them neatly atop one another and lightly pressed again. The sheets were then separated into spurs of four or five, pressed again and hung over waxed ropes made from horse hair. The drying was carried out on the top floor of the mill, often reffered to as the loft (hence the term loft drying). Eastern papers were commonly brushed individually onto boards or plaster walls for drying.

Following drying the papers were removed from the brushed surface (eastern) and spurs (western), separated and sized using animal or starch pastes. After that they were burnished using a rock or bone. Eventually wooden rollers were used to calendar the sheets. This was done to create a smooth surface for writing or printing. Papers were then stacked and wrapped and sent to the printers. It was not unheard of to have sent wet paper to the printers, as paper production struggled to keep up with demand from print shops.

Chapter VII - Paper: A Sacred Material; The use of Paper in the Orient for Ceremonies and Purposes Unknown in the Western World.

Chinese funerary tradition includes placing money with the dead for their trip to the afterworld. As early as 206 BC Chinese adorned the dead with copper and silver coins. No doubt tombs were robbed of these valuables, and around 221 AD paper coins were made to aid the dead in their trips instead of silver coins. Some controversy ensued as paper coins were not real and the Gods would not accept this as currency, providing little help to the dead in their journey. But that arguement lost out. Paper money for funerary services was ornate and seasoned as charms. Using the fake currency as actual currency was punishable by decapitation.

Ornate paper garments were used to dress the dead too. Spirit papers were purchased and burnt in front of the dead in the coffin or portraits of the deceased.

Actual paper currency was not introduced until 650 AD.

Preparing funerary fiber for Paper in China largely consisted of three different fibers, dictating three different processes - Bamboo, straw & bark of trees.

Bamboo was collected, placed in a pond to steep, outer green bark removed, split and sunken in a pit with lye solution, rinsed in a river and beat in a stamper.

Pi Paper was made from the bark of tree limbs that were harvested in the winter, tied into bundles, steamed twice and macerated upon a stone slab. Formation agent was added for sheet forming.

Ts'ao paper was made from rice straw. Straw was collected, pounded by hammers, bundled and buried in a trench with lye solution and rinsed in a river. It was hand beat.

In Japan papers are oiled and used to make panes for windows, paper bags; all things utility and ornate. During WWII, Japanese employed thousands to manufacture paper balloons to deliver bombs to the USA. Hundreds of bombs were released from Tokyo rising 30,000 feet and carried as far as Michigan. Bombs were armed with timers and exploded in random spots. There were casualties. The USA has not released them.

In Korea, thick straw paper mats line the floors.

Early paper of European and American Colonies was not bleached, that came about in the early nineteenth century. Paper from those early times is hardly white; rag was separated by tone and the highest quality papers were closest to white. The water used for papermaking was not filtered so often carried mud resulting in a muddy complexion to the finished sheets. 'Papermakers tears' were common, resulting from water droplets falling from the vatman's arms, as well as blurred laid chain lines from rushed couching by the couchman - all early and sustained issues in the production of hand papermaking. As well, varied thicknesses of sheets were common. Imperfect deckle edges caused the printers and binders to trim the edges of the sheet, often trimming the finished sheets considerably. Binders used the plow to do this.

Running a mill was difficult, workers were sworn into allegiance and secrecy. Dard uses the journals of Ulman Stromer to indicate the constant struggle of trying to keep his mill functional, competing with other mills and dealing with workers and issues of them trying to overthrow his operations, etc.

The first papermill in America was near Germantown, Pennsylvania established in 1690 by William Writtenhouse.

George Washington, reportedly made a sheet of paper while touring the first paper mill in Onderdonk, in Long Island, April 24, 1790.

Ben Franklin advocated for adoption of Japanese techniques of paper production to make larger sheets of paper.

Paper mills in the US flourished in the 18th Century, while mills in Europe diminished.

Chapter IX - Ancient Watermarks: Six and a Half Centuries of Mystic Symbols.

The use of watermarks is a result of western paper practice; specifically, it is unknown when or why watermarking began, but it is thought that it began in Italy during the late thirteenth century. Dard describes possible reasons for watermaking: to indicate the size of moulds, to establish a creative trademark of a mill or papermaker, or secret messages imbedded within the papers. Regardless of the reason for the introduction of watermarking, it has become an established art form.

If a mill catalogues their watermarks then they can be used to indicate the history of the paper, otherwise the message of the watermark is left to speculation.

Watermarks in the early days were simple line drawing of animals, fruit and regional icons. Pages for the Mazarin Bible (attributed to Gutenberg) consists of two different watermarks, one of a horse and another of a bull. The bull and horse are thought to be the same mark for two separate moulds used for production, but the marks differ so much that they read as different animals. The Gutenberg Bible has grapes as the watermark.

In 1339 the first watermark of a human head was made in France; it is of Christ's head. Colonial American mills adopted the use of mystic imagery as well, eventually co-joined with initials, indicating the owner of the mill.

Chapter X - Latter-Day Watermarks: The Nineteenth-Century Development of Watermarks Into an Artistic and Technical Achievement.

Watermarks became useful for inhibiting counterfeiting of bank notes. The Bank of England lead the way in the late 18th Century. Sir William Congreve invented a method of couching multiple layers of colored pulp with watermarks atop one another. This method was original and time consuming, but difficult to reproduce (1818).

The next big watermark innovation emerged in the mid-nineteenth century by William Henry Smith (English), referred to as light shade watermarking. This is comprised of carving an image into wax, casting it in lead, then molding woven screen from the lead (impressing the screen into the lead by hand, using burnishing tools). The woven screen is then sewn to the paper mould. This technique revolutionized watermaking and brought it to a new level of high art.

Until the latter part of the eighteenth century linen and cotton rags were used as the source for pulp. Due to increased demand of paper as a result of printmaking and increased use of paper as packaging, etc., the supply of rag was unable to meet the demand for paper production. The public (across the European world) were advised to save all their rags. As early as 1666, England (followed by Germany) created rules forbidding the dead to be buried in linen rag; only wool could be used to clad the deceased. This saved some 200,000 lbs. of linen rag each year!

Frenchman Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur, observing wasps converting old wooden posts into paper nests, concluded that paper could be made from wood. Reaumur wrote extensively on the possibility, but never tried to make paper from wood. He did inspire other European scientists to look to nature for a solution to the rag shortage issue. Naturalists, geologists, botanists and physicists alike began the quest, monitoring in nature the occurrence of paper; raw fiber, algae, insects, river matter, etc.

Jacob Christian Schaffer wrote a six volume treatise in 1765 on new material for papermaking. Essentially he created a recipe sample work-book of different materials to make paper from. This inspired scientists and papermakers alike to expound on his research. A challenge was put out to make reams of paper from other material than linen and cotton rag. One of the first successful responses was from Mr. Thomas Grave from Warrington, England who made paper from the bark of Withins. It was successful. (Don't ask what a Withins is. English, me thinks).

The most interesting paper was made by Mr. Matthias Koop, who established a mill for making paper from straw in the year of 1801. The mill was the largest in England and only lasted two years. The issue causing its failure seems to be that he was unable to sell enough paper (or sell at the rate of which the market could bare and his enterprise could survive). The operation failed but it was the first commercial European operation using fiber other than linen and cotton rags.

Chapter XII - The Paper-Machine and Its Inventor, Nicolas-Louis Robert: The Paper-Machine Revolutionizes Printing.

Nicolas-Louis Robert worked in the famous French paper mill in Essonnes, owned by Francois Didot. Robert was frustrated with the paper workers and envisioned a method by which paper could be made by the machine. Didot saw the potential in Robert's idea and funded the development of designs and a prototype of a working papermaking machine that could manufacture paper in one continuous roll. In September 1789 Robert filed for a patent for his design.

Eventually, Robert and Didot had a falling out and Didot commissioned the Fourdriner brothers in England to construct a machine based on Robert's design. They did, and in 1801 England had its very own Fourdriner machine!

In America, Thomas Gilpin opened a mill in Brandywine, Maryland using the cylinder paper machine in 1817. This was the first machine paper mill in the US. This mill operated from 1809 to 1828. The first Fourdriner machine was built in Saugerties, NY in 1827. The machine was made in England and assembled in NY by George Spafford. He then opened a company manufacturing paper machines in the US. By 1829, Spafford was making a machine a year; at first mills in Connecticut, followed by Hudson River mills. The Fourdriner machine cost under $3000 at the time. Paper machines are able to make paper that resembles hand paper; the demand for this came from fine art and governmental uses. These paper were made on the Fourdriner machine, but were dried similarly to traditional paper methods.

Chapter XIII - Printing Revolutionizes Papermaking, and the World-Wide Quest for New Papermaking Fibers Begins in Earnest.

The paper machine increased the demand for pulp sources.

Wood pulp became the chief source for paper, as based on the research of Schaffer and Koops in the late eighteenth century. The fist wood pulp used was ground by a technique developed by Friedrich Gottlob Keller in 1840. By 1852 he was using wood pulp to make paper for news print and other paper applications.

The first ground wood pulp production in the US was in 1867 by Albrecht Pagenstecher near Stockbridge, Mass. The wood pulp industry in the US took off and mills were established throughout the continent.

Mummy Paper - in 1863 Augustus Stanwood purchased mummies from Egypt. The mummies were shipped to his mill in Maine; the linen rags were separated and pulped to make paper. Paper was made from the rags for butchers and wrapping. A Cholera epidemic ensued. Paper in Syracuse, NY was also made form mummies.

Grinding wood to pulp leaves the lignin in the fiber and creates a paper that degrades quickly so the ground wood pulp went through a high pressure soda ash cook that helped eliminate the lignen. The soda ash cook eventually was replaced by the Sulphite Process - cooking wood pulp with sulfuric acid and treated with lime to offset chemical discoloration to the pulp.

Straw was used commercially as early as 1829 by Colonel William Megaw, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Straw was high pressure cooked, and when bleached, made a great white writing paper. The paper was used for all sorts of applications, including newspapers. In Maine, paper was also made from Peat Turf.

Cornstalks were also high pressure cooked and puled to make viable commercial paper. Ultimately, wood pulp from trees became the most abundant and easily harvested material for the magnitude of industrial processes needed for paper to keep pace with demand. In the Southern United States, southern pine is harvested; the soft wood tree breaks down quickly in the sulfur cook.

Chapter XIV - The Watermarking or Machine-Made Papers and the Use of Watermarks in Detecting Forgery.

In the 19th century, the Dandy roller was used to imprint the wet paper coming off of the Fourdriner paper machine with a watermark. Wire was soldered or sewn to the roll with master craftsmanship and the watermark was meticulously recorded in a log.

Dard gives a number of accounts of how forgeries are created by mimicking watermarks. It is through much research and cross reference that forgeries using watermarks are discovered and called out. Wills of the deceased is one common example of forgeries. Another is the use of watermarked paper used for the controlled sale of alcohol during Prohibition. In many cases forgeries are created by manufacturing a dandy roll and employing it in a mill through bribes.

Chapter XV- Present-day Papermaking by Hand in Europe.

The mass manufacturing of paper for regular commercial uses (Newspaper, Magazines, Wrappings, Wall Paper, etc.) has a profound impact on the attention given to hand papermaking today.

Instead of using all and every bit of rag, today hand papermakers are able to select the best linen and cotton rags for specific jobs.

The only identifiable differences between the modern day hand paper processes is the selection of rag and its treatment through deliberate washing and bleaching. Processing fiber for hand paper is taken very seriously in order to produce the highest quality of paper, in direct contrast to the paper made from chemically processed wood pulp.

The fibers are selected based on cleanliness, tonality and fiber strength. The fibers are separated, washed, bleached and washed again. They are then beat and formed into sheets of paper though hand production. The wet sheets are pressed at 150 tons of pressure, separated into spurs dried and then passed through an external sizing bath, pressed again to remove the excess sizing. Papers are then loaded into a stack drier, still in spurs and left to dry. After drying, the papers are separated and pressed between zinc plates (Fuller boards) and sorted. Any papers with the least imperfections (water drops, hairs, dinged edges) are re-pulped. There is a fair amount of paper that is re-pulped.

Chapter XVI - Handmade Papers vs. Machine-made Papers: Paper Made by the Ancient Traditional Methods Still Has a Limited Use, But the Paper-Machine Has Altered Every Phase of Life.

Mass manufacturing of paper using wood pulp and the Fourdriner machine has allowed for paper to meet the demand of printmaking and the increased use of paper throughout the world. However, wood pulp is shorter in fiber length and not an archival paper surface, thus the need for hand paper practices to create sound papers. Even all rag paper, if made using a Fourdriner machine is less sound, as it is forced to be dried instantly, prohibiting the fibers to dry slowly, taking on their natural form. Machine papers are often better formed, through systematic shake and pulp control. However, a professional papermaker at a properly equipped mill could form sheets that rival the machine exact nature.

Hand paper is often used as an effect; rough edges, inconsistent formation, bad couching. This should be viewed as an insult, as hand paper is of higher quality fiber and should be devoid of defects. Hand paper should be used intentionally, with highest regard and respect for the source fiber and the history of papermaking.

Chapter XVII - Chronology of Papermaking, Paper and the Use of Paper.

A lengthy chronology provides a play by play for the history of paper starting at 2700 BC.