Johannes Gutenberg: The Invention Of The Printing Press

During the fifteenth century one man changed the world by inventing the first ever printing press. This man's name was Johannes Gutenberg, a german inventor that revolutionized the way that information could be distributed. The invention of Gutenberg’s printing press allowed for books to be printed quickly and made them readily available to the public. Before the 1400’s when the Gutenberg press was invented, books had to be written by hand. They still existed but they were few and far in between. These books had to be written out with a quill pen and according to the book Johannes Gutenberg the Invention of the Printing Press,“during the middle ages, large numbers of people-mostly monks-were employed as scribes, or book-copiers, for just this purpose.” (Fran Rees). This way of printing could take a scribe years to complete a single book. During the ninth century the chinese invented a way to print using a wooden block but they had little contact with the world

The family was pretty wealthy and were well respected among the community. Gutenberg was not his real last name but he used the name of the house he lived in for his name. When Johannes was younger there was not printed news so everything they heard was spread by spoken word. He was recorded to have been an apprentice to a goldsmith at one point in his early years but according to ASME, “little is known about Gutenberg's early life, even the exact year of his birth” (Nancy Gigs). In 1430 gutenberg moved to Strasburg, Germany where he began his career as an inventor. In Strasburg he created many new ideas and inventions such as a new techniques for polishing gem stones and making mirrors but the majority of his projects were kept secret. After about a decade Gutenberg moved back to Mainz. This is where he started experimenting with the idea of the printing