It seems like since the beginning of time, one of the most influential ways of sharing information was to read and write. It is the ability to relate things in a form to someone else, if not now but in the future. The most important point to take away from this communication is the fact that it is recorded; it will be a lasting impression. Through time, recorded information has been shared through pictographs, through scrolls and scribes, and with finally books and through today’s technology. But just because someone or something writes this doesn’t mean that’s what makes it have any more impact. Someone has to have the ability to decipher it, to understand it, to read it. Reading isn’t an important trait to the masses; life will go on if you are literate or illiterate; however it enlightens the individual and all of civilization. The power of information and the written word has forever changed the world, whatever format it has been in; let it be in books, periodicals, and the internet. Three instances have been fundamental and monumental in creating the world we know today: Johan Gutenberg’s’ Printing Press, Emanuel Julius Haldemans’ Little Blue Book, the creation of the World Wide Web, and last, the E-Book Reader. These four inventions have spread the ability of the written word, thus creating the accessibility of knowledge and enlightenment.
First, the Printing Press changed history when it was introduced to the masses during the time of Martin Luther and the Reformation in Europe. It brought the literary works to the masses, to easily publish thoughts and ideas and have a greater affect in mass availability. This massive influx of literature, such as the Bible greatly influenced Christianity, the Reformation, and the religions spread and influence on the known world. Earlier, the Church (the Roman-Catholic Church) was able to preach blasphemy from the pulpit due to the illiteracy of the people and unavailability of the printed bible in the hands of the lower classes. Education was only given to the few and privilege while the masses came to the church in need of to be educated and to have substance in their daily lives. This was the first instance of giving people the ability to educate themselves. The freedom of thought. Giving those the right to read and think as they wish was in a way freedom to the oppressed and a crumpling defeat to those in power. After the method of printing, widely publicized by that of Johan Gutenberg, other works were in the beginnings of being translated from that in Latin to English, French, Italian, and many other languages of Europe. The printing press gave power to the masses and empowered them with their thought and pen, continuing through generation after generation. This same idea of spreading the wealth of knowledge would be again brought before the common man through the creation of the Little Blue Book.
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius was born in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia in 1889. His parents immigrating from Russia, he was raised in a Jewish home and became very interested in reading anything and everything he could growing up. In his later teen's to early twenties, he joined the Socialist Part and became a social reformer. He took to writing as the editor and a journalist in a socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, in the community of Girard, Kansas. From working in this environment and his continuation of reading great and popular literature, he and his wife decided to start up a printing press to print what would be soon known as, Little Blue Book. In his eyes, he saw lower classes in American continually uneducated and powerless against those who had power and used education as power above those unknowing and illiterate. The Little Blue Book enabled great works to be published cheaply as well as wide availability. The Little Blue Book did to the lower classes and upper classes of the American 20th Century what the Printing Press did for the Reformation and Europe. Mass forms of literary influencing the masses. Continuing knowledge. Creating individual thought. The mass introduction of printed material produced many new and old works as well as millions of copies of books or writings in the hands of those who could previously not take. This same idea of sharing knowledge and information continues today with the continuing creation of the Internet and the first popular E-Reader, the Kindle.
Two creations helped continue the spread of knowledge to the masses in the latter 20th Century. One was WWW. and HTTP. The World Wide Web was an idea by Tom Berners-Lee in 1980. It was theorized that one day, satellites would be able to instantly share text or images across an informational plane from worlds apart. That came into being ten years later where his hypertext project, WorldWideWeb, was coming into existence by Christmas of 1990 and later formally introduced and accepted in 1991. Soon followed was the first sharing of images and text from one point to another, like that of Alexander Bell and his invention of the widely used telephone and or Morris code. Introduced was another blank canvas. Another way to translate and transmit words and knowledge for anyone, just as the Gutenberg Printing Press had been utilized in Europe. The other epiphany came in a literary and printing project, the new-age Little Blue Book, Project Gutenberg. This started in 1971 at University of Illinois and then student, Michael Hart. Given access to a “computer” and the availability of unlimited use, he wanted to some how give back for this privilege. He decided to create and digitize the Declaration of Independence and make it widely available in that format. Born was the universal idea of a digital library. Like the continued use of the moveable type printing press in Europe and in history, it provided a unlimited landscape or domain to vast ways to use and share material. The library continues today, making it the oldest digital library in existence. With the creation of the World Wide Web and digital information, these soon introduced the idea of a personal digital assistant (PDA) and the e-book, most successfully the Amazon Kindle.
Amazon introduced the Kindle First Generation in 2007. Like the literary trailblazers before it, it spread even further the availability of the written word. Not just to the masses, but it utilized digital technology in that you could carry the information and literature with you. You could take an entire library and digitally carry it within holding it in the palm of your hand and on your lap. It continued progress, made literature and the written word more available, create further transparency.
With the continuing developments of various e-books and e-readers, as well as the addition of PDA’s and cellphones, information is so available from your pocket to your computer screen to a book to the printed page, its enlightenment to the masses. To learn is to open doors. To read is to be educating one’s self. To have any availability to read or have access to information is changing your life as well as each and every generation
First, the Printing Press changed history when it was introduced to the masses during the time of Martin Luther and the Reformation in Europe. It brought the literary works to the masses, to easily publish thoughts and ideas and have a greater affect in mass availability. This massive influx of literature, such as the Bible greatly influenced Christianity, the Reformation, and the religions spread and influence on the known world. Earlier, the Church (the Roman-Catholic Church) was able to preach blasphemy from the pulpit due to the illiteracy of the people and unavailability of the printed bible in the hands of the lower classes. Education was only given to the few and privilege while the masses came to the church in need of to be educated and to have substance in their daily lives. This was the first instance of giving people the ability to educate themselves. The freedom of thought. Giving those the right to read and think as they wish was in a way freedom to the oppressed and a crumpling defeat to those in power. After the method of printing, widely publicized by that of Johan Gutenberg, other works were in the beginnings of being translated from that in Latin to English, French, Italian, and many other languages of Europe. The printing press gave power to the masses and empowered them with their thought and pen, continuing through generation after generation. This same idea of spreading the wealth of knowledge would be again brought before the common man through the creation of the Little Blue Book.
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius was born in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia in 1889. His parents immigrating from Russia, he was raised in a Jewish home and became very interested in reading anything and everything he could growing up. In his later teen's to early twenties, he joined the Socialist Part and became a social reformer. He took to writing as the editor and a journalist in a socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, in the community of Girard, Kansas. From working in this environment and his continuation of reading great and popular literature, he and his wife decided to start up a printing press to print what would be soon known as, Little Blue Book. In his eyes, he saw lower classes in American continually uneducated and powerless against those who had power and used education as power above those unknowing and illiterate. The Little Blue Book enabled great works to be published cheaply as well as wide availability. The Little Blue Book did to the lower classes and upper classes of the American 20th Century what the Printing Press did for the Reformation and Europe. Mass forms of literary influencing the masses. Continuing knowledge. Creating individual thought. The mass introduction of printed material produced many new and old works as well as millions of copies of books or writings in the hands of those who could previously not take. This same idea of sharing knowledge and information continues today with the continuing creation of the Internet and the first popular E-Reader, the Kindle.
Two creations helped continue the spread of knowledge to the masses in the latter 20th Century. One was WWW. and HTTP. The World Wide Web was an idea by Tom Berners-Lee in 1980. It was theorized that one day, satellites would be able to instantly share text or images across an informational plane from worlds apart. That came into being ten years later where his hypertext project, WorldWideWeb, was coming into existence by Christmas of 1990 and later formally introduced and accepted in 1991. Soon followed was the first sharing of images and text from one point to another, like that of Alexander Bell and his invention of the widely used telephone and or Morris code. Introduced was another blank canvas. Another way to translate and transmit words and knowledge for anyone, just as the Gutenberg Printing Press had been utilized in Europe. The other epiphany came in a literary and printing project, the new-age Little Blue Book, Project Gutenberg. This started in 1971 at University of Illinois and then student, Michael Hart. Given access to a “computer” and the availability of unlimited use, he wanted to some how give back for this privilege. He decided to create and digitize the Declaration of Independence and make it widely available in that format. Born was the universal idea of a digital library. Like the continued use of the moveable type printing press in Europe and in history, it provided a unlimited landscape or domain to vast ways to use and share material. The library continues today, making it the oldest digital library in existence. With the creation of the World Wide Web and digital information, these soon introduced the idea of a personal digital assistant (PDA) and the e-book, most successfully the Amazon Kindle.
Amazon introduced the Kindle First Generation in 2007. Like the literary trailblazers before it, it spread even further the availability of the written word. Not just to the masses, but it utilized digital technology in that you could carry the information and literature with you. You could take an entire library and digitally carry it within holding it in the palm of your hand and on your lap. It continued progress, made literature and the written word more available, create further transparency.
With the continuing developments of various e-books and e-readers, as well as the addition of PDA’s and cellphones, information is so available from your pocket to your computer screen to a book to the printed page, its enlightenment to the masses. To learn is to open doors. To read is to be educating one’s self. To have any availability to read or have access to information is changing your life as well as each and every generation