ABSTRACT
The Victorians were not afraid to moralise, and they were willing to put money into the production of ‘good works’ (Roberts 2002). The material residue of philanthropy is spectacularly on view in such hefty civic edifices as libraries, sewers and hospitals. Equally, righteous purpose was impressed into the page. Specifically, the medium of letterpress production was invested with moral significance through narratives of progress, social justice and salvation that appeared in many self-reflexive, self-congratulatory celebrations of print culture in nineteenth-century publications (Secord 2000: 30; King and Plunkett 2004: 6). Furthermore, future progress would not be frightening, because it was rooted in past cultural production. This chapter considers the ‘default’ print technology of the first part of the nineteenth century that at first glance has clear links to Gutenberg’s process of 1450; letterpress accompanied by so-called ‘run-in relief’ illustrations. Production in this medium expanded tremendously in the period 1800–50 due to industrial methods of paper-making and the adoption of steam power. Self-help publications, aimed at improving and educating industrial workers, celebrated the very printing machines that had brought them into being, alongside a crash course in high culture, while conservative factions reiterated endless warnings of the dangers of universal education. Alongside this expansion came developments of specific ‘printer cultures’ of wood engravers, print tradesmen and journalists.
