Page 12 - ISI_163_AugustSeptember

PAGE 12 SPOTLIGHTS
Civilizing the West with Printing Presses
BY AARON PARRETT
If you were to poll historians of tech-
nology, they would all point to the printing
press as one of humankind’s most import-
ant inventions.
Some insightful wag once called printing
“the art preservative of all arts,” which
nicely sums up how important printing is to
the production and spread of information,
knowledge, and art.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that
the arrival of the first printing presses in
frontier territory often marked the moment
that the region passed into “civilization.”
By these measures, both Idaho and
Montana, as western states, were late to
the game: none of the western states had
printing presses until the mid-19th century.
Thanks to some dedicated missionar-
ies, Idaho was among the very first of the
western states to enjoy the fruits of the
printing press, as Marcus Whitman and
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Pacific to the Columbia River, where it
traveled by steamboat to Wallula. At that
point, the press and its owners had to travel
by canoe across eastern Washington to their
mission at Lapwai Creek in Idaho, about 30
miles east of where Lewiston lies today.
The first press in Montana came from
the opposite direction, the east, traveling
overland from Colorado and arriving in
Virginia City in the late fall of 1863—though
the earliest printed artifacts it produced are
dated from 1864.
Another press, under the direction of
Francis Thompson, came up around the
same time, having traveled by steamboat
up the Missouri as far as Cow Island where
the boat ran aground.
An early handpress used in the West from the 1830s Thompson described the struggle to bring
to 1870s. © Arogant, Bigstock.com. the press from the Missouri a hundred miles
northeast of Helena across land all the way
Henry Spalding arranged for the delivery to Bannack, a trip that took more than three
of the first press in 1839 to a mission on weeks and involved all but impassable roads.
Lapwai creek—a machine that came from At one point, Thompson had to lever out
Hawaii, of all places. Only California, a a wagon mired in mud using a 20-foot pole
coastal state, acquired the power of the he fashioned from a nearby tree.
press earlier, in 1831. Montana, by contrast, The whole tale is recounted in a mem-
was the very last of all the states to get a oir he wrote just before his death in 1910,
working printing press—in 1863. called Tenderfoot in Montana: Reminiscences
The arrival of the printing press to the of The Gold Rush, The Vigilantes, And the Birth
Mountain West comes especially late in history of Montana Territory, which was published in
when you consider that by 1539—300 years 2004 by the Montana Historical Society Press.
earlier—a printing house was established in To compound the challenges of hard
what is now Mexico City. Printing did not begin traveling over rugged terrain, printing
in any of the territories now called the United presses in the 19th century were nothing
States until 1638 like the desktop laser printers we all have
when the famous sitting next to our computers today.
Mrs. Glover founded Even the simplest “cone” presses,
what became the designed mainly for printing field docu-
Harvard press in the ments in military encampments weighed a
Massachusetts Bay couple hundred pounds. Their bulky, cast-
colony. iron design also made them unwieldy and
That means it hard to transport easily. (The first printing
took 200 years for press in Montana was such a press, a Lowes
the power of print- model dating from the 1850s).
ing to spread from A more substantial foot-operated treadle
the East Coast to press capable of turning out a small news-
the Mountain West. paper could weigh even more, from a few
Why did it take the hundred pounds to more than a ton.
mountain west so Many of the earlier territorial newspaper
long to emerge from presses, however, were standing “hand
the illiterate fron- presses,” almost identical to the sort of
tier? For starters, machine Benjamin Franklin used in his
neither Idaho nor Philadelphia shop a century earlier, though
Montana have ever his would have been made of wood.
been easy places to Hand presses were massive iron
get to—in fact, they machines, weighing in around a ton. They
are still difficult to were developed in the 1820s and involved a
travel to from any- long lever that the pressman pulled across
where else in the his chest to push a flat iron plate down on
country, as anyone top of the type, over which the newsprint
ever stuck with a was laid, one sheet at a time.
layover in the Salt It was nearly impossible to transport a
Lake City airport large platen press or a hand press across
can tell you. land without breaking it into pieces. Even
Whitman and then, most of the pieces would be too bulky
Spalding contracted and heavy to pack by horse or mule, which
with the Hudson’s meant using a wagon. Wagons limited travel
Bay Company to to established roads for the most part, and
have their press passable roads were few and far between in
ship p ed fro m Idaho and Montana, even into in the 1850s
Hawaii, across the and 60s. ISI