Paper was first made in China over 2000 years ago. It took centuries for paper to arrive in Europe, with Islam.
Imagine a world without it. Now, we say it is cleaner to keep everything stored in “the cloud,” which is actually vast “farms” of 24-7 air conditioned buildings that house thousands of servers. Lots of fossil fuel. Not so clean.
This booklet was found in the archives of the Onyx Specialty Paper Mill in South Lee, Massachusetts.
We follow one hand paper maker to learn the basics of the craft paper. In our modern paper mills, we see the art and science of paper.
Paper making made it to the shores of the colonies, in 1690’s Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was first made at the Rittenhouse Mill.
Paper making came to the Berkshires, in Western Massachusetts, at the turn of the 19th century, to Dalton, and a few years later, 1804, to South Lee.