Abstract
This chapter aims to reposition paper as a commodity in the historiography of early modern book production by focusing on the markets for paper. This is done by means of a case study of an eighteenth-century paper dealer active in Amsterdam, the hub of the European paper trade. By examining the material flow of paper in and out of Amsterdam and through the city itself, it becomes clear that paper kept the whole ‘business of books’ running. Paper dealers were crucial figures within book production networks, performing pivotal functions such as providing access to supply chains. They also functioned in some unexpected ways, such as organizing the industry’s recycling processes of waste paper. It is argued here that these paper networks contributed to the formation of interconnected markets and constituted a significant component of the early modern book industry.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The analytical frame of this approach is inspired by market sociology, book history and economic history and derives from my ongoing research project on markets, spaces and networks of the early modern book trade (‘Publizistik als Handelsware. Transregionale Märkte, Räume und Netzwerke im frühneuzeitlichen Europa’), which is funded by the German Research Association.
- 2.
On the tradition of treating paper seriously in bibliography see: G.T. Tanselle, ‘The bibliographical description of paper’, Studies in Bibliography, 24 (1971), 27–67. For the historic approaches of bibliography into paper history see M. Bland, A Guide to Early Printed Books and Manuscripts (Chichester, 2010), 22–48; J. Bidwell, ‘The study of paper as evidence, artefact, and commodity’, in The Book Encompassed. Studies in Twentieth-Century Bibliography, ed. P. Davison (Cambridge, 1992), 69–82. The manufacture of paper, however, has a long history of documentation, and generations of historians tended to focus more or less exclusively on this aspect of production. The result is that the craft of making sheets of paper from ancient to modern times has been highlighted in complex ways, especially concerning the changing techniques of production. See for example D. Hunter, Papermaking. The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft (New York, 1947); P.F. Tschudin, Grundzüge der Papiergeschichte, 2nd edition (Stuttgart, 2012); L.X. Polastron, Le papier: 2000 ans d’histoire et de savoire-faire (Paris, 1999). Studies that extended beyond this cosmos of paper mills, watermarks and paper sizes concentrated mainly on production management in specific local and national settings. Instead of dozens of exemplary studies see: Internationale Bibliographie zur Papiergeschichte, ed. Die Deutsche Bibliothek, 4 vols. (Munich, 2003) [for studies printed after 1996 see the online edition: <URL: http://www.memoryofpaper.eu:8080/BernsteinPortal/appl_start.disp> [11 February 2016]] and the periodical of the International Association of Paper Historians, IPH Paper History.
- 3.
The term ‘paper knowledge’ has been coined by Lisa Gitelman in reference to the impact of paper in processes of cultural management. See L. Gitelman, Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents (Durham, 2014).
- 4.
See for example the calculations for German-speaking Europe, the Netherlands, France and England by R. Siegert, Aufklärung und Volkslektüre. Exemplarisch dargestellt an Rudolph Zacharias Becker und seinem ‘Noth- und Hülfsbüchlein’ (Frankfurt/Main, 1978); I.H. van Eeghen, ‘De boekhandel van de Republiek 1572–1795’, in De Amsterdamse Boekhandel, ed. idem, 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1960–1978), vol. 5, 11–128, esp. 34–36; J. Bidwell, ‘The industrialization of the paper trade’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain. Vol. V: 1695–1830, ed. M.F. Suarez and M.L. Turner (Cambridge, 2009), 200–217, esp. 214–215. Regarding the profitability of selling paper, see the printer-publishers’ accounts in M. Ould, Printing at the University Press, Oxford 1660–1780, 4 vols. (Oxford, 2013); L. Sporhan-Krempel, ‘Die Papierrechnungen von Johann Friedrich Cotta 1788–1806’, Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens, 5 (1964), 1370–1471.
- 5.
On the use of the term ‘paper world’ see B. Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, 1987); The Renaissance Computer. Knowledge in the First Age of Print, ed. N. Rhodes and J. Sawday (London, 2000).
- 6.
J. Raven, The Business of Books. Booksellers and the English Book Trade 1450–1850 (New Haven, 2007). On the ongoing nature of this desiderata see Bidwell, ‘The study of paper’, 69–82; F. Irsigler, ‘La carta: il commercio’, in Produzione e commercio della carta e del libro secc. XIII–XVIII, ed. S. Cavaciocchi (Florence, 1992), 143–199; D. Bellingradt, ‘Trading paper in early modern Europe. On distribution logistics, traders, and trade volumes between Amsterdam and Hamburg in the mid-late-eighteenth century’, Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 21 (2014), 117–131. To mention the most important exceptions that fruitfully connect the production and trading of paper for the medieval and early modern period: La carta occidentale nel tardo Medioevo, ed. E. Ornato et al. (Rome, 2001); R. Graziaplena, ‘Paper trade as a medium and diffusion in late medieval Europe. A first approach’, in Paper as a Medium of Cultural Heritage: Archaeology and Conservation, ed. R. Graziaplena and M. Livsey (Rome, 2004), 343–356; N.J. Lindberg, Paper Comes to the North. Sources and Trade Routes of Paper in the Baltic Sea Region 1350–1700 (Vantaa, 1998); A. Lepp, ‘The first year of the Academia Gustaviana print shop as seen through the history of paper’, Ajalooline Ajakiri. The Estonian Historical Journal, 1 (2014), 85–114; V. Thiel, ‘Papiererzeugung und Papierhandel vornehmlich in den deutschen Landen von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts’, Archivalische Zeitschrift, 41 (1932), 106–151; D.C. Coleman, The British Paper Industry 1495–1860. A Study in Industrial Growth (Oxford, 1958); Bidwell, ‘The industrialization of the paper trade’; I.H. van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse Boekhandel, 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1960–1978), vol. 4, esp. 195–271; F.H. Meyer, ‘Papierfabrikation und Papierhandel. Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte, besonders in Sachsen’, Archiv für Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels, 11 (1888), 283–357; G. Piccard, Frankfurt, frühe Stadt des Papierhandels (Frankfurt/Main, 1954); F. Schmidt, ‘Die internationale Papierversorgung der Buchproduktion im deutschsprachigen Gebiet vornehmlich während des 18. Jahrhunderts’, Paper History, 10.1 (2000), 2–24.
- 7.
See the introduction to this edited volume and D.F. McKenzie, ‘Printers of the mind. Some notes on bibliographical theories and printing-house practices’, Studies in Bibliography, 22 (1969), 1–75.
- 8.
Originally deriving from industrial studies, the concept of ‘material flows’ eventually became attractive in the historical analysis of ‘Logistic Cultures’. See for example M. Dommann, ‘Handling, Flow Charts, Logistik. Zur Wissensgeschichte und Materialkultur von Warenflüssen’, in Zirkulationen, ed. P. Sarasin and A. Kilcher (Zurich, 2011), 75–103.
- 9.
See the introduction to this edited volume on the academic tradition of focusing on the ‘social dimensions’ of the book within the French Histoire du Livre and the German Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur.
- 10.
On the usage of ‘sociality’/‘sociability’ in historical approaches see: M. Agulhon, ‘Introduction. La sociabilité est-elle objet d’histoire?’, in Sociabilité et société bourgeoise en France, en Allemagne et en Suisse 1750–1850. Geselligkeit, Vereinswesen und bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Frankreich, Deutschland und der Schweiz 1750–1850, ed. F. Étienne (Paris, 1986), 13–23.
- 11.
See the introduction to this edited volume on the spatial turn in book history and its theoretical backgrounds.
- 12.
The Bookshop of the World. The Role of the Low Countries in the Book-Trade 1473–1941, ed. L. Hellinga et al. (‘t Goy-Houten, 2001). See further O. Lankhorst, ‘Le transfert des livres entre la Hollande et l’Europe centrale (XVIIe–XVIIIe siécle)’, in Est-Quest. Transferts et réceptions dans le monde du livre en Europe (XVIIe–XXe siécles), ed. F. Barbier (Leipzig, 2005), 151–163; Le magasin de l’univers. The Dutch Republic as the Centre of the European Book Trade, ed. C. Berkvens-Stevelinck et al. (Leiden, 1992). However, an urban history of printing and publishing in early modern Amsterdam is still to be written.
- 13.
See especially on the impact of the transportation system (‘het transpoortsysteem’) for the Dutch ‘boekdistributie’ into Europe: B. van Selm: ‘“Het kompt altemael aen op het distribuweeren”. De boekdistributie als object van onderzoek’, in De productie, distributie en consumptie van cultuur, ed. J.J. Kloek (Amsterdam, 1991), 89–99; H. van Goinga, Alom te bekomen. Veranderingen in de boekdistributie in de Republiek 1720–1800 (Amsterdam, 1999); J.D. Popkin, ‘Print culture in the Netherlands on the eve of revolution’, in The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century. Decline, Enlightenment, and Revolution, ed. M. Jacob and W.W. Mijnhardt (Ithaca, 1992), 273–291; H. van Goinga and J. Salman, ‘Expansie en begrenzing van de interne markt. De achtiende eeuw’, Jaarboek voor Nederlandse boekgeschiedenis, 17 (2010), 171–219.
- 14.
This is one result of my project’s database for Amsterdam (1750–1800).
- 15.
The city was surrounded by Dutch regions of paper production. Regions to the south (Veluwe), to the east (Oortmarsum) and to the northwest (region of Zaandam/Zaandijk) of Amsterdam were the most important ones. See H. Voorn, De Geschiedenis der Nederlandse Papierindustrie, 4 vols. (Haarlem, 1960–1987); B. de Vries, De Nederlandse Papiernijverheid in de negentiende eeuw (The Hague, 1957), 4–49 (‘Voorgeschiedenis, opkomst en bloei der Neerlandse papiernijverheid’), 50–89 (‘De Gronden van de supprematie van het Nederlandse papier en de positie der Nederlandse papiernijverheid in de Franse Tijd’); van Eeghen, ‘De boekhandel van de Republiek 1572–1795’. More generally, see Th. Laurentius, ‘Paper’, in Bibliopolis. History of the Printed Book in the Netherlands, ed. M. van Delft and C. de Wolf (The Hague, 2003), 113–114; on the rise of the Dutch paper industry and its worldwide acclaim in the early modern period see The Evolution of Global Paper Industry 1800–2050: A Comparative Analysis, ed. J.-A. Lamberg et al. (Dordrecht, 2012).
- 16.
On the strategic role of Amsterdam in the paper trade see the references given in Lindberg, Paper comes to the North; Thiel, ‘Papiererzeugung und Papierhandel’. See for example on the importation of French and Italian paper E. Heawood, Watermarks Mainly of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Hilversum, 1957), esp. 21–28; H. Voorn, ‘Lombards en Troys, Frans en Bovenlands papier. Een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van de Amsterdamse papierhandel’, in Opstellen over de Koninklijke Bibliotheek en andere studies, ed. P.A. Tichelaar et al. (Hilversum, 1986), 312–327.
- 17.
Van Eeghen, ‘De boekhandel van de Republiek 1572–1795’, 35.
- 18.
Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse Boekhandel, vol. 4, 195–271.
- 19.
Bellingradt, ‘Trading paper in early modern Europe’.
- 20.
As we know, the contemporary Dutch shipping industry was capable of transporting such enormous weights from port to port: M. van Tielhoff and J. van Zanden, ‘Productivity changes in shipping in the Dutch Republic: the evidence from freight rates, 1550–1800’, in Shipping and Economic Growth 1350–1850, ed. R.W. Unger (Leiden, 2011), 47–80; R.W. Unger, ‘The tonnage of Europe’s merchant fleets 1300–1800’, The American Neptune, 52 (1992), 247–261.
- 21.
Van Eeghen, De Amsterdamse Boekhandel, vol. 4, esp. 9, and 195–271; Van Eeghen, ‘De boekhandel van de Republiek 1572–1795’.
- 22.
See J. Le Moine de l’Espine, De Koophandel van Amsterdam naer alle gewesten der Waereld […], 9. edition, 3 vols. (Rotterdam, 1780), here vol. 1, 289.
- 23.
Segelke is mentioned in the Haarlem-based literary journal Algemene konst- en letter-bode, voor meer- en min-geoeffenden: behelzende berigten uit de geleerde waereld, van alle landen of 1788 (p. 83) as a ‘boekverkoper te Amsterdam’ offering a children’s almanac: ‘Aan het Letterlievend Publieck, word mits dezen bekend gemaakt, dat op Maandag den 8sten dezer, en vervolgende wekelyks by Vertoogen, in Quarto. met een daarby toepasselyk Vignet, tegens een en een halve stuiver, zal worden uitgegeven, by den Boekverkoper Z. Segelke, te Amsterdam, en verders alom, Het Gerichtshof van Hippocréne.’
- 24.
The Nederlands Repertorium van Familiennamen (Assen, 1970) offers only two entries on ‘Segelke’ for the city’s records up to 1811.
- 25.
The ‘Doopregister’ of Amsterdam in the Gemeente Archief Amsterdam (Stadsarchief), in the following GAA, do not have a record on him. However, the online compendium of ‘Genealogie voor oost Nederland’ (<URL: http://www.pondes.nl> [11 February 2016]) gives the information that he was born around 1763. Segelke died sometime in early July 1802 in Amsterdam (GAA, burial registers before 1811, document that he was buried in Heiligewegs (and Leidsche Kerkhof) on 6.7.1802 (GAA, DTB 1248, p.16vo, p.17).
- 26.
See the account books (‘Koopmansboekjes’) – 12 units in 13 volumes in total, ranging from 1788–1803 – of Z. Segelke (GAA 5060/186). The accounting books of vol. 1–vol. 3 (covering the years 1788–1797) are the most important ones.
- 27.
His address and job describtion (papierverkoper) is documented on many business letters Segelke received (and kept occasionally in his account books) during his merchant activity in Amsterdam.
- 28.
We have evidence of Segelke engaging a few times in the publishing business from 1788–1803 – often he is part of publishing cooperations of two to eight members, and only a few times the only or leading individual responsible for the publishing process. For example, in 1792 he published (in cooperation with leading Amsterdam booksellers/publishers Hendrik Cornelis Bergveldt, Hendrik Brongers Jr, Graaf Daalwyk, Jacobus Koning, Dirk Meland Langeveld, Jan Verlem, Jan Jacob Wolters and Wijnand Wijnands) the serial Anecdotes van het oud- en nieuw licht (Amsterdam); in 1797 he published the children’s almanac A, B, C, almanach, voor kleine kinderen (Amsterdam). Between 1793 and 1795 he was involved in perhaps his biggest publishing project, the two-volume (each c.500 pages) Dutch–German/German–Dutch dictionary by O.R.F.W. Winkelman (<URL: http://vd18.de/de-sub-vd18/content/titleinfo/51959328> [11 February 2016]) (see the ‘Casbook’ for this publishing project in: GAA, 5060/186, vol. 9).
- 29.
Only sometimes did Segelke act as a large bookseller, normally when buying complete stocks of printing offices and publisher’s warehouses at liquidation auctions. For example, in 1790 he bought ‘van de Verkoopung van de Wed.[uwe] S.[alomon] Schouten’ on 16.8.1790, at the ‘Keyserstroom’ paper and books worth around 500 guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 107).
- 30.
The general distinction between printing and writing paper is confusing – both could be used for book printing.
- 31.
See for the Dutch and English ream: P. Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography, 2nd edition (Oxford, 1974), 59–60; C.T. Jacobi, The Printers’ Vocabulary. A Collection of Some 2500 Technical Terms, Phrases, Abbreviations and Other Expressions (London, 1888; repr. Detroit, 1969), 111. See on the calculating of units of the paper trade in eighteenth-century Europe: Bellingradt, ‘Trading paper in early modern Europe’.
- 32.
Details on the mentioned papermakers’ companies, their mills and successions can be found in Voorn, Nederlandse Papierindustrie.
- 33.
Paper mills which worked on contract for particular companies and their shareholders were referred to at the time as working ‘on the ream’, meaning the entire production was sold in advance. See on paper merchants organizing in companies the many details given in Voorn, Nederlandse Papierindustrie.
- 34.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vols. 1–3.
- 35.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 13.
- 36.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 26.
- 37.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 54.
- 38.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 51.
- 39.
Although the account books indirectly provide evidence of these transported ‘material flows’ by the thousands, direct proof in the form of documented business transactions such as receipts is scarce. However, see for example the receipt on ‘geleverde Papieren’ from the Veluwe region to Segelke from 1791 signed by the transporter Laurens Strik (Loose paper material in: Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186)). The route by which paper was transported from the Veluwe regions to Amsterdam has been reconstructed by Henk Voorn. It was shipped first by land from the mills to Harderwijk and then by water via ferry to Amsterdam. See Voorn, Nederlandse Papierindustrie, vol. 3 (1985), 735.
- 40.
Although we have to assume that more book people were actually involved in the paper trade of Amsterdam to some degree, only a few of them refer to themselves as being paper merchants (in variations of ‘papierverkoper’, paper seller or paper dealer, etc.) by occupation. In my project’s database for Amsterdam (1750–1800), which is based, among other additional sources, on official administration records, business catalogues, professional documents of the booksellers’ guild and newspaper data, about 30 persons can be listed as relevant big players in the paper business.
- 41.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 27.
- 42.
On the barter trade system see van Delft and de Wolf, Bibliopolis, the chapter on ‘Distribution’, 136–144; U. Rautenberg, ‘Tauschhandel’, in Reclams Sachlexikon des Buches, 3. edition, ed. idem (Stuttgart, 2015), 380.
- 43.
On the phenomenon of recycling books (i.e. reusing the used paper to produce new paper) from the seventeenth century onwards see W. St Clair, The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period (Cambridge, 2004); L. Price, How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain (Princeton, 2012); L. Price, ‘Getting the reading out of it: Paper recycling in Mayhew’s London’, in Bookish Histories: Books, Literature and Commercial Modernity 1700–1900, ed. I. Ferris and P. Keen (Basingstoke, 2009), 148–166; C. Hirschi and C. Spoerhase, ‘Kommerzielle Bücherzerstörung als ökonomische Praxis und literarisches Motiv. Ein vergleichender Blick auf das vorindustrielle und digitale Zeitalter’, Kodex, 2 (2013), 1–23.
- 44.
Misdruk is Dutch for ‘waste paper’ in the meaning of leftovers and damaged papers from the printing process; Lompen is either ‘rags’ (i.e. linen rags, the basic material for papermaking) or ‘frazzles’, smaller leftover parts; and Snyppers means ‘shreds’ or ‘shredded paper’, so very small parts.
- 45.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 39.
- 46.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 46.
- 47.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 30.
- 48.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 244.
- 49.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 269, 303.
- 50.
Instead of a complete list of all non-specialists of the ‘regular’ book industry, see the following examples: In October 1789 Segelke sold to the Amsterdam ‘Tabak Winkel’ at the Botermarkt: two reams of ‘Royaal Papier’ worth nine guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 23), and in 1790 to the ‘Tabakswinkel Amst[erdam] op de Botermarkt’ ten reams of ‘Royaal Papier’ worth 45 guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 37). The Tabakswinkel of ‘C. Nolte’ bought in 1793 reams of different papers for 168 guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 252) and the Tabakswinkel of ‘Heer Hilbes’ in 1793 bought papers for 54 guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 288). Writing paper was sold by Segelke to ‘Heer Schorret’, a ‘Coopman in Winkelwaaren in de Warmoerstraat’, Amsterdam (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 144) who in return sold Segelke about 5,000 ‘Kaartjes’ (greeting cards) for 55 guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 35). Many more non-specialists in the city, ranging from the Amsterdam ‘Pennenkooper’ Johannes Ogelwigt, who bought several thousand ‘Roodband boutjes’ and ‘Blaauw Band Boutjes’ worth 70 guilders in 1790 (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 2) to the Amsterdam ‘Koopman’ Claas Langenhorst who bought substantial amounts of writing paper, postpapier, ‘Adress kaarten’ etc. worth 34 guilders (Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 2 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 11) provide relevant evidence of Segelke’s local paper-selling networks.
- 51.
J. Freedman, Books Without Borders in Enlightenment Europe. French Cosmopolitanism and German Literary Markets (Philadelphia, 2012) called such bookshops (of Hamburg) ‘cabinets of curiosities’ (p. 227). On the social variety of people actually selling paper in early modern Europe see further: van Goinga, Alom te bekomen; J. Gessler, Het Brugsche Livre des mestiers en zijn navolgingen, 6 vols. (Bruges, 1931), esp. vol. 1; J. Goldfriedrich, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels vom Westfälischen Frieden bis zum Beginn der klassischen Litteraturperiode (1648–1740) (Leipzig, 1908), esp. 87–135.
- 52.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 21.
- 53.
Account book of Zacharias Segelke, vol. 1 (GAA 5060/186), fol. 41.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bellingradt, D. (2017). Paper Networks and the Book Industry. The Business Activities of an Eighteenth-century Paper Dealer in Amsterdam. In: Bellingradt, D., Nelles, P., Salman, J. (eds) Books in Motion in Early Modern Europe. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53366-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53366-7_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-53365-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-53366-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)