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Inovations in the time of privileges: Höchenberger's invention of the field printery
Wögerbauer, Michael
The text analyses the attempts of the Prague book printer Jan Tomas Höchenberger to obtain the privileged position of a military book printer in the 1770s, hence at the time when it was difficult for new companies to win recognition against the obsolete system of privileges. After the first, unsuccessful attempt in 1779-1780, he applied for the privilege again with a 'filed printing press on a cart', which was labelled by both the author and the historian Josef Dobrovský as Höchenberger's 'own invention'. The attempt to obtain the privilege is analysed on the background of the stiffness of the existing system of privileges and on the basis of the thesis of the French book historian Frederic Barbier that at the end of the 18th century there was 'the second book revolution', which however unlike the first (Gutenberg's invention) and third (digitisation) was not characterised by technical progress but by the spreading and democratisation of printed communication. On this background, Höchenberger's attempt is all the more remarkable in that field printing presses fulfil the need of administering the new 'people's' armies and communicating with the growing number of the soldiers that do not fight as mercenaries for money but for their 'country' and 'nation'.
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Machine Work. On the Technology of Writing before 1914
Piorecká, Kateřina
The typewriter was a novelty in the Czech milieu at the beginning of the 1890s, which is evidenced by both the popularisation articles in dailies and professional journals and the first satires. Despite the parallel existence of multiple competing systems, the typewriter gradually found its application in administration (including the administration of publishing houses and periodicals), but very slowly in the creative sphere. A handwritten manuscript was considered to be an expression of the personality of its author and was highly valued in particular in connection with literary production. Generations of symbolists and decadents therefore placed emphasis on calligraphic writing. A writer initially selected a typewriter for very pragmatic reasons: joint diseases etc.); 2) the legibility of the resulting text (as a consequence of changes in typesetting technology and its multiple acceleration, the requirements on the handwritten text became much stricter); 3) the anonymity of the text (unlike the handwriting, the typescript does not point directly to its author). However, a typewriter found favourers among writers, it was used by Josef Kalousek or Eliška Krásnohorská, Václav Tille or Karel Matěj Čapek Chod.
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