Learn the five steps to making paper as it was done in the Revolutionary era, part of a Common Press semiquincentennial project, alongside a class from the Weitzman School of Design.
5 min. read
Kelly He lifts the mould and deckle to drain water from the paper pulp.
Near the banks of a small creek where America’s first paper mill ran in the 1690s, Kelly He lifted the wooden frame filled with pulp out of a tub of water.
Taking care not to disturb the contents as she let the water drain off, He removed the top part of the frame and in one quick motion flipped the wooden mould to transfer the paper to a flat drying surface.
Around her were fellow Penn students all sharing the experience of making paper on a chilly early spring day at Historic Rittenhouse Town. The effort was a component of Common Press’ Typography of Independence project, a collaborative, community-driven initiative offering public events including papermaking, typesetting, and letterpress printing, replicating the processes involved in the printing of the Declaration of Independence for the semiquincentennial, part of America 250 at Penn. The project will culminate with several opportunities to print copies of the Declaration May 18 through December.
Students from Kaitlin Pomerantz’s class on this day were using the same basic techniques and tools that printers and papermakers in the Revolutionary era would have used to create America’s founding document, explained local artist and project consultant Erica Honson, leading the session.
Under Honson’s guidance, the class moves through the five steps of 1700s papermaking.
Step one: Gather material
From September to December, the Typography of Independence team collected more than 150 pounds of rags for paper’s most essential ingredient. “We got all this material donated from people around Philadelphia. Some of it is denim; some of it is cotton T-shirts. We have linen bed sheets,” says Honson.
After subtracting more than 40 pounds of seams, zippers, hems, buttons, and synthetic materials, that left 104 pounds of usable fibers. The initial goal was to produce about 300 sheets of paper, Honson says. With the riches of rags they were given, the goal went up to about 500 sheets—using about a third of the fibers.
Step two: Cut and prepare
Trimming out the unusable material and cutting the pieces down to size took quite a while. Moving forward, staff from Penn’s Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Design and Prototyping Laboratories are collaborating with Common Press to make a mechanical fiber shredder so future papermaking teams won’t have to cut it all piece by piece with scissors, Honson says. The cut pieces are then cooked in soda ash to break down the chemical bonds in the fiber in preparation for the next step.
Step three: Beat and drain
The cloth is then put into a beater, a machine first invented in Holland in the 1600s, to pummel it into tiny fibers. In the Revolutionary era, Honson says, rags would have been beaten to a pulp with a water wheel in a creek, stamping up and down rather than circulating them.
Students drain water from the paper pulp and prepare to flip it onto the drying surfaces.
The longer the fiber is beaten, the weaker and more transparent it becomes. And the types of fabric also make a difference in how long it takes. “Instead of approaching this in a very consistent way, we have to be a little more intuitive,” says Honson. “Paper makers love to say the paper is made in the beater, because this is how you control the various qualities.”
The pulp is also colored by its ingredients, ranging from a green-hued blue to black. The color that the class is watching go through the beater is a dark purple. “They will all get mixed together before we make the paper, so the resulting paper is all the same color,” Honson explains.
Step four: Mould and shape
The finished fiber is then placed into tubs of water, and specialized frames and screens—“moulds and deckles”—are used to shape the pulp into sheets of paper. The mould used for the Typography project was custom-made by trained woodworkers. “There is a long tradition of mould making for papermaking, and that craft is kind of dying because the mould makers are dying,” Honson says. The mould is oiled between uses so the wood stays in good shape, and the mould and deckle are dried together, facedown, so they can grow and shrink together and not warp.
After pulling the fibers out with the mould, students let the water drain off. Honson encourages them to give it a little shake, “like you’re panning for gold,” they say. “You want to shake a little bit so that all the fibers are smooth across the surface. But if you shake too much, then you’ll start to create ripples or wrinkles in your sheet.”
They remove the deckle and then flip the paper onto the table, smoothing out any rough spots or crumpled edges. Some mark symbols into them for watermarks—the first example of branding, developed by Italians in the 1200s to distinguish paper from other products, Pomerantz says. The paper used for the Declaration printing will bear a special Common Press watermark.
Step five: Press and dry
After an initial drying period, the papers are carefully stacked and taken to a large screw press with multiple pieces of wood used to spread the pressure evenly. When Honson presses down, water drains from the sodden sheets onto the floor. With much of the liquid removed, the pages are placed in individual drying racks with a fan blowing upward from the floor. It takes about 24 to 48 hours for each sheet to fully dry and be used for writing, printing, or other art forms.
Everyday uses for ancient technology
He, a fourth-year urban studies major from College Station, Texas, says she was interested in learning more about how artists can integrate sustainable practices in their work, and the papermaking experience was a fascinating part of that.
Local artist and project consultant Erica Honson shows the mould and deckle to be used in making the Declaration of Independence paper.
“Seeing how the pulp is pulverized and reused is very cool,” she says, as is learning about the materiality of the ingredients’ lifecycle. “Paper is not something you think about day-to-day, but is something I use every day,” He explains.
Upcoming events in which the public can participate include community typesetting of the Declaration’s text at Common Press from May 14-16; a book talk by historian Emily Sneff and printing on a portable press on June 2; and printing copies of the Declaration at Common Press, beginning May 18 and running through December 18.
The project has received contributions from the broader Penn community. In addition to the fiber shredder, woodworker Colin Pezzano of Penn’s Weitzman Fabrication Lab built a large wooden bath for the project to fit the 16x20 Declaration-sized mould and deckle, Honson says. “We have a lot of support from people around Philly and throughout the country that are making us various things and helping us move this project along,” they say.
Upcoming Typography of Independence events
Community Typesetting: May 14-16, Common Press, Fisher Fine Arts Library. Open to the public. Registration required.
When the Declaration of Independence Was News: June 2, 6 p.m. - 7 p.m., the Athenaeum. Book talk with Emily Sneff and printing on a portable press from the Common Press. RSVP.
Print the Declaration of Independence: May 18 - December 18, Common Press, Fisher Fine Arts Library. Reserve a time slot.
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