User:Sils660xxxx/Wood-pulp paper

Wood-pulp paper is made from processed tree fiber, and is notoriously acidic. Using wood to make paper is a fairly recent innovation. In the 1800s, cotton rag and fiber crops such as linen were the primary material source, but a shortage led to the contemporary wood-pulp paper that deteriorates quickly.

Paper remained relatively expensive, at least in book-sized quantities, through the centuries, until the advent of steam-driven paper making machines in the 19th century, which could made wood-pulp paper feasible. Although older machines predated it, the Fourdrinier paper making machine became the basis for most modern papermaking. Together with the invention of the practical fountain pen and the mass produced pencil of the same period, and in conjunction with the advent of the steam driven rotary printing press, wood based paper caused a major transformation of the 19th century economy and society in industrialized countries. With the introduction of cheaper paper, schoolbooks, fiction, non-fiction, and newspapers became gradually available to all the members of an industrial society by 1900. Cheap wood based paper also meant that keeping personal diaries or writing letters became universal. The clerk, or writer, ceased to be a high-status job, and by 1850 had nearly become an office worker or white-collar worker , which transformation can be considered as a part of the industrial revolution.

This increase in paper resources can be credited with the birth of ephemera, and consequently with the birth of modern paper preservation. Wood-based paper is highly acidic and prone to disintegrate over time, through a process known as slow fire. Documents written on more expensive rag paper are significantly more stable.

Mass-market paperback books still use these cheaper mechanical papers, but the more careful book publishers now use acid-free paper for hardback and trade paperback books.

See also