About Paper

The Museum often gets questions of general interest concerning paper. Some of these seem simple, but the correct answers have been concealed through time and tradition. Today, commercial production of paper is highly mechanized. The basic process, however, has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years. We hope the answers to these questions interest you.

When was paper invented?
How did paper get from China to Europe?
When did papermaking begin in America?
What is the difference between papyrus and paper?
Why do we use rectangular sized paper instead of square sized paper?
Why do we use 8 ½" X 11" paper?
What is the derivation of the word "ream"?

Paper Product Milestones

We are often asked when a paper product started. We hope the following is entertaining as well as instructive.

Paper Cups
Disposable Handkerchief
Bathroom Tissue
Paper Towels

The Museum

We are sometimes asked about the Museum itself. We hope the following is helpful.

How long has the Museum been here?

When was paper invented?

Click here for a discussion of the invention of paper.

How did paper get from China to Europe?

Click here for a discussion of the spread of papermaking in Europe.

When did papermaking begin in America?

Click here for a discussion of the beginnings of papermaking in the United States.

What is the difference between papyrus and paper?

Papyrus is a product of the water reed of the same name found along the banks of the Nile River in Egypt. It was probably made from the outer skin since the center is pithy. Layers of the reed were laid on a stone slab side by side and the next layer was laid on top of the first at right angles to those on the bottom. The whole mass was then moistened with water, pressed, and dried, resulting in a laminated mass. The dried material was hammered to make it more compact and rubbed with a smooth stone to produce a writing surface. Samples of papyrus have been found dating back to 3,500 B.C. Greeks and Romans also wrote on it, and its use persisted until about the 10th century A.D. when overproduction or disease wiped out the crops. Papyrus has been reintroduced, and the Center for Papyrus Research near Cairo, Egypt, makes small quantities using the old methods.

Paper developed separately in China around 200 BCE. It differs from papyrus in that the plants have been beaten to separate the fibers, suspended evenly in water, placed on a webbing to drain off the water, and dried. The beating allows a hydrogen bonding to form between the fibers. This hydrogen bonding gives paper its cohesion and tearing strength. Paper can be made from any cellulose-containing plant such as cotton, hemp, wood chips, bagasse, straw, kenaf, etc. Paper derives its name from papyrus and is a transferred application of an old name to a new material.

Why do we use rectangular paper rather than square paper?

The most likely reason we use rectangular paper goes back to the early days of paper production. Until the middle 1800s, paper was made by hand, dipping a mold (mould if you prefer the British spelling) into a large vat containing beaten pulp in suspension. Early papermakers found it much easier to control rectangular molds than square ones. The rectangular size tradition continued after the process was mechanized, and mechanical blades were used to cut the rolls of paper for the commercial market. Tradition has kept the shape rectangular.

Why do we use 8 ½" X 11" paper?

In the early part of the 20th Century before WWI, many industrialized countries started discussing the advantages of standardizing paper sizes to make it easy for their post offices to handle mail. Most accepted the ISA standard sizes in 1925. In the United States a joint meeting between manufacturers, distributors, and users drafted the Simplified Practice Recommendation R22. This formalized the existing sizes most frequently used and did not add new ones. It became effective June 15, 1933.

What is the derivation of the word "ream"?

Ream is one of the oldest terms in the paper industry and is the universal term used for a quantity of paper. The origin can be traced to the Arabic term "rismah", defined as a bale or bundle of clothes, paper, etc. The Italians used "risma", the Spanish and Portuguese used "resma", the French used "rame", the Germans used "reis" and the Dutch used "riem". The actual quantity of paper in a ream gradually became fixed through the centuries and probably has some relationship to the amount of paper a vatman could make in a day. Variations still exist today. In the United States, a 500-sheet ream is the standard.

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PAPER PRODUCT MILESTONES

Paper Cups

The turn of the 20th Century saw a strong effort to control epidemics. Hugh Moore and his college roommate, Lawrence Luellen, dropped out of Harvard to capitalize on the market for a sanitary way to get a drink of water. At first they tried marketing penny cup-vending machines with bottled water. They soon abandoned selling water, concentrated on selling paper cups, and gave away free dispensers. The company went through several name changes for the cups, stressing the clinical use or them until 1919. Then Mr. Moore found a catchy name, "Dixie", being used at a doll store in New York. Getting permission to use the name, the company moved to Pennsylvania and started to grow. Business expanded again when Moore and Luellen discovered that the drinking cups were ideal for individual servings of ice cream and the Dixie Cup took on another meaning. In 1957 American Can Company purchased the Dixie Cup Company. James River Corporation purchased the Dixie Division from American Can in 1982. Georgia-Pacific Corporation acquired Fort James (formerly James River) in 2000 and is now the owner of the "Dixie" brand.

Disposable Handkerchief

Kimberly-Clark developed the "disposable handkerchief" to commercially develop excess creped wadding capacity. The tremendous increase in cars increased the sale of cosmetics, particularly cold cream, to combat the effect of wind hitting the faces of women riding in cars open to the elements. Naturally, they needed something to remove the cold cream. So the tissue trademarked "Kleenex" was developed as a disposable substitute for cloth face towels in 1924. An employee of Kimberly-Clark suffering from hay fever, used "Kleenex" as a replacement for a handkerchief. This market proved to be an even bigger one than its market as a cosmetics remover, and in 1927, the ads for the product were expanded to include its use as a disposable handkerchief.

Bathroom Tissue

In the late 19th Century, the public's desire for better hygiene coincided with technological advances in indoor plumbing. However, in the Victorian Era, with its high moral values, products such as bathroom tissue were considered to be unmentionable. The market was limited because customers wouldn't discuss it, merchants wouldn't display it, and publications wouldn't advertise it.

Two Scott brothers, Irvin and Clarence, decided to specialize in rolled toilet tissue. They began their company in 1879 and contracted to buy paper from suppliers and then convert it according to the requests of their customers. Each roll was wrapped in a cover printed with the private name requested by the customer. These rolls were often sold behind drugstore counters as "medical supplies". By the end of the nineteenth century Scott Paper Company was producing private label brands for over 2000 customers. Arthur Scott, son of Irvin, joined the company in 1896 and, in time, convinced his father and uncle they should produce a uniform, high-quality product. By 1913 the Scott brands dominated.

Paper Towels

The early 20th Century continued the expansion of paper products. Scott Paper was experimenting with various weights of creped tissue for product development. During a cold epidemic in 1907, a Philadelphia teacher blamed the spread of germs on the student use of the same cloth towel. She cut heavy copy paper into squares and used them as individual towels. Arthur Scott, son of Irvin, heard about it and had some heavier than normal tissue made into rolls and perforated into individual 13" X 18" sheets. They were originally called "Sani-Towels", but were later renamed "ScotTissue Towels".

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THE MUSEUM

How long has the Museum been here?

The core of the Museum's artifacts were collected by Dard Hunter over the course of several decades. He opened the Dard Hunter Paper Museum in 1939. In 1954 Hunter sold his Museum to the Institute of Paper Chemistry (now IPST) which was then located in Appleton, Wisconsin.

IPST and the Museum moved to its current location in Atlanta in 1993.

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