Paper: Questions of Material, Working
Practices and Formats of the Humanities

This subproject investigates the most central working medium of the humanities from a historical perspective: paper. The invention of the groundwood paper in 1843, subsequently developed practices for the production of cellulose, as well as the energy of the steam engine and the paper machine led to the industrialization and specification of the paper industry. This “paper flood”, made up of affordable, mass produced groundwood and straw pulp paper as well as new, refined types of paper, radically changed the work of humanities scholars.

Focusing on the humanities in Berlin, it is possible to exemplarily reconstruct the extent to which the evolved material preconditions encouraged new publication formats and practices of work: In the 19^th century, scholars initiated long-lasting editorial projects that were based on masses of different papers. Around 1900, libraries and new archives tested methods to conserve paper. Different disciplines used the diversity of available types of paper for media of knowledge transfer in academia and in the public sphere. During times of war and paper shortage, new strategies to save paper were invented to enable studying.

The subproject highlights how these activities are intertwined with the national paper industry that drew wood resources from German forests, but also from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The greater area of Berlin comes into focus as a simultaneous center of humanities, media corporations, paper industry and paper testing. Because of the geographical scale of the studied research undertakings, this focus can be extended to international paper industries. The use of special types of paper and the paper industry in wartime broadens the spectrum of raw materials and their provenances that are examined.