Seemingly coincidental events that led to the printing of the first copies of the Book of Mormon were actually the hand of the Lord doing a "marvelous work and a wonder," (see Isaiah 29:4), said Keith Wilson, associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU.
Brother Wilson's presentation: "From Gutenberg to Grandin: Tracing the Development of the Printing Press," was delivered at the Sidney B. Sperry Symposium on Saturday morning, Oct. 30.
Beginning with Gutenberg's breakthrough developments in the 1400s, Brother Wilson traced the evolution of the printing press through the early 1800s as the Book of Mormon was ready to be published.
He spoke of Gutenberg's specific contributions to printing that led to the printing of more than 12 million books in the 50 years following his inventions. He brought together the production of durable metal type, molds that would cast uniform type, ink that would print and dry in the proper amount of time, and a press that would uniformly transfer the inked letters onto paper.
Printing presses improved to a greater or lesser degree over the next 350 years, leading up to the Mechanization Period beginning in 1800, he said. From then on, everything came together to make it possible for the Prophet Joseph Smith and his associates to have the Book of Mormon printed.
One change was the paper revolution, Brother Wilson said. Prior to 1800, paper was expensive and of poor quality. In America, production of paper was stunted by a British tax on rags, a basic material for paper making. The tax was one of the factors in the American Revolution, he noted.
The paper shortage was alleviated with the invention of the first mechanical paper machine around 1800. The number of paper mills in the United States doubled and the price of paper dropped dramatically.
Events in and around Palmyra, N.Y., during the early 1800s also facilitated the printing of the Book of Mormon. The completion of construction of the Erie Canal through Palmyra in 1825 led to the community's rapid growth in population and as a commercial center. The canal also made it feasible to ship a heavy printing press from New York City to Palmyra.
At the same time, a young printing entrepreneur named E.B. Grandin apprenticed at, then purchased Palmyra's newspaper, the Wayne Sentinel. About the same age as Joseph Smith, Grandin ambitiously undertook his new business, buying a modern, metal press called the Smith Press from a company in New York City.
Brother Wilson said Grandin had set up the new press in a new building on Main Street in Palmyra and put out an advertisement that he was in the book printing business just two months before the Book of Mormon was ready to print.
For reasons including a reluctance to get involved in Joseph Smith's religion, Grandin at first declined to print the Book of Mormon. Printing the book in Rochester, 25 miles away, was considered, but was not nearly as convenient as Palmyra. Finally, Grandin agreed to print the Book of Mormon because, as Brother Wilson said, he was a publisher "with a new building, a new press and no business."
Brother Wilson described the magnitude of the printing of the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon. He said in the 184 days it took to complete the job, including two stoppages, 2,960,000 pages were printed requiring 185,000 pulls of the printing lever, or 1,000 pulls each day.
With everything that had to happen to make the printing of the Book of Mormon possible, Brother Wilson summed up saying there was no way it could have happened "without the Spirit moving upon these people."
E-mail: ghill@desnews.com
