Glossary Term: Paper
Throughout history, people have used many surfaces for writing, including clay tablets, palm leaves, animal skins, bones, bamboo, silk and papyrus. Many of these earlier writing surfaces were expensive and impractical, and hard to carry around. For example, a two hundred page book would require twelve animal skins.

The invention of paper like we use today can be traced to the Han Dynasty of China (202 BC to AD 202).Their process for making paper was much like the process today: a raw material such as tree bark was finely chopped, mixed with water, spread onto screens, and dried.

The Chinese kept their papermaking skills a secret, so while papermaking was firmly established in China, the technology didn't reach Europe for another thousand years. It was the invention of the printing press in 1450 in Germany that created an increased demand for paper that furthered the European papermaking industry.

The first American paper mill was established near Philadelphia in 1690 and by 1810, there were 185 paper mills in the United States.

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