The Demise of Handmade Paper, 1832-1842

     Historians give only vague ideas of how and why the handmade paper industry in the U.S. ended as it did.  Remarkably, the topic of an 1840 letter sent to a papermaker in South Lee Mass. regarding the closing of a hand mill is viewed a stunning event. Only from previous letters does the researcher find that certain improvements to the paper machine at the owner's second paper mill led to the decision to close the older mill. Similar events were also happening to the industry at large.
     The dryer part of the paper machine is the focus of attention. The dryer is simply the equipment that takes the wet paper from the paper machine and drys it out. A typical dryer part of 1830 (above) consisted of a large steam-filled cylinder resting on two smaller satellites. This was a slow device, and made only semi-smooth paper that was normally only used for wrapping, book, or common news paper. Then around 1836 an improved dryer arrived from England, and with it the paper machine produced a stock with a smooth finish suitable for the finest of writing papers. This was the occassion of the loss of so many American hand mills over the next decade.