A closer look at the personal effects of the printing press .......

                   The Story of Me

             The printing press. Some may say it's the greatest invention of all times and nearly every one can agree it's played a critical role in shaping the world as we know it today. In class, we discussed a variety of pros to the great invention such as higher literacy rates, accurate map making leading to colonization and empire, increased trade, revolutionary/religious/artistic ideas, and standardized language focusing primarily on it's major positive factors, but I feel it's important to also be aware of it's impact on you at a personal level. Not until Mr. Miller encouraged me to figure out how the printing press affected me did I truly comprehend the full extent of it's power.

           To start I analyzed basic traits about me. I'm 14 years old, female, and was born in Morocco. Then I built off deeper. My parents met in high school and I have two brothers (one older and one younger). Overall it's some pretty basic information that sets the stage for the story of my life; however, if you erase the printing press you also inevitably rewrite my story.

         Without the printing press, we discussed how there would not have been any revolutionary movements such as feminism or equal rights. This was one that I was relatively surprised by. While I understood that the printing press paved the path for for revolutionary ideas, I was thinking more revolutionary war and protestant reformation, not a subject that hit so close to home. If it weren't for the printing press, by the measly age of 14, I would have most likely already been married off with little to know schooling due to both my gender and social class. In fact, I wouldn't even be in this very country if not for the printing press. Regardless of whether the U.S came to be or not, communication between nations and transportation would be incredibly less advanced meaning I'd have no means of getting here. I would be a married "woman" off in Morocco watching after and raising children from within my home.

      That is, only if I exist at all. My parents both met in high school. A level of schooling not even the elite had. That means in this new reality there's an incredibly high chance that my parents would never have met and I wouldn't exist, or maybe my grandparents wouldn't have met and not even my parents would exist. This realization is what really drove the ball home for me. My very existence may rely on the creation of a little press years and years ago. Now say perhaps by some unbeknownst chance my parent do end up together, my family composition would be much different regardless. Due to lack of education my family would have doubtlessly belonged to the faction of the population engaged in farming. In a farm, the more children you have the greater your work force. That means that there's nearly a zero percent chance that I would have but two brothers. My parents would have continued having children until they had a amount of sons they found suitable. Of course, the girls such as me weren't useful for such things. We just brought in the dowry.

   It was really mind blowing to me how the creation of one measly invention, could change my entire life. I'd go from an teenage American Dupont Manual High Schooler to a married "woman" off in Morocco. It's almost terrifying how one little event has the capacity to branch off to cause both sensible and unforeseen impacts.