PAPER-HANGINGS, or WALL PAPER. A name applied to the webs of paper, papiers points of the French. usually decorated. with which interior walls are often covered. Paper hangings appear to have been used by the Chinese at an early period, but were not introduced into Europe, to any extent, before the eighteenth century. Hangings of canvas, painted to imitate tapestry, were extensively used during the fif teenth and sixteenth centuries. The well-known "Triumph of Julius Caesar," by Mantegna, at Hampton Court, England. is simply a consecutive set of such hangings. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a thriving business was done in Italy and Spain (particularly at Cor dova) in the manufacture of hangings of leather variously stamped and embossed, and from these countries the art was carried into France and England. At first the wall papers produced were imitations of the tapestries, velvets, and leather hangings that for many centuries had been used as wall decorations. But gradually independent designs and effects have been introduced. espe cially in America. In Europe the costliest wall papers are still those that counterfeit most suc cessfully some other fabric.
In the early days wall paper. like all other kinds, was made in sheets instead of webs. (See PAPER.) These. of the size called elephant (22 X 32 inches). were pasted together to make a length of 12 yards before the pattern was applied. In those days the patterns were put in with stencils and the background with a brush. The first improvement was the introduc tion of block printing. In this process the pattern was engraved on wooden blocks, a sepa rate block for each color, and each block applied to the paper by hand as many times as the pat tern is repeated. The colored background was
painted in with a brush.
The next advance was the application of the Fourdrinier machine, by which wall paper. instead of being made in sheets. was produced in continuous webs. Then came the cylindrical rollers, a roller for each pattern, similar to that employed for the printing of textile fabrics.
(See TEXTILE PRINTING.) Later, grounding machines, for laying on the background color; bronzing machines, which apply bronze powders (popularly called gold) ; embossing machines, and a number of other inventions have been applied to this art. About 1870 the continuous process was introduced, by which the paper passes automatically from one step to another, without a stop and without handling. Great improvements iu design and in blending of colors have also been made in recent years. An im portant phase of the subject is the sanitary one, serious results having followed the use of poisonous coloring materials, like arsenic.
In the United States the manufacture of wall paper was introduced by two Frenchmen, Bonier and Charden. in 1790, and only three or four more firms undertook the business before 1844. In that year the first machine for printing paper was put up in the Rowell factory at Philadel phia. About the same time continuous rolls of paper came into general use. instead of sheets. From that time the business rapidly increased in importance.
The accompanying table, taken from the chap ter on "Wall Papers," in One Hundred Years of American Commerce (New York, 1895), shows the growth of this industry: