{{Short description|Factory that produces paper}} {{About|the type of factory for making paper from pulp|other uses|Paper Mill (disambiguation){{!}}Paper Mill}} [[File:Canadian Kraft Paper mill (The Pas, MB).jpg|thumb|A kraft paper mill in The Pas, Manitoba is the town's largest employer.]] [[Image:St marys no 5 pm 1 of 2.jpg|thumb|right|Basement of paper mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Pulp and paper manufacture involves a great deal of humidity, which presents a preventive maintenance and corrosion challenge.]] A '''paper mill''' is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibers such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Before the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, all paper in a paper mill was made by hand, one sheet at a time, by specialized laborers.
== History == {{See also|History of paper}} [[Image:Forest Fibre Company Berlin, New Hampshire.JPG|thumb|left|A mid-19th century paper mill, the Forest Fibre Company, in Berlin, New Hampshire]]
Historical investigations into the origin of the paper mill are complicated by differing definitions and loose terminology from modern authors: Many modern scholars use the term to refer indiscriminately to all kinds of mills, whether powered by humans, by animals, or by water. Their propensity to refer to any ancient paper manufacturing center as a "mill", without further specifying its exact power source, has increased the difficulty of identifying the particularly efficient and historically important water-powered type.<ref name="Burns 1996, 414−417">{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=414−417}}</ref>
=== Human and animal-powered mills === The use of human and animal-powered mills was known to Muslim and Chinese papermakers. However, evidence for water-powered paper mills is elusive before the 11th century.<ref>Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin 1985, pp. 68−73</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Lucas|2005|p=28, fn. 70}}</ref><ref name="Burns 1996, 414fa.">{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=414f.}}: {{quote|It has also become universal to talk of paper "mills" (even of 400 such mills at Fez!), relating these to the hydraulic wonders of Islamic society in the east and west. All our evidence points to non-hydraulic hand production, however, at springs away from rivers which it could pollute.}}</ref><ref name="Thompson 1978, 169">{{harvnb|Thompson|1978|p=169}}: {{quote|European papermaking differed from its precursors in the mechanization of the process and in the application of water power. Jean Gimpel, in ''The Medieval Machine'' (the English translation of ''La Revolution Industrielle du Moyen Age''), points out that the Chinese and Arabs used only human and animal force. Gimpel goes on to say: "This is convincing evidence of how technologically minded the Europeans of that era were. Paper had traveled nearly halfway around the world, but no culture or civilization on its route had tried to mechanize its manufacture."'}}</ref> The general absence of the use of water-powered paper mills in Muslim papermaking before the 11th century is suggested by the habit of Muslim authors at the time to call a production center not a "mill", but a "paper manufactory".<ref>{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=414f.}}: {{quote|Indeed, Muslim authors in general call any "paper manufactory" a ''wiraqah'' - not a "mill" (''tahun'')}}</ref>
Scholars have identified paper mills in Abbasid-era Baghdad in 794–795. The evidence that waterpower was applied to papermaking at this time is a matter of scholarly debate.<ref>{{harvnb|Burns|1996|p=414}}:{{quote|Al-Hassan and Hill also use as evidence the statement by Robert Forbes in his multivolume Studies in Ancient Technology that "in the tenth century [AD] floating mills were found on the Tigris near Baghdad." Though such captive mills were known to the Romans and were used in 12th-century France, Forbes offers no citation or evidence for this unlikely application to very early papermaking. The most erudite authority on the topography of medieval Baghdad, George Makdisi, writes me that he has no recollection of such floating papermills or any papermills, which "I think I would have remembered."}}</ref> In the Moroccan city of Fez, Ibn Battuta speaks of "400 mill stones for paper".<ref name="Tschudin 1996, 423"/> Since Ibn Battuta does not mention the use of waterpower and such some watermills would be grotesquely high, the passage is generally taken to refer to human or animal force.<ref name="Burns 1996, 414fa."/><ref name="Tschudin 1996, 423">{{harvnb|Tschudin|1996|p=423}}</ref>
===Water-powered mills=== [[File:Nuremberg chronicles - Nuremberga.png|thumb|Stromer's paper mill, the building complex at the far right bottom, in the ''Nuremberg Chronicle'' of 1493. Due to their noise and smell, papermills were required by medieval law to be erected some distance from the city walls.]] thumb|Dutch paper mill from 1654 in the Arnhem open-air museum [[File:Velké_Losiny-papírna.JPG|thumb|Paper Mill at Velké Losiny, established in 1596]] An exhaustive survey of milling in Al-Andalus did not uncover water-powered paper mills, nor do the Spanish books of property distribution (''Repartimientos'') after the Christian reconquest refer to any.<ref name="Burns 1996, 414fb.">{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=414f.}}</ref> Arabic texts never use the term mill in connection with papermaking, and the most thorough account of Muslim papermaking at the time, the one by the Zirid Sultan Al-Muizz ibn Badis, describes the art purely in terms of a handicraft.<ref name="Burns 1996, 414fb."/> Donald Hill has identified a possible reference to a water-powered paper mill in Samarkand, in the 11th-century work of the Persian scholar Abu Rayhan Biruni, but concludes that the passage is "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that it refers to a water-powered paper mill.<ref>{{citation|title=A history of engineering in classical and medieval times|author=Donald Routledge Hill|author-link=Donald Routledge Hill|publisher=Routledge|year=1996|isbn=0-415-15291-7|pages=169–71}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=414}}: {{quote|Donald Hill has found a reference in al-Biruni in the 11th century to stones "fixed to axles across running water, as in Samarkand with the pounding of flax for paper," a possible exception to the rule. Hill finds the notice "too brief to enable us to say with certainty" that this was a water-powered triphammer.}}</ref> This is seen by Leor Halevi as evidence of Samarkand first harnessing waterpower in the production of paper, but notes that it is not known if waterpower was applied to papermaking elsewhere across the Islamic world at the time.<ref>{{citation|title=Christian Impurity versus Economic Necessity: A Fifteenth-Century Fatwa on European Paper|author=Leor Halevi|journal=Speculum|year=2008|volume=83|issue=4|pages=917–945 [917–8]|publisher=Cambridge University Press|doi= 10.1017/S0038713400017073|s2cid=159987048}}</ref> Robert I. Burns remains sceptical, given the isolated occurrence of the reference and the prevalence of manual labour in Islamic papermaking elsewhere before the 13th century.<ref name="Burns 1996, 414−417"/>
Hill notes that paper mills appear in early Christian Catalan documentation from the 1150s, which may imply Islamic origins, but that hard evidence is lacking.<ref>{{citation|title=A history of engineering in classical and medieval times|author=Donald Routledge Hill|author-link=Donald Routledge Hill|publisher=Routledge|year=1996|isbn=0-415-15291-7|page=171}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=414f.}}: {{quote|Thomas Glick warily concludes that "it is assumed but not proved" that Islamic Xàtiva had hydraulic papermills, noting that the pertinent Arabic description was "a press." Since the "oldest" Catalan paper is physically the same as Islamic Xàtiva's, he notes, their techniques "can be presumed to have been identical" - reasonable enough for Catalan paper before 1280. My recent conversations with Glick indicate that he now inclines to non-hydraulic Andalusi papermaking.}}</ref> Burns, however, has dismissed the case for early Catalan water-powered paper mills, after re-examination of the evidence.<ref>{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=415}}: {{quote|Currently Oriol Valls i Subin't, director of the History of Paper department of the Museos Municipales de Historia in the Instituto Municipal de Historia at Barcelona, has popularized a version of that thesis, in which Christian paper mills multiplied marvelously along the Catalan rivers "from Tarragona to the Pyrenees" from 1113 to 1244. His many articles and two books, valuable for such topics as fiber analysis in medieval paper, continue to spread this untenable and indeed bizarre thesis. As Josep Madurell i Marimon shows in detail, these were all in fact cloth fulling mills; textiles were then the basic mechanized industry of the Christian west.}}</ref>
The identification of early hydraulic stamping mills in medieval documents from Fabriano, Italy, is also entirely unsubstantiated.<ref>{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=416}}: {{quote|Fabriano's claim rests on two charters - a gift of August 1276, and a sale of November 1278, to the new Benedictine congregation of Silvestrine monks at Montefano. In each, a woman recluse-hermit gives to the monastery her enclosure or "prison" - Latin ''carcer''; misread by Fabriano partisans as a form of Italian ''cartiera'' or paper mill! There is no papermaking in these documents, much less hydraulic mills.}}</ref>
Clear evidence of a water-powered paper mill dates to 1282 in the Iberian Crown of Aragon.<ref name="Burns 1996, 417f.">{{harvnb|Burns|1996|pp=417f.}}</ref> A decree by the Christian king Peter III addresses the establishment of a royal "molendinum", a proper hydraulic mill, in the paper manufacturing center of Xàtiva.<ref name="Burns 1996, 417f."/> This early hydraulic paper mill was operated by Muslims in the Moorish quarter of Xàtiva,<ref>{{cite book|title=Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia|author=Thomas F. Glick|author-link=Thomas F. Glick|publisher=Routledge|year=2014|page=385|isbn=9781135459321|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=77y2AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA385}}</ref> though it appears to have been resented by sections of the local Muslim papermakering community; the document guarantees them the right to continue the way of traditional papermaking by beating the pulp manually and grants them the right to be exempted from work in the new mill.<ref name="Burns 1996, 417f."/>
At Toscolano Maderno, evidence for water-powered paper making dates from at least the late 14th century. Over the following centuries Toscolano would become a major paper producer.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.erih.net/i-want-to-go-there/site/centro-di-eccellenza-polo-cartario-di-maina-inferiore|title=Paper Mill Valley / Paper Museum|website=European Route of Industrial Heritage|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.valledellecartiere.it/en/the-history|title=The History|website=Valle delle Cartiere|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
The first permanent paper mill north of the Alps was established in Nuremberg by Ulman Stromer in 1390; it is later depicted in the lavishly illustrated ''Nuremberg Chronicle''.<ref>{{harvnb|Stromer|1960}}</ref> From the mid-14th century onwards, European paper milling underwent a rapid improvement of many work processes.<ref>{{harvnb|Stromer|1993|p=1}}</ref>
The size of a paper mill before the use of industrial machines was measured by counting its vats. Thus, a "one vat" paper mill had only one vatman, one coucher, and other laborers.<ref>{{citation|title=Papermaking, the History and Technology of an Ancient Craft|author=Dard Hunter|author-link=Dard Hunter|publisher=Knopf|year=1943}}</ref>
=== 15th century === The invention and subsequent diffusion of Gutenberg's printing press across Europe increased demand for paper. This rising demand encouraged the development of techniques to produce thinner paper and the construction of more paper mills.<ref name="Proot2023">{{cite book |last=Proot |first=Joran |chapter=The economic revolution in book design that went unnoticed: The case of the Southern Netherlands, 1473–c. 1550 |editor-last=Nigro |editor-first=Giampiero |title=L’economia della conoscenza: innovazione, produttività e crescita economica nei secoli XIII-XVIII / The Knowledge Economy: Innovation, Productivity and Economic Growth, 13th to 18th Century |series=Datini Studies in Economic History |publisher=Firenze University Press |year=2023 |pages=287–314 |doi=10.36253/979-12-215-0092-9.17 |url=https://books.fupress.com/chapter/the-economic-revolution-in-book-design-that-went-unnoticed-the-case-of-the-southern-netherlands-1473/13613 |access-date=29 May 2026}}</ref>
In 1453, the Basel Mill was converted into a paper mill.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.erih.net/i-want-to-go-there/site/basel-paper-mill-and-swiss-museum-of-paper-writing-and-printing|title=Basel Paper Mill and Swiss Museum of Paper, Writing and Printing|website=European Route of Industrial Heritage|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
By the late 15th century, paper mills were diffusing throughout Europe. An operational paper mill is recorded in Silesia by 1490, and the first paper mill in Poland was built in 1491 near Kraków.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://zabytek.pl/en/obiekty/duszniki-zdroj-duszniki-zdroj-mlyn-papierniczy|title=Duszniki-Zdrój - Paper Mill|website=Zabytek.pl|publisher=National Institute of Cultural Heritage|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref> The first reference to a paper mill in England was in a book printed by Wynken de Worde {{Circa|1495}}. The mill, near Hertford, was short-lived and belonged to John Tate.<ref name="baph.org.uk">{{cite web|url=http://www.baph.org.uk/ukpaperhistory.html|title=History of Papermaking in the United Kingdom|website=www.baph.org.uk|access-date= 6 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160608213950/http://www.baph.org.uk/ukpaperhistory.html |archive-date=8 June 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> By the end of the 15th century, there were about 50 water-powered paper mills throughout German lands.<ref name="BLfD paper mills">{{cite web|url=https://www.blfd.bayern.de/mam/aktuelles/denkmalpflege_informationen_173-seiten-24-28_papierm%C3%BChlen.pdf|title=Europäische Papiermühlen bewerben sich um den UNESCO-Welterbetitel|website=Denkmalpflege Informationen|publisher=Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege|date=2020|access-date=24 May 2026|language=de}}</ref><ref name="CEPI">{{cite web|url=https://www.cepi.org/16th-century-literature-and-literacy-supported-by-paper-mills-increasing-productivity/|title=16th century: Literature and literacy supported by paper mills' increasing productivity|website=Confederation of European Paper Industries|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
=== 16th century === The first known water-powered paper mill in China was recorded in 1570, during the Ming dynasty.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Eric L. |title=Growth recurring: economic change in world history |date=1993 |publisher=Oxford University Press |others=American Council of Learned Societies |isbn=978-0-19-820404-6 |location=New York |pages=70 |quote=The Chinese had water-driven mulls spinning hemp and ramie (a plant with fibres used for fine cloth) in the fourteenth century, their earliest paper-mill in 1570}}</ref> In Muscovy, a 1576 land-sale document mentions a paper mill that had formerly stood on a river near Moscow.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vseobumage.ru/1753/istoriya-bumagi-pervaya-melnica/|title=История бумаги в России. Первая мельница|website=Всё о бумаге|date=3 March 2020|access-date=24 May 2026|language=ru}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Uchastkina|first=Zoya Vasil'evna|title=A History of Russian Hand Paper-Mills and Their Watermarks|publisher=The Paper Publications Society|location=Hilversum|year=1962|pages=10–11}}</ref> The first Dutch paper mill was erected in Dordrecht in 1586 by Hans van Aelst, a refugee from Antwerp, after which paper mills spread through the northern Low Countries.<ref name="Ehrich 2024 ch2">{{cite book|last=Ehrich|first=M. E.|chapter=Capital Networks and Early Papermaking|title=The Dutch Paper Industry from 1580 to the Present: The Survival of a Long-Established Industry|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2024|pages=21–25|doi=10.1007/978-3-031-54324-1_2|isbn=978-3-031-54324-1}}</ref> John Spilman received a patent to be the sole manufacturer of white paper in England and established a paper mill at Dartford, Kent, in 1588.<ref>{{cite web|last=Wolfe|first=Heather|date=4 February 2014|title=An example of early modern English writing paper|url=https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/an-example-of-early-modern-english-writing-paper/|website=The Collation|publisher=Folger Shakespeare Library|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref> By the late 1500s, there were roughly 190 paper mills throughout German lands.<ref name="BLfD paper mills"/><ref name="CEPI" />
=== 17th century === [[File:Westzaan - De Schoolmeester vanaf het water.jpg|thumb|De Schoolmeester, a wind-powered paper mill built in 1692]] The first paper mill along the Zaan is mentioned in 1605, although it was likely founded around 1601, and the region became an important center of wind-powered papermaking during the Dutch Golden Age.<ref name="De Schoolmeester">{{cite web|url=https://www.zaanschemolen.nl/en/project/the-school-teacher/|title=De Schoolmeester|website=De Zaansche Molen|date=17 August 2018|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref><ref name="Ehrich 2024 ch2"/> A major Dutch innovation was the Hollander beater, invented by an anonymous paper maker around 1680; it spread rapidly in the region over the following decades and greatly accelerated the reduction of rags into pulp.<ref name="Ehrich 2024 ch2"/> By the end of the 17th century, there were about forty paper mills in the Zaan region, all equipped with two or three beater tubs.<ref name="De Schoolmeester"/> The surviving paper windmill De Schoolmeester, built in 1692, is an example of this Zaan papermaking tradition.<ref name="De Schoolmeester"/>
In 1690, William Rittenhouse built the first paper mill in British North America near Germantown, Pennsylvania, on Monoshone Creek; its stamping machines were run by water power. For several decades, this would be the papermakers in British North America. <ref>{{cite web|url=https://fow.org/virtual-valley/trails-to-the-past/historic-rittenhouse-town/|title=Historic RittenhouseTown|website=Friends of the Wissahickon|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://rittenhousetown.org/about/|title=About|website=Historic RittenhouseTown|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref> By that same year the number of paper mills in England had grown to around 100.<ref>{{cite thesis|last=Reynolds|first=Anna Christina|title=Privy Tokens: Wastepaper in Early Modern England, 1536–1680|degree=PhD|publisher=University of York|date=2017|page=25|url=https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/20447/1/Anna%20Reynolds%2C%20Thesis%20-%20corrected.pdf|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
=== 18th century === In 1740, the Dutch paper industry had roughly 150 mills in the Veluwe and 40 mills in the Zaanstreek, together producing about 3,750 tons of paper annually.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ehrich|first=M. E.|chapter=Networked Industry Survival|title=The Dutch Paper Industry from 1580 to the Present: The Survival of a Long-Established Industry|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2024|doi=10.1007/978-3-031-54324-1_1|isbn=978-3-031-54324-1}}</ref>
The first clearly documented Ottoman water-powered paper mill was established at Yalova in 1744 by İbrahim Müteferrika.<ref>{{cite web|last=Dölen|first=Emre|url=https://istanbultarihi.ist/569-industrial-organizations-in-istanbul-textile-paper-glass|title=Industrial Organizations in Istanbul: Textile, Paper, Glass|website=A History of Istanbul|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
Around 1755, James Whatman developed wove paper at Turkey Mill in England, a major development in the production of smoother paper for printing and art.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|editor-last=Roberts|editor-first=Matt T.|editor-last2=Etherington|editor-first2=Don|title=Whatman, James|encyclopedia=Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|year=1982|url=https://cool.culturalheritage.org/don/dt/dt3773.html|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
Paper milling expanded in the Philadelphia region during the 18th century. By 1769 there were 26 paper mills in the thirteen colonies, 20 of them in the Philadelphia area;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/paper-and-papermaking/|title=Paper and Papermaking|website=The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref> by 1775 there were 53 small-scale paper mills in the colonies, though domestic production still failed to meet demand during the American Revolution.<ref>{{cite web|last=Hilton|first=Adrienne|url=https://blogs.loc.gov/bibliomania/2026/02/04/early-american-paper-the-kindling-of-the-revolution/|title=Early American Paper: The Kindling of the Revolution|website=Bibliomania|publisher=Library of Congress|date=4 February 2026|access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
An early known paper mill to use steam power was Wilmington Mill in Holderness, England, where a Watt engine was installed in 1787.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/zdmdm/mifoguide/matthew/INDUSTRIAL_REVOLUTION_S1_p13.pdf |title=Industrial Revolution: Series One: The Boulton & Watt Archive, Parts 12 and 13 |publisher=Adam Matthew Publications |page=325 |access-date=24 May 2026}}</ref>
=== 19th century === {{See also|Paper machine#Fourdrinier machine}} By 1800, England alone possessed nearly 400 paper mills.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Coleman|first=D. C.|title=Combinations of Capital and of Labour in the English Paper Industry, 1792–1861|journal=The Economic History Review|volume=6|issue=2|year=1953|pages=169–182|doi=10.2307/2591037|jstor=2591037}}</ref>
An early attempt to mechanize the process was patented in 1799 by the Frenchman Nicholas Louis Robert; it was not deemed a success. In 1801, however, the drawings were brought to England by John Gamble and passed on to brothers Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier, who financed the engineer Bryan Donkin to construct the machine. Their first successful machine was installed at Frogmore Mill in Hertfordshire in 1803.<ref name="baph.org.uk"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://frogmorepapermill.org.uk/about-the-archives/|title=About the Archives|publisher=Apsley Paper Trail|access-date=3 March 2024}}</ref>
In 1809, at Apsley Mill, John Dickinson patented and installed another kind of paper machine. Rather than pouring a dilute pulp suspension onto an endlessly revolving flat wire, this machine used a wire-covered cylinder as the mould. A cylindrical mould is partially submerged in the vat, containing a pulp suspension. Then, as the mould rotates, the water is sucked through the wire, leaving a thin layer of fibers deposited on the cylinder. These cylinder-mold machines, as they were called, were strong competition for Fourdrinier machine makers. They were the type of machine first used by the North American paper industry. It is estimated that by 1850, UK paper production had reached 100,000 tons. Later developments increased the size and capacity of machines and sought high-volume alternative pulp sources from which paper could be reliably produced. Many of the earlier mills were small and had been located in rural areas. The movement was toward larger mills in or near urban areas, closer to their raw material suppliers. They were often situated near a port, where the raw material was brought in by ship, and near paper markets. By the end of the century, there were fewer than 300 UK paper mills, employing 35,000 people and producing 650,000 tons of paper per year.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thepapertrail.org.uk/the-cylinder-mould-machine|title= The cylinder mould machine |website=www.thepapertrail.org.uk|access-date= 6 September 2020}}</ref>
Growing paper consumption in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries strained the traditional reliance on linen and cotton rags. Rising worldwide demand made rags scarcer and more expensive, encouraging papermakers to seek cheaper and more abundant alternatives. Wood pulp became increasingly important after groundwood pulp was first made in Germany in 1840, though the process did not come into extensive use until about 1870.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ehrich |first=Martha Emilie |title=The Dutch Paper Industry from 1580 to the Present: The Survival of a Long-Established Industry |series=Palgrave Studies in Economic History |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2024 |pages=5–7 |doi=10.1007/978-3-031-54324-1 |isbn=978-3-031-54324-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Britt |first=Kenneth W. |title=Papermaking |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/papermaking |access-date=29 May 2026}}</ref>
Another industrial improvement was the development of the conical refiner, also called the Jordan refiner. Patented in the United States in 1858 by Joseph Jordan Jr. and Thomas Eustice, the machine used a conical grinder and outer shell to reduce and size paper pulp.<ref name="JordanPatent1858">{{cite patent |country=US |number=20277 |title=Improvement in machines for grinding and sizing paper pulp |inventor=Joseph Jordan Jr. and Thomas Eustice |pubdate=18 May 1858}}</ref> Refiners did not immediately eliminate beaters, especially for rag papers, but conical and disc refiners later largely replaced beaters in stock-preparation systems because they were more compact and efficient for comparable production.<ref name="Bajpai2005">{{cite report |last=Bajpai |first=Pratima |title=Technology Developments in Refining |publisher=Pira International |year=2005 |pages=26–27 |url=https://ippta.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Technology_Developments_in_Refining_Prat.pdf |access-date=29 May 2026}}</ref>
=== 20th century === thumb|right|A paper mill in Scotland, 1918 [[File:Tervakosken paperitehdas.jpg|thumb|The Tervakoski Paper Mill in Tervakoski, Janakkala, Finland]] By the early 20th century, paper mills sprang up across New England and around the world, driven by high demand for paper. The United States, with its infrastructure and mill towns, was the world's largest producer.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2G0tAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA84|page=84|date=March 15, 1909|magazine=The Paper Makers' Monthly Journal|title=The World's Paper Trade|quote=The United States, the largest producing country, ranks fourth in the value of the exports of paper|volume=XLVII|issue=3|location=London|publisher=Marchant Singer & Co.}}</ref> Chief among these in paper production was Holyoke, Massachusetts, which was the largest producer of paper in the world by 1885, and home to engineers D. H. & A. B. Tower who oversaw the largest firm of paper millwrights in the US during that decade, designing mills on five continents.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Eight Paper Towns|url=https://archive.org/details/inlandprinte218841885chic/page/430|magazine=The Inland Printer|date=July 1885|location=Chicago|volume=II|issue=10}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|journal=Journal of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers|title=Emory Alexander Ellsworth|page=480|volume=III|issue=8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KhdbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA480|date=October 1916|quote=In 1879 Mr. Ellsworth left the firm of Davis & Ellsworth to become principal assistant and head draftsman for D. H. & A. B. Tower, of Holyoke, who were the largest firm of paper mill architects in the country at that time, and who designed no less than twenty paper mills in the city of Holyoke alone}}</ref> However, as 20th century progressed this diaspora moved further north and west in the United States, with access to greater pulp supplies and labor. At this time, there were many world leaders of the production of paper; one such was the Brown Company in Berlin, New Hampshire run by William Wentworth Brown. During the year 1907, the Brown Company cut between 30 and 40 million acres of woodlands on their property,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MxILAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA70 |title= History of the lumber industry of America|access-date=April 5, 2012|last1= Defebaugh|first1= James Elliott|year= 1907}}</ref> which extended from La Tuque, Quebec, Canada to West Palm, Florida.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.berlinnh.gov/Pages/BerlinNH_WebDocs/BerlinHistory|title=About Berlin: Berlin History|access-date=April 5, 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121109062959/http://www.berlinnh.gov/Pages/BerlinNH_WebDocs/BerlinHistory|archive-date=November 9, 2012}}</ref>
In the 1920s, Nancy Baker Tompkins represented large paper manufacturers, such as Hammermill Paper Company, Honolulu Paper Company, and Appleton Coated Paper Company, to promote sales to paper product distributors. It was said to be the only business of its kind in the world, and it was founded in 1931 by Tompkins. It prospered despite the business depression. <ref>{{cite journal|title=Monday, July 9, 1934|journal=Honolulu Star-Bulletin|date=1934|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/274992413/?terms=%22Nancy%2BBaker%2BTompkins%22|access-date=21 August 2017}}</ref>
"Log drives" were conducted on local rivers to send the logs to the mills. By the late 20th and early 21st century, paper mills began to close, and the log drives became a dying craft.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pprc.info/html/millclosures.htm|title=Paper Mill Closures of America|access-date=April 5, 2012|archive-date=February 18, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218231347/http://www.pprc.info/html/millclosures.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Due to the addition of new machinery, many millworkers were laid off, and many of the historic paper mills closed.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2010/10/lumber-town-berlin-new-hampshire.html|title=Urban Decay|date=16 October 2010|access-date=April 5, 2012}}</ref>
==Characteristics== {{Main|Pulp mill|Paper machine}} Paper mills can be either fully integrated or non-integrated. Integrated mills consist of a pulp mill and a paper mill on the same site. Such mills receive logs or wood chips and produce paper.
The modern paper mill uses large amounts of energy, water, and wood pulp in an efficient, complex series of processes and control technology to produce a sheet of paper that can be used in diverse ways. Modern paper machines can be {{convert|500|ft|order=flip}} in length, produce a sheet {{convert|400|in|m|order=flip}} wide, and operate at speeds of more than {{convert|60|mph|order=flip}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metsoautomation.com/News/newsdocuments.nsf/Web2NewsDoc/CAC7C79ED6B6E117C22572A00048448C?OpenDocument&ch=ChMetsoPaperWebEng&id=CAC7C79ED6B6E117C22572A00048448C&|title=Metso supplied SC paper machine line sets a new world speed record at Stora Enso Kvarnsveden|access-date=2008-04-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081211151912/http://www.metsoautomation.com/News/newsdocuments.nsf/Web2NewsDoc/CAC7C79ED6B6E117C22572A00048448C?OpenDocument&ch=ChMetsoPaperWebEng&id=CAC7C79ED6B6E117C22572A00048448C&|archive-date=2008-12-11|url-status=dead}}</ref> The two main suppliers of paper machines are Metso and Voith.
== See also == *Cutting stock problem *List of paper mills *Paper pollution
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
== Sources == *{{Citation | last = Burns | first = Robert I. | editor-last = Lindgren | editor-first = Uta |editor-link= Uta Lindgren | contribution = Paper comes to the West, 800−1400 | title = Europäische Technik im Mittelalter. 800 bis 1400. Tradition und Innovation | edition = 4th | date = 1996 | publisher = Gebr. Mann Verlag | location = Berlin | isbn = 3-7861-1748-9 | pages = 413–422 }} *{{Citation | last = Hunter | first = Dard | title = Papermaking through Eighteen Centuries | location = New York | date = 1930 | url = http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm/ref/collection/DardHunter/id/1614 }} *{{Citation | last = Hunter | first = Dard | title = Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft | location = New York | date = 1943 }} *{{Citation | last = Lucas | first = Adam Robert | title = Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds. A Survey of the Evidence for an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe | journal = Technology and Culture | volume = 46 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–30 | date = 2005 | doi = 10.1353/tech.2005.0026 | s2cid = 109564224 }} *{{Citation | last = Thompson | first = Susan | title = Paper Manufacturing and Early Books | journal = Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences | volume = 314 | pages = 167–176 | date = 1978 | issue = 1 | doi = 10.1111/j.1749-6632.1978.tb47791.x | bibcode = 1978NYASA.314..167T | s2cid = 85153174 }} *{{Citation | last = Tschudin | first = Peter F. | editor-last = Lindgren | editor-first = Uta | contribution = Werkzeug und Handwerkstechnik in der mittelalterlichen Papierherstellung | title = Europäische Technik im Mittelalter. 800 bis 1400. Tradition und Innovation | edition = 4th | date = 1996 | publisher = Gebr. Mann Verlag | location = Berlin | isbn = 3-7861-1748-9 | pages = 423–428 }} *{{Citation | last = Stromer | first = Wolfgang von | title = Das Handelshaus der Stromer von Nürnberg und die Geschichte der ersten deutschen Papiermühle | journal = Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial und Wirtschaftsgeschichte | volume = 47 | pages = 81–104 | date = 1960 }} *{{Citation | last = Stromer | first = Wolfgang von | title = Große Innovationen der Papierfabrikation in Spätmittelalter und Frühneuzeit | journal = Technikgeschichte | volume = 60 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–6 | date = 1993 }} * {{cite magazine |title=Schätze des Westerzgebirges und seines Umlandes - Zur kurzen Ära des Tangentialschliffes |language=de |trans-title= |department=Papiergeschichte |magazine=Wochenblatt für Papierfabrikation |date=September 2016 |number=9<!-- ? --> |pages=612–616 |url=http://apv-dresden.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WBP_2016-09_612-616_Keller9.pdf |access-date=2023-06-08 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608175813/http://apv-dresden.de/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/WBP_2016-09_612-616_Keller9.pdf |archive-date=2023-06-08}} * Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin: "Science and Civilisation in China", Chemistry and Chemical Technology (Vol. 5), Paper and Printing (Part 1), Cambridge University Press, 1985
==External links== {{commons}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20120720075600/http://www.boxedpaper.com/mills List of International graphic paper mills] *[http://www.paperweb.biz/ Paperweb.biz - Paper world directory and search engine for the pulp and paper world] *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110524213956/http://www.paperandprint.com/mill-branded-products/mills.cgi List of paper mills on paper and print monthly]
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Category:Pulp and paper mills Category:8th-century inventions Category:Pulp and paper industry Category:Papermaking Category:Industrial buildings and structures Category:Arab inventions