Between Script and Specie: Cadwallader Colden's Printing Method and the Production of Permanent, Correct Knowledge

Around 1740 the New York statesman and scholar Cadwallader Colden designed a new method to print long-lasting, accurate books. This essay analyzes Colden's invention and his more general effort at reforming the book trade in the historical context of eighteenth-century concerns about paper currency and the construction of false value. By also examining why Colden's plan failed to convince trans-Atlantic publishers such as Benjamin Franklin and William Strahan, this article stresses the contingent and contested nature of print in the mid-eighteenth century.