Elizabeth Lewisohn Eisenstein (October 11, 1923 – January 31, 2016) was an American historian of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

and early 19th-century France. She is well known for her work on the history of early

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

, writing on the transition in media between the era of ' manuscript culture' and that of '

print culture Print culture embodies all forms of printed text and other printed forms of visual communication. One prominent scholar of print culture in Europe is Elizabeth Eisenstein, who contrasted the print culture of Europe in the centuries after the ad ...

', as well as the role of the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...

in effecting broad cultural change in

Western civilization Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...

Career

Eisenstein was educated at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

where she received her B.A., then went on to Radcliffe College for her M.A. and Ph.D. It was there she studied under

Crane Brinton Clarence Crane Brinton ( Winsted, Connecticut, 1898 – Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 7, 1968) was an American historian of France, as well as an historian of ideas. His most famous work, ''The Anatomy of Revolution'' (1938) likened the dy ...

. She reported that in the early 1950s she was not able to find a position in a university history department, not even part-time work. In 1957, after she had obtained her PhD, she and her husband moved to Washington, D.C. where she applied to multiple institutions for teaching positions, including Georgetown, George Washington University, Howard, and the University of Maryland. She eventually found a part-time position at American University. She taught as an adjunct professor at American University from 1959 to 1974, then the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where she was the

Alice Freeman Palmer Alice Freeman Palmer (born Alice Elvira Freeman; February 21, 1855 – December 6, 1902) was an American educator. As Alice Freeman, she was president of Wellesley College from 1881 to 1887, when she left to marry the Harvard professor George H ...

Professor of History. In 1979 she was resident consultant for the

Center for the Book The Center for the Book was founded in 1977 by Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, to promote literacy, library, libraries, and reading and an understanding of the history and heritage of American literature. The Center for the Book is m ...

at the Library of Congress. She held positions as a fellow at the Humanities Research Center of the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...

and at the

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social and ...

(Palo Alto). Eisenstein was visiting professor at

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with around sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research a ...

, and published her lectures from that period as ''Grub Street Abroad''. She was professor emerita at the University of Michigan and an honorary fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. Her last work was '' Divine Art, Infernal Machine, the Reception of Printing in the West'' (Penn Press, 2011).

Family and personal life

Eisenstein is the third daughter of

Sam A. Lewisohn Samuel Adolph Lewisohn (March 21, 1884 – March 13, 1951) was an American lawyer, financier, philanthropist, art collector, and non-fiction author.James Karman, ''The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, with Selected Letters of Una Jeffers: ...

, son of

Adolph Lewisohn Adolph Lewisohn (May 27, 1849 – August 17, 1938) was a German Jewish immigrant born in Hamburg who became a New York City investment banker, mining magnate, and philanthropist. He is the namesake of Lewisohn Hall (which formerly housed the Scho ...

and Margaret Seligman, granddaughter of

Joseph Seligman Joseph Seligman (November 22, 1819 – April 25, 1880) was an American banker and businessman who founded J. & W. Seligman & Co. He was the patriarch of what became known as the Seligman family in USA and was subsequently related to the wealthy ...

and Babet Steinhardt. She married Julian Calvert Eisenstein in 1948. They had 4 children - one who died at birth in 1949 and another who died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1974. Her husband passed away three months after her death. They were survived by two children, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. From the age of 50, Eisenstein began competing in senior tennis tournaments, becoming well-known and winning three national grand slams between 2003-2005.

''The Printing Press as an Agent of Change''

Eisenstein's best-known work is ''The Printing Press as an Agent of Change'', a two-volume, 750-page exploration of the effects of

movable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...

printing on the literate elite of post-Gutenberg Western Europe. In this work she focuses on the printing press's functions of dissemination, standardization, and preservation and the way these functions aided the progress of the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...

, the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, and the

Scientific Revolution The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry transfo ...

. Eisenstein's work brought

historical method Historical method is the collection of techniques and guidelines that historians use to research and write histories of the past. Secondary sources, primary sources and material evidence such as that derived from archaeology may all be drawn ...

, rigor, and clarity to earlier ideas of Marshall McLuhan and others, about the general social effects of such media transitions. This work provoked debate in the academic community from the moment it was published and is still inspiring conversation and new research today. Her work also influenced later thinking about the subsequent development of digital media. Her work on the transition from manuscript to print influenced thought about new transitions of print text to digital formats, including

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

and new ideas about the definition of text. Eisenstein’s book has also received sharp criticism. Paul Needham, now Librarian at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

’s Scheide Library, described it as "almost impossible to comprehend" and suffering "from more general flaws of historical method: an unconcern for exact chronology; a lack of historical context; an exclusive reliance of icsecondary writings, not always accurately absorbed, not always particularly relevant …"

The Unacknowledged Revolution

Eisenstein's book ''The Printing Press as an Agent of Change'' lays out her thoughts on the "Unacknowledged Revolution," her name for the revolution that occurred after the invention of print. Print media allowed the general public to have access to books and knowledge that had not been available to them before; this led to the growth of public knowledge and individual thought. The ability to formulate thought on one's own thoughts became reality with the popularity of the printing press. Print also "standardized and preserved knowledge which had been much more fluid in the age of oral manuscript circulation" Eisenstein recognizes this period of time to be very important in the development of human culture; however, she feels that it is often overlooked, thus, the 'unacknowledged revolution'.

Awards

Eisenstein has received various awards and recognitions, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

, and the Rockefeller Foundation. In 2002, she received the

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

's Award for Scholarly Distinction, and in 2004 the University of Michigan awarded her the honorary degree of

Doctor of Humane Letters The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society. The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...

. In 2012 she was awarded the Gutenberg Prize of the International Gutenberg Society and the City of Mainz In 1993, the National Coalition of Independent Scholars created the ''Eisenstein Prize'', which is awarded biannually to members of the organization who have produced work with an independent focus.Independent Scholars
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Selected bibliography

* Based on the Rosenbach lectures, March 2010. * Includes a new afterword by the author. * Series : Lyell lectures 1990-1991. * Series : The Sixth Hanes lecture. * * * "Some Conjectures about the Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought: A Preliminary Report," ''The Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 40, No. 1, March 1968 *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eisenstein, Elizabeth 1923 births 2016 deaths American historians American people of German-Jewish descent Historians of the French Revolution Historians of France Jewish American historians Theorists on Western civilization Literacy and society theorists American women historians Vassar College alumni University of Michigan faculty Articles containing video clips Historians of printing Lewisohn family Radcliffe College alumni 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women