We went to see the publishing store where the Book of Mormon was first published. It was a fascinating process to learn about. The missionary tour guide described and demonstrated the process step by step. First each ABC letter had to be placed in the iron sections for 16 pages of the book. The stamps were then brushed with huge ink brushes. Next a very large piece of paper would be lowered and pressed to stamp the words onto paper. Now this paper had 16 pages of the Book of Mormon stamped on it. They were in order so you could then fold the paper 4 times until it resembled a book and each page was in the correct order and right side up. I bet they made a lot of mistakes as they were first getting started, making pages backwards or upside down. After the little 16 page book was folded, they would then stack these mini books on top of each other until the whole Book of Mormon was in a pile with the pages in order. They would press this book down with a giant press to crease the folds well. Then, they would sew the left side of the stack together to create a binding. Then they would glue on leather on the left side over the binding. Last they would cut the creases that were left on the right side of the book. I guess I never knew all the steps involved in printing a bound book. It seems like sooo much work just to make 1 Book of Mormon without the help of computers. Of course it is all the people of that time knew, and so they probably believed it was advanced technology. It makes me more grateful for all the effort and work put into publishing the Book of Mormon.
The kids thought these were the real golden plates at first. Their reaction was pretty funny. :-)
Here is our whole group together.
This is one of the copies that they originally would make. It is a bit different from the title page of the Book of Mormon today.
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