Karen Eisberner, age 16, of Freeport, Ill., for her question:
WHO INVENTED WALLPAPER?
We don't know exactly who invented wallpaper, but scholars tell us that the first wallpaper was probably made in England, The Netherlands or France early in the 1500s. Early use of wallpaper can be traced back to each of these three countries.
Artists designed the first patterned wallpaper as a cheaper substitute for the tapestries that had been used to decorate European palaces for many centuries. Tapestries were beautiful woven wall hangings.
Craftsmen painted designs on the first paper by hand. A little later they started to use prints from carved blocks of wood.
Historians have discovered that the Chinese started to make wallpaper in the early 1600s. They painted birds, flowers and landscapes on rectangular sheets of rice paper.
In the. early 1700s, the French decorated wallpaper with Chinese objects and patterns. This popular style became known as "chinoiserie."
The first wallpaper produced in the United States was made in Philadelphia in 1739. Landscapes, the architectural ruins of ancient Greece and scenes from American life became favorite designs during the 1800s.
A vinyl substitute used in making washable, vinyl covered wallpaper was introduced by the B.F. Goodrich Chemical Co. in 1947. It has become very popular.
A pre pasted wallpaper, which sticks to a wall when the paper is moistened with water, was developed in the 1950s. And in 1975, a company in Great Britain started to sell wallpaper made of a kind of plastic called polyethylene. This paper is easy to hang because a special dripless glue.is brushed directly onto the wall instead of onto the paper.
Manufacturers make most wallpaper from soft woods, such as hemlock and spruce. Machines slice the wood into chips and then the chips are cooked.in a chemical solution until they form a soft mass called sulfate pulp. The pulp is then mixed with ground wood. This mixture then goes through the same process used to manufacture most other paper.
Wallpaper is printed by a process called "gravure." This process is also used to print wallpaper made of such woven fabrics as burlap and linen.
Today, manufacturers sell most wallpaper in rolls or sheets that measure about 30 feet long and two and a quarter feet wide.
Wallpaper is used often to make rooms more attractive. And a practical advantage of wallpaper is that it can hide cracks, stains and other flaws often found on walls.
Paper made of plaster reinforced with plant fibers can be used to cover brick, concrete blocks or rough plaster.
Many apartment dwellers and people who frequently redecorate use a special kind of wall covering called strippable wallpaper. It can be peeled off easily without damaging the walls of a room.