Ohio University Press
In Lagos in the 1910s and 1920s a new market of readers was emerging who wanted to express themselves in their own languages. Despite the dominance of colonial English print culture, entrepreneurs increasingly started using printing presses for mainstream Yoruba-language newspapers, books and pamphlets.
A new book by cultural anthropologist Karin Barber explores what was printed, and also how and why. We asked her about her study.
What’s the history of the printing press in Lagos?
Lagos was a thriving commercial port on the coast of west Africa well before the imposition of British colonial rule in 1861. The printing press was brought to the region by Christian missionaries in the mid-1800s. At the inland mission station at Abeokuta, the Church Missionary Society published translations of Christian texts, and pioneered the first Yoruba newspaper, Iwe Irohin, from 1859 to 1867.
