1771-1834

German Inventor

Though he remains an obscure figure, even among the annals of inventors, Aloys Senefelder had an enormous impact on the creation of the modern world. By inventing lithography in 1796, he made it possible for printers to mass-produce commercial images, thus influencing the spread not only of commerce, but of communication and literacy. Senefelder, who continued to improve on his invention, developed color lithography in 1826.

Senefelder was born on November 6, 1771, in Prague, now capital of the Czech Republic but then a provincial capital in the Hapsburg-controlled Austrian Empire. His family was German, and Senefelder's father worked as an actor in Prague's Theatre Royale. While Senefelder was a student at the University of Ingolstadt, his father died, and the young man tried to earn a living as an actor and writer. Failing in these endeavors, he turned to printing...