“At the Helm but Unheard: Exploring Women Printers in Collections” - Elis Ing & Lauren Williams
Channel: Bibliographical Society of Canada
Date: 2021-06-25

Elis Ing, McGill University Library
Lauren Williams, McGill University Library

Despite the increasing wealth of English-language scholarship on the history of women printers, much ofthis scholarship is dominated by the study of women printers in Britain and the US. The proposedpresentation aims to diversify this scholarship by establishing a series of brief case studies of womenprinters operating elsewhere, particularly in 20th century Russia and 18th century France, drawingexamples from the Rabbi Lewin Collection, the Blacker Wood Natural History Collection, and otherspecial collections housed at the McGill University Library.

This joint presentation will not only broaden the focus of current scholarship on women printers, but will also provide a reflection on the challenges encountered by librarians and curators in illuminatingthese stories. In establishing the societal context in which these women operated, the presentation willprovide a comparative analysis of the legal frameworks that were simultaneously restrictive andliberating for women in the printing trade. It will also place these women within their historical contexts,by exploring the impact of antisemitism on women printers in Russia, and the influence of the FrenchRevolution on women’s roles in printing and publishing of the period.