Women in the Provincial Print Trade, 1700-1830

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The role of women as producers and distributors in the provincial print market is an underexploredsubject. Doing justice to the range of women's activity in the long eighteenth century, my project willtake an interdisciplinary approach, making significant contributions to book history, trade history andgender history, using original archive research to establish how women operated in the Englishregional print trade.My project will survey women working in the print trade across the broad Midlands area,encompassing the wide and often interchanging roles undertaken by print trade workers includingpapermaking, printing, bookbinding, publishing and as booksellers, hawkers, stationers, and libraryowners. The numbers of women working in the trade have been underestimated, making the projecttimely and urgent. According to existing scholarship, approximately 50 women operated outside ofLondon between 1550 and 1700 (Bell, 1996), and 437 in the entire English trade in the followingcentury (Barker, 1996). However, preliminary interrogation of the British Book Trade Index (BBTI)gives over 1,000 records for women working outside of London between 1700 and 1830, 350 of whichwere based in the wider Midlands region alone.My project will establish valuable new case studies of working women, restoring the names of womenproducers in the region. It will explore the route into trade for female booksellers, particularly aswidows taking over an existing family business; establish what women sold and produced; andpresent women as trusted partners and active agents in their trade, particularly in examples wherewomen have taken over businesses previously run by other women. Where evidence allows, thethesis will also establish the extent to which women operated within new and established networks,who their customers were, and assess their standing in their communities. As a centre of industrialdevelopment with a landscape encompassing large trade centres, key coaching towns and ruralcommunities, the Midlands region offers examples of a range of women's experiences.Aims:1. To present original research and new case studies of women in the provincial print trade, 1700-1830.2. To identify the ways in which women accessed trade, operated their businesses, and formedprofessional partnerships.3. To identify and assess the material published, printed and/or distributed by women.