WOMEN AS PRINTERS

In 1767 Anne Catherine Hoof Green takes over her late husband's printing and newspaper business, becoming the first American woman to run a print shop. The following year she is named the official printer for the colony of Maryland.

The idea of women typesetters is uniquely suited to California and the West - a result of the need to work and survive in a new land which demanded self-sufficiency and skills of women as well as men. In the 1830s there were a limited number of occupations open to women - teaching, needlework, domestic service, etc. - and among these was also typesetting. Women who were widows or daughters of printers often learned typesetting out of necessity By 1864, due in large part to the depletion of the male work force during the Civil War, additional workers were needed in trades which were previously thought of as "male" trades - one of these being typesetting. The number of newspapers and the demand for printed materials was on the increase, and women began to step into jobs in both the printing and publishing fields.

In San Francisco, which was becoming a center for printing and publishing in the West, women-run printing offices appeared in the 1870s and 1880s. The Women's Union Job Printing Co., the Woman's Publishing Company, Amanda B. Slocum and Jennie Patrick were a few either woman-run and/or -staffed printing offices of this period. The most prominent and prolific was The Women's Co-Operative Printing Union, established in 1868 on Clay Street by Mrs. Agnes Peterson, followed in 1873 by Mrs. Lizzie G. Richmond. Early 1870 billheads produced by the WCPU proudly proclaimed, "Women set type! Women run presses!" So confident was Lizzie Richmond that her billheads and advertisements often stated, "We invite criticism." These printing offices produced a variety of printed materials for the public - books, commercial catalogs, corporate annual reports, legal briefs. Also produced were invitations, broadside advertisements, and handbills - often referred to as "jobbing printing" because they could be produced completely off a single sheet of paper or card.

California was not the first place where women were involved in printing and publishing. Since the Renaissance, women had been part of the printing trades in Europe. Whether as bookbinders or as widows of printers who were left to continue their husbands' printing businesses women have been involved in the printing, publishing and selling of books and journals for many centuries. A woman's typographical union was formed in France with a journal entitled La Compositrice, and the first major woman's journal edited by a woman, Godey's Lady's Book, was publish ed in Philadelphia from 1830-1858, edited by Sarah Josepha Buell Hale. In 19th century England, Emily Faithful started a printing office exclusively for women workers - but gave it up after a few years and became a full-time publisher. This exhibition illuminates the many roles that women have played in printing and publishing in California's early history. it will not romanticize their struggle - these 19th century women faced union resistance, prejudice against women working in a male work force, and general problems encountered in owning their own businesses. With the dawn of the 20th century and the emergence of women's rights, women in printing and publishing entered more seamlessly into the work force. Finally, with the advent of fine press printing at this same time, the women printers portrayed in the 1920s and 1930s emerge as figures who achieved their goals to work at a skilled occupation that offered them not only an honest living but also a chance to use their creative instincts and skills.


excerpts from: www.californiahistoricalsociety.org