“Every school boy and girl who has arrived at the age of reflection ought to know something about the history and the art of printing.”

-Horace Mann

In spite of obstacles and efforts to block their progress, women printers made contributions throughout printing history. Barred from most activities that didn’t revolve around hearth and home, most entered the profession through widowhood, necessity, or servitude. Few became printers because of prospective opportunity, but many still excelled. The details concerning women printers are often hidden. Men, after all, wrote most of the histories.

Charlotte Guillard was the first celebrated female printer. She lived in France in the sixteenth century. Guillard was twice widowed and both of her husbands were successful printers. She took over her second husband’s presses upon his death and became well known for the quality of her work. The Church commissioned her to print several important works in Latin, which she personally edited. She worked in printing over fifty years.

A woman owned the very first printing firm in the thirteen English colonies in 1638, although the tribute went to a man. Elizabeth and her husband, Jose Glover sailed to America from England. Jose Glover was a missionary with the idea to bring printing to the New World. However, Jose Glover died on the voyage, leaving all his equipment and contracted workers to his wife.

Elizabeth had to get permission from the New England officials, as a woman, to even to own the printing office in the city of Cambridge near the then small Harvard College. How much direct control of the office she had is not known. The firm became known as The Cambridge Press under the direction of Stephen Daye. The Bay Psalm Book was one of its earlier and most famous publications. Daye, a former locksmith, is generally given singular credit for the accomplishment.

In 1696, Dinah Nuthead became the first woman in America officially licensed to operate a printing press. Another widow, she took over her husband’s business running the press with the help of hired typesetters. She also had to go before the authorities in order to work in printing. It took approval of the Maryland House of Representatives for her license to be granted. In some minds, there was more concern that she was a woman than the fact that she could neither read nor write. She was completely illiterate.

Women printers were not all “sugar and spice.” Mary Butterworth was probably the first woman in the New World to practice the art of counterfeiting. In 1716, on her Plymouth colony kitchen table, Mary made copies of the Rhode Island pound note. She used a hot iron, starched muslin, and a quill pen to copy the notes and pass them on to her partners. In seven years, she and her gang did considerable financial damage to the colonial economy. She was arrested and discovered with the tools for making the money, but no bills were discovered in her home and she was released.

Elizabeth Roulstone gained another first for women printers. In 1804, she assumed ownership of the first print shop and the office of Public Printer for the state of Tennessee. Like Glover and Nuthead she, too, was the widow of a printer. Her accomplishments included the publication of The Knoxville Gazette. Subscriptions were paid to her in corn, butter, chickens and other farm produce, which she, in turn, sold at her shop.

Elizabeth Timothy, the first woman appointed State Printer in South Carolina, would have been happy to have the food stuffs in exchange for her work. History records she had a continual battle with the state legislators to pay their printing bills. She took over the running of the shop from her husband after his death. She trained her son as a printer and he ran the business for a while. Upon his death, his widow following the family tradition became “the printer in charge.”

The longest operating and most successful of all woman printers was Ann Franklin, sister-in-law to Benjamin Franklin. She worked in Boston with her husband, James Franklin and like her “sister” printers, previously mentioned, she took over after James’ death in 1735. She printed official government publications as well as The Rhode Island Almanack and The Newport Mercury newspaper. Ann’s son was trained by her to take over the printing and did so until his own death in 1762. Ann, again, stepped in to run the popular newspaper and business until 1763.

Augusta Lewis Troup was one of the most skilled typesetters of the nineteenth century. She was also the first woman to serve as an officer in the International Typographical Union. She and other women typesetters went on to form The Women’s Typographical Union and she was the first president.

Virginia Woolf, is a name most people would only know the from the play “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf.” This early twentieth century English novelist was also an early feminist, a literature critic, and a member of the famous Bloombury Group of writers. She and her husband operated Hogarth Press and published her works and those of other contemporary English authors.

Beatrice Warde, a twentieth century typographer, made many and significant contributions to typography through her research and writing. To even get published, however she had to assume the penname of “Paul Beaujon.” Under the assumption she was a man, the Monotype Corporation of England offered her a job and she showed up for work to the panic and dismay of the “good o’l gentlemen’s club.” She kept the job and is perhaps best known for her motto entitled This is a Printing Office” that contains the words “ Friend you stand on sacred ground, this is a printing office.”

The progress of the graphic arts will continue to benefit from women printers, and hopefully, HIStory will no longer conspire to diminish their contributions.