Women’s Professional Networks in the Early Modern Book Trade

Over the past two decades, women’s book history and feminist bibliography have exploded with renewed interest. An array of brilliant work has now well established that women were involved in every part of the early modern book trade. Every thorough study in the history of the first age of European print (1450-1800) must now acknowledge the economic importance of widow printers who operated for decades after their husbands’ deaths, the importance of wives and daughters in the household print economy, and the contributions of women in securing and inheriting printing dynasties.

Even so, women’s work is still to an extent seen as an exception or curiosity. As a result, these women are too often studied in isolation, as exemplary and singular figures.  This conference seeks to place them in context and in relationships with each other, both collaborative and competitive. It also examines them from a gender history perspective, asking to what extent their relationships were influenced or determined by early modern constructions of femininity and womanhood. Proposals should therefore involve an explicit dimension of gender analysis beyond simply the inclusion of female subjects.

This conference will seek to explore (but is not limited to) to the following themes and questions:

• Gendered Networks. To what extent were professional book trade networks gendered? How did these networks intersect with other types of women’s networks, whether they be familial, friendly, religious, political, or intellectual?

• Identity and Representation. Did women express professional solidarity with other women, and how did this manifest? How did women’s self-representation in imprints and paratext differ from men’s?

• Legal and Structural Considerations. In what ways were women’s professional networks dependent on legal structures of inheritance in their region, or participation in guilds? How did these networks stretch across economic and class divisions?

• Digital Approaches. How can digital humanities tools effectively help document these relationships?

The conference will also host the launch of a new collaborative database sourcing biographical information about women in the early modern book trade.

Contributions will be published in a volume of conference proceedings, to be submitted by the end of 2027.

Proposals for papers of maximum 20 minutes, including title, an abstract of up to 300 words, and a biography of up to 150 words should be sent to Dr Elise Watson, elise.watson@ed.ac.uk, by 20 December 2026. While all papers will be delivered in person, the conference will be available to attend online.