Pressed and Stitched: Empirical Bibliography and the Gendering of Books and Book History

Abstract

A growing body of empirical bibliography and critical making aims at re-creating historical practice and interrogating book history through firsthand material means. None of this work has questioned the role or place of gender in the book trades by investigating either how women labored physically or how they were treated in a male-dominated workplace. How does the immediate physical experience of the embodiment of art shift when the person working the press, casting the type, or binding the books is female? This essay draws on experiences in re-creating historical practices to reflect on how gendered work intersects with gendered book history.