Chapter 11 - A Changing Industry

Summary

Women’s labour and contributions to the print publishing industry are all too frequently hidden in plain sight beneath the names of their male relatives. Between 1740 and 1800, at least twelve women in London independently managed businesses that published or retailed prints: Elizabeth Bartlet Bakewell, Ann Harper Bryer, Elizabeth Lyfe D’Achery, Mary Salmon Darly, Elizabeth Griffin, Hannah Humphrey, Dorothy Clapham Mercier, Hester Griffin Jackson Pulley, Mary Brown Ryland, Mary Baker Overton Sayer, Susanna Sledge, and Susanna Parker Vivares. This chapter surveys their careers, which stand as a representative sample for a much larger total number. Ranging from the renowned to the completely unknown, these women form a disparate group in terms of their origins, means of entry into the field, aesthetic interests, political beliefs, duration and scale of their firms, and widely varying levels of success. Reconstructing their histories demonstrates women’s ongoing contributions to the business of publishing and selling prints in eighteenth-century London.