Women Letterpress Printers in the West, 1850-1950

Contents: Women Letterpress Printers in the West, 1850-1950 | About the Author | Tech

About “Women Letterpress Printers in the West, 1850-1950”

Within the CollectionBuilder framework, the “Women Letterpress Printers in the West, 1850-1950” project documents women printers (hand press and/or reproductive printmaking) working in the Western world between 1850 and 1950 supported by traditional bibliographic, book historical, and literary studies scholarship. The project represents the geographic locations of identified women printers through digital mapping, as well as materials under women printer/artists’ imprints that are located in libraries, archives, and museums. Undertaking creation of an initial full dataset with complete metadata for forty women printers, other women printers identified during the duration of the project will also be included in the dataset with basic information (name, location with longitude and latitude, and dates) for the geographical map. The project aims to make information more accessible about women’s contributions to book history, printing history, and cultural studies, aligning with current trends that place bibliographical studies within a feminist lens.

About the Author

The project is curated by Mal Haselberger, M.A. an MLIS candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is passionate about learning from the past by doing, whether reimagining the hand-press period by working with a Gutenberg-style printing press and binding her own artists’ books, or by introducing students to the wonders of working with archival documents that have passed through innumerable hands for hundreds of years. Mal previously earned Master of Arts degrees in Art History and English Literature, specializing in women artists and letterpress printers, early modern artistic manuals, and artists’ books. Her most recent research, considering women artists’ use of print culture for artistic instruction in early modern Europe, is included in the peer-reviewed journal “Parergon.”

After completing the MLIS, Mal would like to pursue a career in rare books and special collections librarianship, both of which are fields that are only beginning to explore ways that information and collections can be brought to users through digital formats. She believes that digital technologies can make collections available to a broader user base, and recognizes that the twenty-first century librarian should constantly work towards visualizing futures where all users feel empowered to pursue any information inquiries or research questions that they desire.