ABSTRACT
The growth of commerce, the extension of education and the development of advertising were important external factors contributing to a heightened demand for printing products. The relative growth of newspaper and jobbing printing is shown by the relative decline in bookbinding. The most important technical development was the evolution of the rotary press in which a curved stereo plate was fitted to a cylinder rotating against another cylinder. Technical and economic changes were reflected in the composition of the work force in the industry. In bookbinding most of the women were engaged in folding the printed sheets, collating the signatures and doing the preparatory stitching. The journeymen were not indifferent to the lot of the women. In 1848 they supported them during a struggle to improve conditions in Watkins’ Bible Shop, and in 1874 they lent support and encouragement to the founding of the Society of Women Employed in Bookbinding.
