ABSTRACT
Although women usually became involved in the business of printing through their families rather than formal apprenticeships, they were active contributors to the trade. Never officially excluded from the Stationers’ Company, women were first admitted as freemen their own right in the 1660s. Throughout the Company’s history, however, widows of Stationers were automatically granted the right to print, take apprentices, and hold shares of stock (collectively held patents and monopolies). As with male printers, women considered multiple factors when selecting material to publish: the investment required, market forces, and personal convictions, including religious and political partisanship. Women participated in every part of the book trade, printing, publishing, and selling a wide range of texts. Some women who chose to promote their religious or political beliefs by publishing or distributing partisan texts encountered resistance or suspicion from the authorities. Many took advantage of patents, printing protected genres such as law books and Latin school texts, while most published popular short works such as ballads, broadsides, almanacs, and tracts.
