Student profiles
Jo Butler
Email: j.butler@keele.ac.uk
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Prof. Nick Seagar (Keele University)
Prof. Alannah Tomkins (Keele University)
Prof. Hannah Barker (University of Manchester)
Research Summary
My research will survey and recover women working in the print trade in the Midlands in the 18th century, encompassing the varied and often interchanging roles undertaken, including papermaking, printing, bookbinding, publishing and as booksellers, hawkers, stationers, and library owners.
Using interdisciplinary archival, quantitative, and bibliographic methods, I will establish: the extent and range of women’s activity in the Midlands print trade; how women accessed the print trade and operated their businesses; what professional partnerships they formed; what material was produced and distributed by women; which authors women worked with, and to what extent production and distribution was influenced by gender.
The findings will enable detailed appraisal of how women operated in the regional print trade and their impact in the history of communication, and an open-access resource will accompany the thesis.
Research Interests
Book History
Gender History
18th Century Studies
Printing
and printmaking.