Below is a selection of books, which are contributing to contextualising our research. When viewed in a wider cultural context, the period under scrutiny (1910–1990) is of particular socio-historical significance for British working women since it begins before women received the vote, encompasses two World Wars that greatly affected women’s working lives, sees the emergence of the Women’s Liberation Movement and witnesses the first woman to win a case under the amended Equal Pay Act in 1988.
While archival evidence and interviews specifically relate to the type industry, the material we gather can only be fully comprehended within a wider context. We must consider the position of women in society at large during that period, and try to better understand attitudes towards working women in Britain during the twentieth century. We are also looking at research related to allied industries, such as printing and advertising. The writings of Cynthia Cockburn on the typesetting and textile industries, in particular, have already proven very informative.
This reading list will obviously expand as we delve deeper in our research.
Artmonsky, R., Designing Women: Women working in advertising and publicity from 1920s to the 1960s, Artmonsky Arts, 2012.
Bartley, P., Access To History: The Changing Role Of Women, 1815-1914, Hodder Education,1996.
Bradley, H., Men’s Work, Women’s Work, University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
Bradley, H., ‘The seductions of the archive: voices lost and found History of the Human Sciences’, History of the Human Sciences, Vol 12, Issue 2,1999, pp. 107 – 122.
Beddoe, D., Discovering Women’s History: A Practical Guide to Researching the Lives of Women since 1800, Routledge: 1998.
Biggs, M., ‘Neither Printer’s Wife nor Widow: American Women in Typesetting, 1830-1950’, in The Library Quarterly: Community, Policy , Vol. 50, No.4, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 431–452.
Boag, A. & Burke. C. (eds), Slinn, Carter, Southall, The history of the Monotype Corporation, Printing Historical Society, 2014.
Buckley, C., ‘Made in patriarchy: towards a feminist analysis of women and design’ in Design Discourse, history theory criticism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Burke, C., ‘The early years: 1900–1925’, in The Monotype Recorder, one hundred years of typemaking, 1897–1997, Redhill: The Monotype Corporation, 1997, pp. 4–13.
Burke, C., Paul Renner: the art of typography, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.
Burr, C., ‘Defending “The Art Preservative”: Class and Gender Relations in the Printing Trades Unions, 1850–1914’, in Labour / Le Travail, Vol. 31, Athabasca: Canadian Committee on Labour History and Athabasca University Press, 1993, pp. 47–73.
Cockburn, C., Machinery of dominance, women, men and technical know-how, London: Pluto Press, 1985.
Cockburn, C., Brothers: male dominance and technological change, London: Pluto Press, 1991.
Crompton, R. & Sanderson, K., Gendered jobs & social change, London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.
Evans, T. & Thane, P., Sinners? Scroungers? Saints? Unmarried Motherhood in Twentieth-Century England, Oxford: Oxford Univerty Press, 2012.
Fawcett, M., Women’s suffrage: a short history of a great movement, London, 1912 (?).
Gottlieb J. & Toye, R. (Eds.). The Aftermath of Suffrage: Women, Gender, and Politics in Britain 1918-1945, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
Gruendler, S., The life and work of Beatrice Warde, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2004.
Hall, Lesley A., Sex, Gender and Social Change in Britain since 1880, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Holloway, G., Women and Work in Britain since 1840, Routledge, 2005.
MacEwen Scott, A., Gender segregation and social change, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Marshall, A., Du Plomb à la lumière: la Lumitype-Photon et la naissance des industries graphiques modernes, Paris: Éditions de la maison des sciences de l’homme, 2003.
Miller Jacoby, R., “Feminism and Class Consciousness in the British and American Women’s Trade Union Leagues, 1890-1925” in Liberating Women’s History ed. Berenice Carroll, University of Illinois Press, 1976, pp. 137–60.
Morris, S., Monotype and Eric Gill: a study of the design and production of Gill’s hot-metal typefaces, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2016.
Newby, J., Women’s Lives: Researching Women’s Social History 1800-1939, Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2011.
Nym Mayhall, L., The Militant Suffrage Movement. Citizenship and Resistance in Britain 1860–1930, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Purvis, June. Women’s History: Britain, 1850-1945: An Introduction, Routledge, 1997.
Randle, J., ‘The development of the Monotype machine’ in Matrix 4, Risbury: Whittington Press, Winter 1984, pp. 42–53.
Roberts, E., A Woman’s Place: An Oral History of Working-Class Women 1890-1940, Blackwell, 1985.
Roberts, E., Women’s Work, 1840-1940: Waiting for a Living Wage. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Robinson, J., Hearts and Minds: The Untold Story of the great Pilgrimage and How Women Won the Vote, Doubleday, Penguin Random, 2018
Ross, F. ‘An approach to non-Latin type design’ in Berry, J. (ed), Language Culture Type, New York: Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI), 2002, pp. 65–75.
Ross, F., ‘The Linotype non-Latin Collection, University of Reading’ in Non-Latin typefaces, London: St Bride, 2008.
Ross, F., ‘Non-Latin scripts: key issues in type design’ in Non-Latin scripts: from metal to digital type, London: St Bride Library, 2012, pp. 125-153.
Rowbotham, S., A Century of Women: The History of Women in Britain and the United States , Viking, 1997.
Rowbotham, S., Dreamers of A New Day: Women Who Invented the Twentieth Century, Verso Books, 2011.
Saunders, D., ‘The Type Drawing Office’, in The Monotype Recorder, Eric Gill: the continuing tradition, new series no.8, Redhill: The Monotype Corporation, Autumn 1990, pp. 32–37.
Saunders, D., ‘Two Decades of Change 1965–1986’ in The Monotype Recorder, one hundred years of type making, 1897–1997, Redhill: The Monotype Corporation, 1997, pp. 26–35.
Savoie, A., International cross-currents in typeface design: France, Britain and the USA in the phototypesetting era, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading, 2014.
Savoie, A., ‘Concevoir de nouveaux caractères pour la photocomposition’ in Histoire de l’écriture typographique, le XXe siècle – Tome II, Paris: Perrousseaux Éditeur, 2016.
Scotford, M. ‘Is there a canon of Graphic design history?’ Aiga Journal, vol.9, no.2, 1991. Republished in Design culture: an anthology of writing from the AIGA Journal of graphic design, AIGA and Allworth Press, 1997.
Scotford, M., ‘Messy history vs. neat history: toward an expanded view of women in graphic design’, in Visible Language vol. 28, no.4, Autumn 1994, pp. 367–387.
Seddon, J., ‘Mentioned, but Denied Significance: Women Designers and the ‘Professionalisation’ of Design in Britain’, Gender and History, Vo.12 No.2 July 2000, pp. 426-447.
Spencer, S., Gender, Work and Education in Britain in the 1950s, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Steinbach, S., Women in England 1760-1914: A Social History, W&N, 2005.
Thom, D., Nice Girls and Rude Girls: Women Workers in World War I, London, New York, I.B. Tauris & Co, 1998.
Thomson, E. M. ‘Alms for oblivion: the history of women in early American graphic design’, in Design Issues 10, no.2, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Todd, S., Young Women, Work, and Family in England 1918-1950, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Tracy, W., Letters of credit: a view of type design, London: Gordon Fraser, 1986.
Voet, L., The golden compass: a history and evaluation of the printing and publishing activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp. Vol. 1, Christopher Plantin and the Moretuses: their lives and their world, Amsterdam: Vangendt & Co. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.
Worden, S. (Ed.) & Seddon, J., Women Designing: Redefining Design Between the Wars, University of Brighton, 1994.
Zweieiiger-Bargielowska, I., Women in 20th Century Britain: Social, Cultural and Political Change, Routledge, 2001.