Bookmaking on the Distaff Side

Bookmaking on the Distaff Side is one of my favorite books in my women bibliophiles collection. It is a lovely book, produced in 1937 by an association of female printers called the Distaff Side. The book itself is a a compilation of essays and poetry by different printers, containing a multitude of typefaces, papers, and designs. Above, …

Estelle Doheny, Collector and Philanthropist

Carrie Estelle Betzold Doheny was born in Philadelphia in 1875. After high school, she worked as a telephone operator at the Petroleum Exchange Center until her marriage to oil tycoon Edward Laurence Doheny in 1900. Although overshadowed by her husband's fame during her lifetime, she later achieved her own recognition as one of the most renowned American …

Miniature Books About Books

Miniature book collecting is an occupation that can quickly take over your life. Miniature books cover a great range of time periods, geographical regions, and subjects. To restrain my collecting impulses, I only collect non-dollhouse miniature books if they fall into one of my other areas of interest, such as women bibliophiles, imaginary books, or books about …

Women Collectors in Their Own Words

It can be difficult to define exactly what it means to be a book collector or what kind of activity counts as collecting. Traditional definitions of book collecting have often neglected or even specifically excluded women. Therefore, I’m particularly interested in descriptions of book collecting by women themselves. In Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America, …

Recent Acquisitions: New Ladies in My Library

One of the difficulties of looking for women book collectors is that they are not always identified as such. One can search for variations on "women book collectors," "lady bibliophiles," and so on, but this approach is hardly comprehensive. Skimming book titles and indexes of books about books looking for female names is another approach, …