4-6 November 2026, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
In the sixteenth and seventeenth century many women printers in Europe produced for institutions, such as governments, universities, religious orders and theatres. This conference aims to highlight similarities and differences in these family businesses and their production. It will seek to provide answers to some of the following questions:
- How common was it for women printers in Europe to produce for institutions and how did that change in the 16th and 17th century?
- What other genres did women produce apart from institutional texts?
- Did women printers have family ties to the institutions they produced for?
- How could women obtain official titles, such as court printer, council printer or university printer?
- What does archival material, such as contracts and payment records, reveal about the conditions for women printers working for institutions?
- What were the print runs of institutional documents that women produced?
The conference is a collaboration between the Working Group for the History of Libraries, Books and Media at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel and the ERC-funded project WidowsPrint – Widows in the Growing Print Industry, 1550-1700.
Travel costs may be reimbursed upon request, as far as the budget allows.
Abstracts (max. 300 words) and a short bio (max. 150 words) are due to Dr Saskia Limbach, Principal Investigator of the WidowsPrint project, by 31 March 2026, at saskia.limbach@uni-goettingen.de.