ANSWER: Information About Women Printers in New York City

The Women Working archival collection at Harvard may have some digitized materials of use. There is a section specific to printing. On the left hand side of the website, go to 'browsing' and under this look for 'topics'. On this new page, under 'industrial' click on the plus sign to find 'printers'

The website: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/subject.html

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This may also help: from http://www.susanbanthonyhouse.org/biography.shtml It mentions organizations that may lead to more information:

"Susan B. Anthony's paper The Revolution, first published in 1868, advocated an eight-hour day and equal pay for equal work. It promoted a policy of purchasing American- made goods and encouraging immigration to rebuild the South and settle the entire country. Publishing The Revolution in New York brought her in contact with women in the printing trades.

"In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Workingwomen's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868 Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work, although the men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote.

"In 1870 Anthony formed and was elected president of the Workingwomen's Central Association. The Association drew up reports on working conditions and provided educational opportunities for working women. Anthony encouraged a cooperative workshop founded by the Sewing Machine Operators Union and boosted the newly-formed women typesetters' union in The Revolution. Anthony tried to establish trade schools for women printers. When printers in New York went on strike she urged employers to hire women instead, believing this would show how they could do the job as well as men, and therefore deserved equal pay. At the 1869 National Labor Union Congress the men's Typographical Union accused her of strike-breaking and running a non-union shop at The Revolution, and called her an enemy of labor.

"In the 1890s, while president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Anthony emphasized the importance of gaining the support of organized labor. She encouraged Florence Kelley and Jane Addams in their work in Chicago, and Gail Laughlin in her goal to seek protection for working women through trade unions."

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The Susan B. Anthony link really gave me nothing in the Women Studies International database from Biblioline, JSTOR, or Project-MUSE (the latter two I use very often and often like what I find).

I think our contact should look to finding archives on the GCIU, a printing union which is the product of a series of mergers between five predecessor craft unions: the Amalgamated Lithographers of America (ALA); the International Photo Engravers Union (IPEU); the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders (IBB); the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union (IPPAU); and the International Stereotypers and Electrotypers Union (ISEU). There have definitely been NYC locals of these unions, so the NYPL or universities should have some of these folks' papers. S/he can contact the unions as well.

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Articles:

The only scholarly article I found on women and typesetting was about New England, but perhaps it will be of help:

A Showdown of "Swifts": Women Compositors, Dime Museums, and the Boston Typesetting Races of 1886

Walker Rumble

The New England Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 4. (Dec., 1998), pp. 615-628.

Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0028-4866%28199812%2971%3A4%3C615%3AASO%22WC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1

It seems that this article is also a chapter in a larger book by Walter Rumble: The Swifts: Printers in the Age of Typesetting Races, published by the University of Virginia Press.

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Archives:

The Women Working archival collection at Harvard may have some digitized materials of use. There is a section specific to printing- on the left hand side of the website, go to 'browsing' and under this look for 'topics'. On this new page, under 'industrial' click on the plus sign to find 'printers'!
The website: http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/subject.html

Finding Aid for the:
GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS INTERNATIONAL
UNION, LOCAL 259-M
RECORDS, 1941, 1946-1988
At the University of Albany: http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/apap021.htm

THE GCIU is the product of a series of mergers between five predecessor craft unions: the Amalgamated Lithographers of America (ALA); the International Photo Engravers Union (IPEU); the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders (IBB); the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union (IPPAU); and the International Stereotypers and Electrotypers Union (ISEU). There have definitely been NYC locals of these unions, so the NYPL or universities may have some of these folks' papers.

Princeton has an online exhibit on women printers:
http://libweb2.princeton.edu/rbsc2/ga/unseenhands/index.html

This may also give a few leads: http://www.susanbanthonyhouse.org/biography.shtml

Anthony was president of the Workingwomen’s Central Association and her own newspaper The Revolution had a union of women typesetters. She called for women to take men’s printing jobs when they were striking.

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Books (all found on WORLD-CAT):

Title: Women in the printing industry /
Author(s): Newman, Robin A.
Publication: N.p. : Murray State University Dept. of Graphic Arts Technology,
Year: 1982
Description: ii, 34 p. ; 24 cm.
Language: English
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: Women printers -- United States.
Women -- Employment -- United States.

Title: Notes on women printers in Colonial America and the United States, 1639-1975 /
Author(s): Barlow, Marjorie Dana.
Publication: New York : Hroswitha Club ; Charlottesville, Va. : distributed by the University Press of Virginia,
Year: 1976
Description: xi, 89 p. ; 26 cm.
Language: English
Standard No: LCCN: 76-46686
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: Women printers -- United States -- Biography.
Printing -- United States -- History.

Title: Lapdogs and Bloomer girls :
the life and times of Lisle Lester (1837-1888) /
Author(s): Kaynor, Fay Campbell, 1924-
Publication: Los Angeles : Eve's Eye Press,
Edition: 1st Eve's Eye Press ed.
Year: 2001
Description: 320 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.
Language: English
Standard No: ISBN: 1930437048 LCCN: 00-11559
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: Women journalists -- United States -- Biography.
Women dramatists, American -- Biography.
Women printers -- United States -- Biography.

Title: The ladies printing bee :
an anthology of thirty-nine letterpress printers addressing the subject of women's work /
Author(s): Faye, Jules Remedios. ; Kroupa, Sandra.
Corp Author(s): Street of Crocodiles (Press)
Publication: [Sedro-Woolley, Wash.] : Street of Crocodiles Printery,
Year: 1995
Description: 1 v. (unpaged) : ill. (some col.) ; 21 cm.
Language: English
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: Women printers.
Private presses -- United States.
Printing -- United States.

Title: Women as printers.
Author(s): Rather, Lois, 1905-
Publication: Oakland, Calif., Printed and published by the Rather Press
Year: 1970
Description: 72 p. 23 cm.
Language: English
Standard No: LCCN: 72-21363
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: Women printers -- United States -- History.
Printing -- United States -- History.

Title: Early American women printers and publishers, 1639-1820 /
Author(s): Hudak, Leona M., 1930-
Publication: Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press,
Year: 1978
Description: xxi, 813 p. ; 23 cm.
Language: English
Standard No: ISBN: 0810811197 LCCN: 78-825
SUBJECT(S)
Descriptor: Women printers -- United States -- Biography.
Women publishers -- United States -- Biography.
Publishers and publishing -- United States -- History.
Printing -- United States -- History.
Femmes imprimeurs -- États-Unis -- Biographies.
Éditrices -- États-Unis -- Biographies.

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A digital collection from Princeton: http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/rbsc2/ga/unseenhands/index.html
It includes images and some information browsable by timeline and country--one would have to dig further to find things specifically about NYC.