‘A Woman of Great Courage’: Women in the Printing Trades in Early Modern Europe

Netherlands

Printing in the Netherlands saw unprecedented growth beginning in the early 17th century. Much of the output of printers in the Northern Netherlands was intended for international distribution, which made this region an important intellectual center of Europe. Like elsewhere in Europe, the print trade was not well regulated, and the rules of the guilds that did exist were fairly lenient. In Amsterdam, for example, where membership in the guild was not required (as it was in England), women were fairly easily able to succeed to the businesses of their deceased husbands. Women also were able to take advantage of the extraordinarily high rates of literacy; by 1650, one third of women in the Dutch Republic were literate.

This page has paths:

Contents of this path: