A Gentlewoman's Profession: The Emergence of Feminized Publishing at Richard Bentley and Son, 1858-1898

Publishing has evolved into a feminized profession, with women filling approximately 84 percent of positions under the managerial level. Well into the twentieth century, however, it was men publishers, booksellers and librarians who dominated the book trade. Histories of the publishing industry have not explored this gendered shift in depth. Using the London-based firm of Richard Bentley and Son (1829-1898) as a site of investigation, this dissertation considers the gender identity of publishing processes, organizations, and labour through the history of the firm’s women publisher’s readers. Drawing primarily on archival materials, I explore how the women publisher’s readers gained power and influence over the publishing process and used their positions as gatekeepers to challenge traditional gender ideology. This shift in the gendering of publishing and print materials at Bentley and Son reflects changes within the broader industry, and the evolution of gender ideology within the nineteenth-century social, cultural, political and legal landscapes. Beyond attending to a gap in historical scholarship, this exploration of the feminization of the publishing industry illuminates how gender ideology has shaped women’s entrance into, and movement within, professional environments, and provides a framework for analyzing print production through a gendered lens. Chapter one examines how women publishing workers have been constructed and represented within scholarship and popular culture. In chapter two, Bentley and Son’s organizational structure is analyzed to highlight women’s labour and demonstrate the impact of gender on the circuit of literary production. Women’s professionalization within the firm and the industrialization of publishing is considered in tandem in chapter three. Chapters four and five explore how women’s entrance into publishing has impacted the nature of print. Microanalyses of individual titles’ publication histories show how Bentley and Son’s women publisher’s readers perpetuated the values and ideologies of the Victorian women’s movement through the publication of print materials that supported women’s empowerment. A macroanalysis of the firm’s publishing lists further showcases the feminization of the firm, revealing an increase in fiction titles for women in gender-progressive genres, and the publication of women-oriented works in previously masculinized non-fiction categories.Ph.D.2021-07-21 00:00:0