Christine Jacobson

I'll be on hand to introduce MJD on March 13 and a double feature of HP and HGF on March 20. (Pondering: should I do it with a fake cigarette dangling out the side of my mouth?)

The Lady and the Typewriter - Harvard Film Archive As women came into the workforce in the early twentieth century, the image of the working woman entered the cultural imagination. In Hollywood, she was often what Maria DiBattista has called the &ldqu...

I can't really believe the HFA let me partner with them on a film series about women and the typewriter, but here it is. Catch MEET JOHN DOE (1941) , HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940), and THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994) this women's history month!

harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/the...

Peep show in a small box (about the size of a large index card, showing an author in a red coat, manuscript in his hand, dog at his side surveying the workings of a print shop.)

Today, thanks to the Houghton Library, I got to introduce students to an #18thcentury German peepshow showing the interior of a printing house. Take a peek! (It was hard to photograph & the photo fails to include the cat who joins the dog in the foreground as 1 of the spectators.)
#BookHistory

WHAT

even better news: we WILL be able to record the lecture, so stay tuned for a link to the video when it is available! 📜

Spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture: "No Modern Publishing Without Women" and Opening Reception for "Thanks for Typing" Houghton Library welcomes Erin McGuirl, Curator of the Mortimer Rare Book Collection at Smith College, who will give the Spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture on "No Modern...

we are so lucky that the great Erin McGuirl will give the spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture at Houghton library tomorrow, March 4 at Houghton Library. please come and share widely! 📜

libcal.library.harvard.edu/event/162329....

Required Reading This week: movie poster art, the typist behind Henry James’s novels, Gisèle Pelicot’s new memoir, indie rock in “Heated Rivalry,” and are we in an arts and crafts renaissance?

thanks to @hyperallergic.com for the shout out in the latest Required Reading:

"As with too many art forms, several now-classic books by male authors would not have been possible without the women who typed and often edited them."

hyperallergic.com/required-rea...

Thank you!

An Evening with Fran Lebowitz | Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston | Official ATG Tickets

if you've ever been curious what Fran Lebowitz would chat about with a rare book librarian, I'll be in conversation with her next Thursday evening at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston.

us.atgtickets.com/events/an-ev... 📜 GLAMS

Sharing the re-cat'd + previously unreported 1855 1st ed of Whitman's Leaves of Grass at Spencer @kulibraries.bsky.social ! We've had this copy for decades, but in the card cat - not in our online catalog: 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #rarebooks : kuprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/...

Headline from British Vogue I Ate Nothing But Sardines For 3 Days - Here's How My Skin Changed with a photo of a sardine

Only British Vogue has the courage to publish true science as it was practiced in the 18th century Transactions of the Royal Society

Oh Jill this is too wonderful—Marian Marshall is in the exhibition! We have a copy of Oscar Wilde's The Ideal Husband typed by her office in London covered in his pencil annotations and instructions for a new typescript. It's so fun to learn about her second act in Cambridge and about Minnie Pate.

When keyboards are key - The Boston Globe Harvard’s Houghton Library puts the typewriter front and center to explore the lost labor — and art — of the typist.

many thanks to Mark Feeney for covering Thanks for Typing in @bostonglobe.com. grateful for his keen eye for details (which every curator hopes visitors will notice) and for so thoroughly understanding the thesis of the show:

www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/05/a...

THIRD PRINTING ALERT: This is my first book and @wehere.bsky.social's first book. The response has been overwhelming (two small printing selling out in a matter of days), but also has meant a bit of lead time in-between. If you've read and enjoyed, please share this out so more folks can explore!

thank you for everything you did for we here and for the library and information science profession, fobazi. you were an incredible friend, thinker, writer, supporter. you’ll be dearly missed 🤍

The Wayback is now so load-bearing we should be protecting it with our actual lives

Typing for Love or Money: The Hidden Women’s Labor behind Modern Literary Masterpieces Taking dictation, revising manuscripts, typing copies, literary amanuenses often labour for little compensation and even less recognition. Christine Jacobson explores the neglected efforts of women li...

beyond thrilled to have an essay out in the @publicdomainrev.bsky.social about the women who profoundly impacted the works of Henry James, T.S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, and Lev Tolstoy, and the archival evidence they left behind:

publicdomainreview.org/essay/typing...

NEW ESSAY — Christine Jacobson’s “Typing for Love or Money”, on the neglected efforts of women like Theodora Bosanquet, Véra Nabokov, and Valerie Eliot, who — through their work as typists and editors — had a profound impact on modern literature: publicdomainreview.org/essay/typing...

I would love to hear ALL about this!

Spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture: "No Modern Publishing Without Women" and Opening Reception for "Thanks for Typing" Houghton Library welcomes Erin McGuirl, Curator of the Mortimer Rare Book Collection at Smith College, who will give the Spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture on "No Modern...

we have many fun programs lined up to dive deeper into secretaries, amanuenses, and even typists of the silver screen!

Erin McGuirl will be with us on March 4th to share her discovery of the typist behind the first English translation of The Second Sex:

libcal.library.harvard.edu/calendar/mai....

The Lady and the Typewriter - Harvard Film Archive As women came into the workforce in the early twentieth century, the image of the working woman entered the cultural imagination. In Hollywood, she was often what Maria DiBattista has called the &ldqu...

In March, come to the Harvard Film Archive to see our film series, The Lady & the Typewriter, movies that celebrate dames that type as fast as they talk: HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1941), MEET JOHN DOE (1940), and THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994). Dates, info, and tickets:

harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/the...

letterhead that says "Thanks for Typing" loaded into a pink olympia typewriter

next week on 2/12 I'll be offering a tour of the exhibition and inviting visitors to type valentines on our beautiful pink ca 1950s Olympia typewriter (complete with bespoke exhibition letterhead on thick dreamy paper)

telling myself that the typo in this post is an homage to the manual typewriter

The Lady and the Typewriter - Harvard Film Archive As women came into the workforce in the early twentieth century, the image of the working woman entered the cultural imagination. In Hollywood, she was often what Maria DiBattista has called the &ldqu...

In March, come to the Harvard Film Archive to see our film series, The Lady & the Typewriter, movies that celebrate dames that type as fast as they talk: HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1941), MEET JOHN DOE (1940), and THE HUDSUCKER PROXY (1994). Dates, info, and tickets:

harvardfilmarchive.org/programs/the...

letterhead that says "Thanks for Typing" loaded into a pink olympia typewriter

next week on 2/12 I'll be offering a tour of the exhibition and inviting visitors to type valentines on our beautiful pink ca 1950s Olympia typewriter (complete with bespoke exhibition letterhead on thick dreamy paper)

Spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture: "No Modern Publishing Without Women" and Opening Reception for "Thanks for Typing" Houghton Library welcomes Erin McGuirl, Curator of the Mortimer Rare Book Collection at Smith College, who will give the Spring 2026 George Parker Winship Lecture on "No Modern...

we have many fun programs lined up to dive deeper into secretaries, amanuenses, and even typists of the silver screen!

Erin McGuirl will be with us on March 4th to share her discovery of the typist behind the first English translation of The Second Sex:

libcal.library.harvard.edu/calendar/mai....

Thanks for Typing

It's hard to believe good things can still be happening, but if you are in the Boston area between now and May 1st, there is an free-to-the-public exhibition on women's type labor in literature and the arts (co-curated by me and the great Dale Stinchcomb).

library.harvard.edu/exhibits/tha...

New Newberry Library $4m Grant Will Expand Access to Indigenous Studies Collections The Newberry Library has received a $4m grant from the Mellon Foundation which will fund a five-year project aiming to transform how Indigenous histories are preserved, accessed, and represented, and ...

New Newberry Library $4m Grant Will Expand Access to Indigenous Studies Collections 📜
www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...

"To uphold our dedication to truth, we must do three related things: understand what is happening; speak about it plainly; and remain in honest dialogue with ourselves."