"Printed for the Proprietress": Women and Printing Families in the Caribbean, 1720s–1860s

Abstract: This article examines the history of women printers in the colonial Caribbean between the 1720s and 1860s in transimperial perspective, focusing on the case studies of Louise-Pierrette Guillot (Veuve Bénard) in Guadeloupe, Elizabeth Cable in St. Kitts, and Margarita Engelbron in Curaçao. It discusses women who worked as printers across these French, British, and Dutch Caribbean colonies, showing that they actively participated in the production of print culture in the region. Family connections often facilitated the entrance of women into the printing profession by allowing them to inherit businesses from deceased husbands, fathers, or brothers. Thereafter, women printers operated as members of a precarious but often influential middling class, managing newspapers that connected local, regional, and global communities and markets. While they faced challenges in operating their printing businesses, women also contributed, like their male counterparts, to the reinforcement of colonial hierarchies. They published government announcements and commercial advertisements, including ads for the sale of enslaved people. Sometimes they were also civil servants of the colonial regime. Thus, the article argues that women printers were fully embedded in the communication mechanisms of colonialism, despite the gendered pressures and social limitations they faced as women.