List of women printers and publishers before 1800

Having books become more widely available meant that a wider range of people had access to information, but this threatened the authority of the state.

Collectively known as 'Nederlanders", they shared common cultural roots, including ensuring that they had legal property and contractual rights.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, there was significant growth in burgeoning fields, such as art and literature, which provided opportunities for women in the cities.

[3] Leon Voet, notes that Martina Plantin and her sisters were not isolated cases, and states that "sixteenth-century Italian and Spanish travelers, accustomed to a world where women were barred from public life, repeatedly expressed amazement – and often indignation – in their accounts of the Netherlands at the extensive participation of women and girls in economic activities and their free and easy bearing in public.

[65] It was generally a financial necessity for widowed women in the printing profession to carry on the business,[64] like Ann, Elizabeth, and Margaret Hartman Markoe Bache.

[65] There were at least six women who were the official printers for various colonial governments, as Ann Timothy did for the state of South Carolina.

Since the widow of a male printer and publisher normally took over the business of her late spouse, women became fairly common in these professions in relation to the number of males, particularly in the 18th century, which was an era during which the Swedish press expanded rapidly, and 45 widow printers and publishers are known between 1496 and 1799; however, the majority of them only managed the business a few years before they remarried, and only a few truly left a mark in the profession.