| The modern children's book industry was shaped by the efforts of a group of bookwomen consisting of two librarians (Anne Carroll Moore, Alice Jordan); two booksellers and co-founders of the important periodical The Horn Book (Bertha Mahoney Miller, Elinor Whitney Field); and the first two editors of children's books in commercial publishing houses (Louise Seaman Bechtel, May Massee). As authors, literary critics, and professional women, bookwomen permanently altered the field of children's books by enlarging the scope of traditional professions and gaining entrance into new ones.;Profoundly influenced by their New England childhoods, bookwomen came of age in a society undergoing tremendous change. Culture-wide questions concerning literacy, scientific authority, gender, reform, expertise, specialization, and the nature of childhood formed the context for their attitudes and behavior. They worked within institutions in the process of negotiating a course between the service ideal and the marketplace, creating professional lives within these institutions by laying claim to expertise based on a combination of training and "natural" knowledge of children. In so doing, they both segregated themselves from mainstream book production and created a niche of female professional authority.;The network of bookwomen sometimes disagreed about what constituted proper reading for children, the extent to which "natural" knowledge supported claims of expertise, and the nature of their relationship to the marketplace. Still, bookwomen expanded their careers by working together to create a market for children's books, increasing their knowledge about book production, supporting the development of professional rewards, authoring a body of literary criticism about children's books, and laying claim to "pioneership." They simultaneously mentored other bookwomen, and maintained colonial relationships with them, reflecting hierarchical attitudes characteristic of the institutions they represented. Consistently stepping outside the cultural machinery of book production, bookwomen created unique spaces, such as the Horn Book, for celebrating their achievements and those of others in book-related professions. |
