Contextualizing Why Women in Typography and Letter Design were Forgotten: A Review of Baseline Shift, Edited by Briar Levit
I took my kids to Disney world for the first time in February. I don’t like amusement parks in general. I’m a tea-and-used-bookstore kind of woman; rollercoasters are loud and lack the smell of binding glue. How did we get to Disney if I dislike amusement parks so much? Well, when my children had been sent home from school in April of 2020 and we had to tell them that scouts, sports, and leaving the house were on hold for a while, within their tears was a question about an upcoming birthday party. When I told them that was canceled too, my three boys seized that moment. It was a real low. But my kids, always trying to get the upper hand asked, “When this is over, will you take us to Disney?” Sigh. Of course I would.
That is how I found myself riding some of the most infuriating rides. I’m not talking about Space Mountain- that was problematic for its own reasons. I’m talking about the Carousel of Progress and Spaceship Earth. In both these rides the passenger is taken through a curated “history”. However, the attributes of that “history” had me yelling so much that my husband told me I was disturbing others. (I now apologize to those who heard me yelling “cobblewash”.) Both of these rides attribute technological innovation incorrectly, highlight the innovations that equates domestic tools as trivial, and streamlined the nuances of technical evolution. On some level I get it- these rides are a product of their time and are there mostly for nostalgia. But on the other hand, Disney is all about inclusion and the simplicity of “joy” and “delight”. Why are the continuing to present a history that is potentially harmful?
They do it because perpetuating simplified history is easy and in many cases ignorant.
Baseline Shift is the latest in a long line of books I’ve been reading where the editor or author is working to re-contextualizing history — breaking down inaccuracies and dispelling myths. This book focuses on the field of typography and typesetting and it examines the role that women played in pushing typography forward and why women were overlooked. The book is divided into four sections: publishing, activism and patriotism, press and production, and commercial. The section is further broken down into a series of vignettes or editorials on the topic, where each author picked a different person, group of people, or time period to focus on. The chapters start with a full color reproduction that represents the topic discussed in that section — either a representation of the artist being discussed or pictures. Quotes from contemporaries and contemporaneous sources are used to both demonstrate the challenges faced by the artist(s) and to contextualize the unique contributions.
The book focuses on understanding the role of women in a field that I’ve devoted much of my life to. The field of UX (but really, maybe all) is one where the work of women has been historicalaly dismissed, under represented, and under valued. It starts with this quote from Martha Scotford,
“Neat history is conventional history: a focus on the mainstream activities and work of individual, usually male, designers. Messy history seeks to discover, study and include the variety of alternative approaches and activities that are often part of women designers’ professional lives.” (page 7)
The editor, Briar Levit, goes on to write, “‘Messy history’ would take into account the fact that women have existed under systems with different roles, expectations, and access those for men.” How true and how resonant with the times we currently live in where systems of value and also oppression are still evolving along with our understanding of them. To say that history has been inclusive is lazy. To say that history is linear, is also dull. Give me the messy, sortid, interesting details that reflect the intricacies I’m interested in learning.
My criticisms of the book are few and almost not worth mentioning. The first is that there are too few women highlighted. However, while the number of women covered is few, the descriptions are rich; each mini-biography felt properly encapsulated. I did find myself also googling the artists to look at more of their work. I would have liked to see examples where the work progressed or even better descriptions of how their work impacted other artists. Also, a better description of the design tropes and common practices used at the time of each artist would have been welcomed.
My favorite chapter focused on the work of Angel DeCora. I think that the author of that chapter, Linda M. Waggoner, did a great job of exploring how DeCora’s background made a large impact on her unique work. I also liked that it seems like De Cora had little cares to give when it came to people critiquing her work — something that I have a lot of respect for lately. I had not personally given much thought to the art of hand lettering and I was fascinated at the intricacies of this work and the value they brought to heightening the overall artwork.
For me, the most powerful part of the book was the central theme that seemed to be weaved unconsciously throughout. I was struck, time and time again, that the belittling of women’s role and access to typography and type design boils down to diminishing the female voice. Whether it was the Red Lion Setters, the ‘radical’ female typesetting collective that helped support many social causes, or The Women’s Typographic Association, or individual artists, women used their access to print to make their thoughts heard.
“Red Lion Setters is an example of how the computer-driven feminization of the typesetting profession in the latter half of the twentieth century allowed women to set up their own typesetting businesses and to employ women workers. In the case of RLS, the computerization of type-setting enabled women to contribute to, publicize, and record their political concerns.” (page 101)
“Another struggle that the Women’s Typographic Association waged was against the notion that women were by nature inferio typographers. In 1931, an article was published in the dally newspaper Dagens Nyheter with the headline “The Suffragettes Have Not Won the Government. Women Are Bad as Typographers. Exceptional Physical Qualities Necessitate Protection.” In the article, typographer and printing-house owner Hugo Lagerström argued that women’s work did not give proper results, partly because women had difficulty standing up: ‘The same [inferiority] applies to girls as loaders, it is a heavy job for which women have only been used temporarily. In general, their performance will never be such that it can compete with men’s.’” (page 124)
Is it cliche to say access equals power? If it isn’t, that is certainly what the continuous narrative of the history presented in this book is saying.
In my career in computing and UX I’ve watched and been friends with many women who have dropped out of the field. Whether that was when I watched about 15 women not move from the Programming 101 class to the Programming 102 class in high school (out of 30 students). Or, whether it was when I was in graduate school and watched even more leave to start industry jobs or a family. Whatever the reason for leaving, computing and UX are fields where your voice has intrinsic power. And careers where there is power in your voice being present — where there is power in representation, those are the careers where women and diverse view points are needed the most and they are also the ones where voices have been historically quieted.
Books like Baseline Shift aren’t just important, they’re necessary. They demonstrate the immense value of diverse view points in making impactful and beautiful work; they do the work that Disney and the rest of historians should be doing: valuing the context and implication of different people and the work they do.
I’ll end with this review with a quote from Tereza Bettinardi who reflected on her own place within graphic design while discussing the work of Bea Fitler:
“As a female designer, I often feel like I am running a relay race with no knowledge of what is being passed from one runner to the next. As we fill the gaps of graphic design history, it is still rare to find literature that focuses on what makes women designers’ outputs so important. It is our duty to conjure up a sense of the individuals behind the work; by gathering their stories and giving proper space for female graphic designers to share their experiences, we may further their legacy.” (page 61)
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