This plaquette was comissioned in 1900 by noted French bookbinder Charles Meunier. It shows a woman working at a sewing frame. The verso contains the text, “Aux amis de la Maison du Livre 1900 Ch. Meunier.”
The Industrial Revolution moved many kinds of work out of the home and into factories. Bookbinding was no exception. By the mid-nineteenth century many aspects of binding had been mechanized. For women, in many cases, work in a bindery paid relatively well. The inscription on the back of this photograph reads: “Flora [Lenter] Curtright when she worked in the binding factory.”
