Julia Herschel’s Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making and the Rhetoric of the Handmade
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
8-3-2025 9:00 PM
Description
Dr. Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, U.S.A.
Julia Herschel’s Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making and the Rhetoric of the Handmade
This paper illuminates the career of Julia Herschel, an underappreciated woman photographer with strong connections to some of the most important figures of nineteenth-century photography. Focusing on her publication, A Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making (1869; second edition 1870), illustrated with tipped-in cyanotype photograms of lace, I examine the social and economic forces embedded in this understudied Victorian photobook. I argue that the variations in collation, as well as in color, trimming, and captioning of prints within her Handbook reveal the moralistic and gendered discourses surrounding handmade versus industrial lacemaking in mid-nineteenth century England. Furthermore, these inherent tensions mirror those found in early writings on photography, exposing the extent to which the conceptualization of photography as a medium has been imbricated in the repression of female labor.
Julia Herschel was still living at home during the time she produced her book, and it is likely she received lessons in the cyanotype directly from her father, Sir John Herschel, inventor of the cyanotype process. She was also exposed to an important model of photographic publication using the Prussian blue print: her family friend Anna Atkins’s 1843 Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions was the first photographically illustrated book. Notably, the cyanotype was not widely used until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when commercial papers were readily available. It then became a primary medium for lace manufacturers’ sample books. Thus, Julia Herschel’s photobook is a rare example of the use of cyanotype in publishing and presages the wider adoption of the process within the lace industry. This investigation thus contributes to the historical study of the “blueprint” and the early photobook, while emphasizing the importance of personal and familial networks to the output of early female photographers like Julia Herschel.
Beth Saunders is Curator and Head of Special Collections at the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she oversees the management, preservation, and exhibition of UMBC’s photography, rare book, and archival collections. A specialist in the history of photography, Beth’s writing has appeared in numerous edited volumes, exhibition catalogues, and journals. She is co-author of the exhibition catalogue Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019.) Beth formerly served as Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Met and has taught at Baruch College, RISD, and Rhode Island College. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Art History from The CUNY Graduate Center and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Relational Format
Conference proceeding
Recommended Citation
Saunders, Beth, "Julia Herschel’s Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making and the Rhetoric of the Handmade" (2025). Women of Photography: A 24-Hour Conference-a-thon Celebrating International Women’s Day 2025. 60.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/womenofphotography/2025/schedule/60
Julia Herschel’s Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making and the Rhetoric of the Handmade
Dr. Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, U.S.A.
Julia Herschel’s Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making and the Rhetoric of the Handmade
This paper illuminates the career of Julia Herschel, an underappreciated woman photographer with strong connections to some of the most important figures of nineteenth-century photography. Focusing on her publication, A Handbook for Greek and Roman Lace Making (1869; second edition 1870), illustrated with tipped-in cyanotype photograms of lace, I examine the social and economic forces embedded in this understudied Victorian photobook. I argue that the variations in collation, as well as in color, trimming, and captioning of prints within her Handbook reveal the moralistic and gendered discourses surrounding handmade versus industrial lacemaking in mid-nineteenth century England. Furthermore, these inherent tensions mirror those found in early writings on photography, exposing the extent to which the conceptualization of photography as a medium has been imbricated in the repression of female labor.
Julia Herschel was still living at home during the time she produced her book, and it is likely she received lessons in the cyanotype directly from her father, Sir John Herschel, inventor of the cyanotype process. She was also exposed to an important model of photographic publication using the Prussian blue print: her family friend Anna Atkins’s 1843 Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions was the first photographically illustrated book. Notably, the cyanotype was not widely used until the latter part of the nineteenth century, when commercial papers were readily available. It then became a primary medium for lace manufacturers’ sample books. Thus, Julia Herschel’s photobook is a rare example of the use of cyanotype in publishing and presages the wider adoption of the process within the lace industry. This investigation thus contributes to the historical study of the “blueprint” and the early photobook, while emphasizing the importance of personal and familial networks to the output of early female photographers like Julia Herschel.
Beth Saunders is Curator and Head of Special Collections at the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she oversees the management, preservation, and exhibition of UMBC’s photography, rare book, and archival collections. A specialist in the history of photography, Beth’s writing has appeared in numerous edited volumes, exhibition catalogues, and journals. She is co-author of the exhibition catalogue Apollo’s Muse: The Moon in the Age of Photography (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019.) Beth formerly served as Assistant Curator in the Department of Photographs at The Met and has taught at Baruch College, RISD, and Rhode Island College. She holds a PhD and MPhil in Art History from The CUNY Graduate Center and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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