Becoming Alice Millard: Bookseller and Tastemaker

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Description

Explore the life of Alice Millard, the antiquarian book seller who was at the forefront of the History of the Book discipline, and a tastemaker of her time.

Women have played a significant role in the book trade since the beginning of printing. Unfortunately, many of them are now lost to history. Still, many articles and books have captured the various roles that women have played as printers, binders, publishers, editors, and booksellers. Less written about is the role of the women in the antiquarian book trade; however, it is an important part of the trade.

Becoming Alice P. Millard is the story of how a largely self-educated young woman from a modest background became an urbane, internationally known antiquarian bookseller when almost no women worked in the high end of the trade, except as catalogers. Although Alice has been written about by many people, this book corrects the many inaccuracies about her that have been publishedand persist. Correcting the record has not been easy; Alice spoke little about her past, didnt keep a diary, and didnt make copies of her correspondence.

Alice Millard introduced American collectors and librarians to William Morris and the Kelmscott Press, and T.J. Cobden-Sanderson and his Doves Bindery and Press. She also worked with important collectors such as Estelle Doheny and William Andrews Clark, Jr. to build their collections. She sold art and antiques as well as books. Her own collection of such books went to the Huntington Library after her death.

Key to understanding Alice Millards life is her relationship to books and antiques. This volume considers how she crafted her professional life. Crafted is the key word because Alice was a strong proponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. She didnt just sell items, she created educational and aesthetic experiences by tutoring people about the value of those objects, by holding exhibitions and publishing catalogs, and by inviting people into her pioneering Frank Lloyd Wright home, La Miniatura.

This book presents a more thorough view of Alice Millards life than has ever been presented before. It corrects commonly perpetuated myths, and dispels some of the fog enveloping her life.

Author Bio

Michle Valerie Cloonan is Professor and Dean Emerita at Simmons University. Previously she was associate professor and chair in the Department of Information Studies at UCLA. Cloonan specializes in the preservation of cultural heritage, and women in the book trade. Two of her books have won prizes: Preserving Our Heritage: Perspectives from Antiquity to the Digital Age received the Society of American Archivists Preservation Publication Award, and The Monumental Challenge of Preservation: The Past in a Volatile World, won the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation Book Prize. Her recent article, Researching the Personal Life: Mary Niles Maacks Early Writing on Feminist Biography, appeared in Library Trends.

She has an A.B. from Bennington College, an A.M. from the University of Chicago, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. She received the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award from the iSchool at the University of Illinois.