“I have too many tabs open” 📑 🗂️
Today we talk about some women whose archival trace is almost ghostly in its faintness. Sometimes we only have a single date and some work products, leaving huge gaps in both their professional and personal lives. Hildegard Henning (1888–?) and Lina Burger (1856–?) are two of the first women we know designed a typeface in this metal type era. What else did they do? And why were so many of the women designing foundry type from Germany?
We don’t know much about Henning (Belladonna, 1914, Klinkhardt) and Burger (ornamental fonts, c. 1900, Schelter & Giesecke). Both showed at the Leipzig International Exhibition for the Book Trade and Graphic Design, aka BUGRA (Weltaustellung für BUchgewerbe und GRAfik). It opened in May 1914 (map), with Das Haus der Frau (The House of Women), see more about the BUGRA here and here. Sadly, most of what BUGRA’s organizers kept was destroyed in the 1943 bombing of Leipzig.
Dan takes us through the German type context of the early 20th century, why the BUGRA 🎡 mattered, how technology shifted design processes, and what happens when you re-read resources with fresh eyes.
Special guest: Dan Reynolds, type history researcher, teacher at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, TypeOff writer
PSA: Lina Burger did a commission for Otto von Bismark, but it is not trending on TikTok. Yet.
📚
Indra Kupferschmid, “First/early female typeface designers,” Alphabettes (2017)
Friedrich Bauer, Chronik der Schriftgießereien (1914, 1928); pdf in German
Dan Reynolds, “Hildegard Henning’s Belladonna typeface (1912),” TypeOff
Belladonna via Fonts In Use and Luc Devroye
Lina Burger’s 1901 Archiv für Buchgewerbe profile; see bookplates here & here
Credits
Creator and Producer: Bethany Qualls
Editor: Joe DeGrand
Original episode artwork: Trifoxatops aka Jenna Mauro
Social Media Whisperer: Elizabeth Giardina
Music: "Sneaky Feet" by geoffharvey
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