Fixed tag typo

bom-website/content/blog/2024-06-10-womans-touch.md

@@ -4,14 +4,14 @@ author:
   - Luz Adriana Giraldo Mueller
 date: "2024-06-10"
 tags:
-  - name
+  - mueller
   - women
   - printing
 categories:
   - "context"
 ---
 
-It is difficult to analyze the role of women in the creation of the Bills of Mortality due to the lack of information in the historical record, especially contextual information on women's everyday experiences. Previous scholars have studied how women fulfilled roles caring for and nursing the sick or how the death of their husbands and family members affected their livelihood, ultimately rendering them destitute. Others have focused on the searchers who collected data on the deceased and passed it on to the Parishes' clerks for tallying before it was given to the printers for publication. However, in working on the _Death by Numbers_ project, I questioned what other roles, beyond searchers, women fulfilled in any other stage of the process for the publication of the bills. My curiosity was piqued when I began looking for any women's 'handprints' in the printing process. This led me to the most important collection of bills: the Memento Mori: London's Dreadful Visitation, printed by E. Cotes and reproduced the bills of mortality from 1665, a year of massive plague mortality.
+It is difficult to analyze the role of women in the creation of the Bills of Mortality due to the lack of information in the historical record, especially contextual information on women's everyday experiences. Previous scholars have studied how women fulfilled roles caring for and nursing the sick or how the death of their husbands and family members affected their livelihood, ultimately rendering them destitute. Others have focused on the searchers who collected data on the deceased and passed it on to the Parishes' clerks for tallying before it was given to the printers for publication. However, in working on the _Death by Numbers_ project, I questioned what other roles, beyond searchers, women fulfilled in any other stage of the process for the publication of the bills. My curiosity was piqued when I began looking for any women's "handprints" in the printing process. This led me to the most important collection of bills: the Memento Mori: London's Dreadful Visitation, printed by E. Cotes and reproduced the bills of mortality from 1665, a year of massive plague mortality.
 
 It turns out that E. Cotes stands for Elinor Cotes (listed as Ellen, Eleanor, or Ellinor on different records). She was the widow of Richard Cotes and had inherited the printing business upon her husband's death in 1651. She maintained her husband’s contracts, including the printing of the Bills of Mortality, and in 1665, was 'commissioned by the Company to print the Bills of Mortality for the 16 city parishes, as 'London's Rememberancer.' Elinor owned one of London's most successful printing businesses, employing three presses, two apprentices, and nine pressmen.[^1] A particular detail that sets London's Dreadful Visitation apart from other publications of the time is the inclusion of a note from 'The Printer to the Reader' in which Elinor professes her will to preserve the bills so that 'posterity may not any more [sic] be at such a loss' after the bills for the previous 'Great Plague' had been lost.[^2] This personal note may be the womanliest touch we can encounter upon the Bills of Mortality. Elinor continued to print the bills until her death in 1670 when Andrew Clarke was appointed printer to the Company.