Toronto Trailblazers:
Women in Canadian Publishing
By: Ruth Panofsky
Toronto Trailblazers explores the influence of seven key women who, despite pervasive gender bias, helped advance a modern literary culture for Canada. Publisher Irene Clarke, scholarly editors Eleanor Harman and Francess Halpenny, trade editors Sybil Hutchinson, Claire Pratt, and Anna Porter, and literary agent Bella Pomer made the most of their vocational prospects, first by securing their respective positions and then by refining their professional methods. Individually, each woman asserted her agency by adapting orthodox ways of working within Canadian publishing. Collectively, their overarching approach emerged as a feminist practice. Through their vision and method these trailblazing women disrupted the dominant masculine paradigm and helped transform publishing practice in Canada.
PUBLISHED:
2019
PUBLISHER:
AWARDS:
Finalist, Heritage Toronto Book Award
Reviews
Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, as well as a wide range of published sources, Ruth Panofsky adds the often-overlooked dimension of gender to the history of Canadian cultural production and provides important new insights into the complex workings of English-Canadian publishing houses.
Carole Gerson, Simon Fraser University
Gallery
Featured
Heritage Toronto
September 2021
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2021 Book Award Nominee
The Biblio File
18 May 2021
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Ruth Panofsky on Writing Women back into Publishing History
Room
1 March 2020
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The Women behind the Books
White Wall Review
12 November 2019
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Women Publishers Who Changed Everything:
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