Beatrice Warde (1900–1969)

Beatrice Warde, née Becker, was born in New York City, the daughter of May Lamberton Becker, a journalist and literary critic for the New York Herald Tribune, and her husband Gustave Becker, a composer and teacher. She developed a love of calligraphy as a child, and this grew into her lifelong interest in the history of letter forms and printing. After she graduated from Barnard College, she took a job as assistant librarian at the American Type Founders Company. In 1922, she married Frederic Warde, a typographic designer and printer. The couple moved to Europe in 1925, but their marriage ended a couple of years later. Beatrice became the marketing and publicity manager for the Monotype Corporation in London, where she influenced book designers and printing tastes during the mid-20th century. She wrote numerous articles and books, sometimes under the male pseudonym "Paul Beaujon" as there were very few women in her field. She championed higher standards in printing, the intelligent use of historic typefaces from the past, as well as the work of contemporary typeface designers. For more than 30 years, she served as the editor of the company publications The Recorder and the Monotype Newsletter. Her most famous work is an essay, "The Crystal Goblet," now considered a classic on typography and graphic design, which was first delivered as a speech at a British Typographers' Guild meeting in 1930. Her books included Enjoying England: A Book about an Enchanted Island (1931), The Crystal Goblet: Sixteen Essays on Typography (1955). She compiled Token of Freedom, an anthology given to every child who was evacuated to North America during World War II.