“The year was 1952. I had spent six months in France doing the first research for my PhD thesis on ‘Protestantism and the Printing Workers of Lyon’. I was trying to explore the Reformation from the vantage point of artisans, rather than just that of the theologians like Luther and Calvin and the great princes. To find evidence about working people, many of whom are illiterate, you have to go to archives: to government lists, and church records, to criminal prosecutions and marriage contracts. I came back to Ann Arbor with packets of three-by-five cards filled with the names of Protestant pressmen and typesetters and other artisans—people who were finding ways to disguise Protestant tracts so they could get by the eyes of the Inquisitors and mocking the Catholic clergy in popular songs.” You can read her New York Review of Books blog post here.
