“Bowen & Co. (Lavinia Bowen),” Gopsill’s Philadelphia City Directory for 1870 (Philadelphia: Published by James Gopsill, 1870).

 

Following the death of her husband (prominent lithographer John T. Bowen) in 1856, Lavinia Bowen (b. ca. 1820) took over the operation of her spouse’s respected firm. Bowen and Victoria Quarre (1800-1873) of V. Quarre & Co. are the only Philadelphia women indentified definitively as in the trade prior to the 1880 census. In that year, at least five female Philadelphians aged fifteen to twenty-six years listed their occupation as lithographer.

 

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