Sue Allen Lecture: “They Can’t Buy It and They Can’t Take It”: Bookish Solidarity in a Time of Institutional Crisis

Rare Book School is founded on a shared commitment to “responsible stewardship of the historical record in all its richness and many forms,” a mission made more urgent by the present instability of our national institutions, from the Library of Congress to the Smithsonian to the National Endowment for the Humanities. This talk highlights a number of resourceful women in American book history, some celebrated and some whose names we’ll never know, who found ways to preserve and share aspects of the historical record outside the established institutions of their own day. Whether barred from full participation in professional fields and private clubs on account of their sex, or simply focused on historical material deemed unworthy of serious attention, these women took the work of cultural preservation into their own hands in creative and surprising ways, to our collective benefit. In 2026, what practical and strategic lessons can we draw from the communities these women built?

About the Speaker

Heather O’Donnell has been an antiquarian bookseller for more than twenty years. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Yale, and was a member of the Princeton Society of Fellows before joining the book trade. In 2011, she founded Honey & Wax Booksellers, dealing primarily in literature, with an emphasis on the material history of printing, bookselling, and collecting. A graduate of Rare Book School and member of the Grolier Club, Heather helped launch the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative and Mentorship Program, and co-founded the Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize for young women collectors. She currently serves on the faculty and board of the Colorado Antiquarian Book Seminar (CABS-Minnesota), the Council of the Bibliographical Society of America, and the Yale Library Associates Trustees. She is a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and writes about book history for the New York Review of Books.

This event is part of Rare Book School’s 2026 Summer Lecture Series.