You know the author. Meet the typist. - Harvard Gazette

"Vladimir Nabokov never learned to type. Every word of every novel he published - including the classics 'Lolita,' 'Pale Fire,' and 'Pnin' - was typed by his wife, Vera, before being sent to editors. He wrote on notecards, and depending on how fleshed out they were, he would either dictate them to Vera, or if they were in complete prose, he would hand them to her to be typed."

"'Thanks for Typing' explores the stories of women like Vera - typists who helped bring the novels and stories of famous literary figures to the public - as well as the thousands of women who served as secretaries and typists for government officials, scientists, researchers, and Hollywood creatives."

"He was looking through academic monographs on Google Books when he started to pay attention to the acknowledgement section and notice the same language over and over again: 'Thanks to Judy for typing'; 'Thanks to my wife, Mary, for typing the manuscript and transcribing the interviews.' It was like, thanks for typing, thanks for typing, thanks for typing, over and over again."

An exhibition titled 'Thanks for Typing' celebrates the overlooked contributions of women who performed typing and secretarial labor for prominent literary figures, government officials, scientists, and creative professionals. Vladimir Nabokov's wife Vera typed all his published novels, including 'Lolita' and 'Pale Fire,' after he composed them on notecards. The exhibit was inspired by a viral social media hashtag #thanksfortyping, started when a University of Virginia professor noticed repetitive acknowledgments in academic monographs thanking women for typing manuscripts and transcribing interviews. Curators at Harvard's Houghton Library and New York's Morgan Library developed the exhibition to highlight these previously invisible contributions and bring greater attention to women's essential labor in literary and academic production.

Read at Harvard Gazette