The image on the cover of Linux Networking Cookbook is a female blacksmith. While historically women worked more commonly as seamstresses and teachers, women blacksmiths have existed as far back as the Middle Ages. Though medieval women often stayed in to cook, bake bread, and sew, some were blacksmiths who made weapons to defend their homes and castles.
In spite of their history in the profession, the presence of women in the black-smithing industry continued to surprise many. In 1741, author and bookshop owner William Hutton came across a blacksmith's shop while traveling the English countryside. At the shop, he witnessed "one or more females, stripped of their upper garments, and not overcharged with the lower, wielding the hammer with all the grace of the sex." It is thought that finding women—and not men—working as blacksmiths shocked Hutton, while the state of their dress remained an unimportant matter.
Controversy occasionally surrounded the idea of women working as blacksmiths. In 1895, Mrs. Hattie Graham sent in a proposal to the town hall of Sudbury, Massachusetts, to do business as a blacksmith in a shop owned by Miss Mary Heard. That a woman owned a blacksmith shop was not controversial, but a woman working as a blacksmith was. However, Graham's skilled work eventually won over those who had protested her early days of working at the shop.
Even in recent decades many people expressed astonishment at the fact that women previously worked as blacksmiths. Reportedly, tourists wandering through Colonial Williamsburg often asked if women were allowed to be blacksmiths, or wondered if the work was too physically demanding for them.
In the 21st century, blacksmithing has evolved into a profession of empowerment and artistic expression. In 2001, the documentary Mama Wahunzi(Swahili for "women blacksmiths") chronicled the lives of three women who learned to make their own wheelchairs and take control of their own mobility. In Africa, women blacksmiths work with women farmers in the design and maintenance of their tools. In the U.S., where it is estimated that 50 full-time female blacksmiths exist today, many blacksmiths produce public art, help restore architecture, and build modern furniture.
The cover image and chapter opening graphics are from Dover's Women: A Pictorial Archive from 19th-Century Sources. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed.