Carolyn Reading Hammer

Carolyn E. Hammer (née Reading; July 24, 1911 – July 19, 2001) was curator of rare books at the University of Kentucky Libraries and the founder of multiple book arts presses in Lexington, Kentucky. These include the Bur Press, the Anvil Press, and the King Library Press. She was an influential figure in modern letterpress printing in the United States.

Early life and education Born in Woodford County, Kentucky to John Windell Reading and Katherine C. Gay. Her parents divorced before 1920, and Hammer spent her formative years with her mother in Paris, Kentucky and Lexington, Kentucky. Hammer earned her undergraduate degree from Transylvania University and her graduate degree in library science from Columbia University in 1933. She worked at the Library of Congress (1933–1936), at the Stuart Robinson School in Blackey, Kentucky (1936–1940), and the University of Kentucky until her retirement in 1976. She worked with Margaret I. King, the University of Kentucky's first librarian, becoming the head of acquisitions and later the curator of rare books.

Presses Kentucky Monographs Inspired by her class on rare books at Columbia University, Hammer and Amelia Buckley started the Bur Press in 1943.

Anvil Press The Anvil Press, an association of multiple printers, was founded in 1953. Members included Victor Hammer, Carolyn Reading, Waller Oliver Bullock, Virginia Clark, Clavia Goodman, Lucy and Joseph Graves, Harriett McDonald, R. Hunter Middleton, Maria Bizzoni, Gordon Bechanan, Caroline Porter, Nancy Chambers, and Martha Livesay. Publications of the press include Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico della Mirandola, The Booke of the Duchesse by William Chaucer, and William Tyndale's The Four Gospels.

Hammer died in Lexington, Kentucky on July 24, 2001, and is buried with Victor at Pisgah Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Woodford County, Kentucky.