Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt

Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt (1882-1963) was an American bookbinder and book collector, specializing in botanical literature.

Early life Rachel McMasters Miller was born in Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania, in 1882 to Rachel Hughey McMasters Miller (1861–1940) and Mortimer Craig Miller (1856–1933), a maritime lawyer. She attended the Thurston School in Pittsburgh, followed by Miss Mittleberger's School for Girls in Cleveland, from which she graduated in June 1901 as president of her class.

Bookbinder While on a trip with her family to the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, Miller visited the Roycroft community of craftsmen. This trip inspired her to experiment with making her own hand-bound books. In 1903, she was introduced to suffragette and bookbinder Euphemia Bakewell, and studied with her in Pittsburgh for two years. On a trip to Europe with her parents in 1905, Miller Hunt visited T. J. Cobden-Sanderson's Doves Bindery, and was also able to purchase supplies for her own bookbinding work, such as hand-marbled endpapers, stamping tools, and a stock of gold leaf.

She continued creating and exhibiting bindings until about 1920. Her last public showing of her work was at the Guild of Bookworkers' annual exhibition in 1921, held at the Grolier Club. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Hunt became a distinguished speaker on books and bookbinding, though she was no longer an active practitioner. She continued to maintain her binding equipment in a workshop at "Elmhurst," the Pittsburgh home she and her husband moved to in 1926, and continued to refer to it as the "Lehcar Bindery." Rachel took a very involved role in the planning and design of the library, as well as the moving of her collection into the building.

Personal life As a child, Rachel "thought it would be great fun to be an acrobat".

She stayed friends with Euphemia Bakewell for many years, as well as other women bookbinders such as Eleanor and Amy Dupuy, Mrs. Elizabeth Utley Thomas, and Sarah Hill, all of whom attended her wedding.

On 11 June 1913, she married Roy Arthur Hunt, a rising executive at Alcoa. Both shared a love for rare books. As an engagement gift for Roy, Rachel bound a prayer-book in "violet crushed morocco, tooled with aluminum leaf." The Book of Common Prayer with which the Hunts' marriage ceremony was performed by Bishop Cortlandt Whitehead was also bound by Rachel, in red and gold. For their honeymoon, the Hunts toured Sweden, Norway, and Russia, where Rachel acquired some gemstones to be used in her bindings. When World War I broke out, the Hunts (then safely back in the United States) worked with Euphemia Bakewell, travelling in Europe, to distribute funding to help orphans and child refugees. In April 1919, their first child, a son, was born, followed by three more brothers over the next seven years.

Hunt died on 22 February 1963, after a prolonged bout of the flu. Roy died three years later on 21 October 1966.