First Among Many: The Bay Psalm Book and Early Moments in American Printing
Online Exhibition

The Library of Congress copy of the Bay Psalm Book arrived at the Library in the 1960s. The copy is in its original binding. This volume is one of the eleven extant copies of the Bay Psalm Book; it is one of the five surviving copies that lack a title page. Years before this volume was given to the Library, twelve pages were removed to complete another copy, now held by the New York Public Library. Meant to be sung during worship service, the metered rhyme imposed on the psalms often produced a somewhat awkward result. The book is open to the Psalm 23:

The Lord to mee a shepheard is,
want therefore shall not I,
Hee in the folds of tender-grasse,
doth cause mee downe to lie:

In November 2013, philanthropist David Rubenstein purchased this copy of the Bay Psalm Book at auction. It was the first time in more than sixty-six years that a copy of this rare book was sold on the open market. Mr. Rubenstein’s copy, which has been rebound, is complete and one of the six copies that includes the original title page. Other copies of the Bay Psalm Book are held by the Old South Church in Boston, Harvard University, John Carter Brown Library, American Antiquarian Society, Yale University, New York Public Library, Rosenbach Museum and Library, Huntington Library, and Bodleian Library. Both this copy and the Library of Congress copy were at one time in the library of the Reverend Thomas Prince, and therefore originally part of the historic Old South Church library in Boston. These two copies of the text are together for the first time since they were separated long ago.

Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between 1660 and 1663, the Eliot Indian Bible was the first complete bible printed in the Western Hemisphere. As part of his mission to convert the indigenous people of Massachusetts, Puritan clergyman John Eliot spent fourteen years translating the Geneva English Bible into Natick, a dialect spoken by the Algonquin tribes in the region. Equally formidable was the story of printing the bible. Under Stephen Daye’s supervision, 1000 copies were printed by Samuel Green on the first printing press in colonial America. He was assisted by a newly arrived English printer, Marmaduke Johnson, who brought with him 100 reams of paper and 80 pounds of new type, including extra “O’s” and “K’s” necessary to accommodate Algonquin spellings. At its completion, the Eliot Bible emerged as the largest printing project in seventeenth-century America.

The British government regarded the colonies’ new democratic institutions with caution. In order to control the colonies’ legislative assemblies the king’s primary council of advisors, known as the Privy Council, reviewed all laws passed by the colonies. The Privy Council confirmed or disallowed new legislation, a power that it exercised from the 1660s until the end of the colonial period. Disallowance of a statute meant that the statute was effectively repealed from the time the Privy Council rendered its decision. Typically the Privy Council sent handwritten notices to the colonies ordering any required changes in the law. This item is the only known printed notice of disallowance.

With his recent imprisonment fresh in his memory, William Bradford relocated from Philadelphia to New York, where he was promised the freedom to print whatever work he might procure. Bradford wanted to clarify the circumstances of his previous conviction in Philadelphia, resulting in the printing of New-England’s Spirit of Persecution Transmitted to Pennsilvania, usually identified as the first book printed at his New York press. The move to New York proved to be the beginning of an auspicious fifty-year career as royal printer to the colony and the official printer for New Jersey, as well as the beginning of a long line of Bradford family printers. The copy shown here is believed to be one of only five extant volumes of this publication.

Colonial assemblies often failed to effectively publish the laws they enacted in seventeenth-century America. Most assemblies did not begin printing their session laws until after 1704, some began much later. Massachusetts, an outlier in this regard, began printing its session laws, albeit intermittently, in the 1650s. New York printed the laws passed by its legislative assembly beginning in the 1690s. This collection of the session laws of the New York General Assembly was printed by William Bradford. Bradford’s innovation was to number the pages of the pamphlets for each legislative session consecutively so that they could be bound together at a later date.

After apprenticing with printer William Bradford at the New-York Gazette, German-born J. Peter Zenger (1697–1746) launched a second newspaper in New York, the New-York Weekly Journal, on November 5, 1733. The independent political newspaper was founded largely to challenge the authority of William Cosby, the governor of New York. After unsuccessful attempts by Cosby to shut the paper down and a declaration that four issues of the Journal be publicly burned, a bench warrant was issued that led to Zenger’s arrest for seditious libel on November 17, 1734. As a result of Zenger’s imprisonment, the November 18 issue was not published. Although he remained in prison for eight months, this was the only break in publishing in the paper’s history. In the November 25 edition of the Journal, shown here, Zenger offers an “apology” for the skipped newspaper. Zenger won his widely-publicized case, which planted a seed for freedom of the press.

“Being still a Boy, and suspecting that my Brother would object to printing any Thing of mine in his Paper if he knew it to be mine, I contriv’d to disguise my Hand, & writing an anonymous Paper I put it in at Night under the Door of the Printing House,” wrote Benjamin Franklin about his letters under the pseudonym Silence Dogood. During a six-month period in 1722, Benjamin penned fifteen letters from this clever, sharp-tongued widow who held a satiric view of the world and cast a critical eye on the pretentions of Bostonians. Commenting on love and courtship as well as the travails of aging, Mrs. Dogood soon gained a devoted following, as well as a few marriage proposals. Franklin continued writing under pseudonyms throughout his life, creating full characters for his pen-names Harry Meanwell, Alice Addertongue, Timothy Turnstone, and of course, poor Richard Saunders.

Cicero’s Discourse of Old-age, Benjamin Franklin’s personal favorite from his press, is considered to be the finest example of the printing art in colonial America. This work by the Roman philosopher statesman Cicero is also the first classical work translated and printed in North America. In his “Printer to the Reader” note, Franklin explains that he printed this “in a large and fair Character, that those who begin to think on the Subject of old-age, . . . may not, in Reading by the Pain small Letters give the Eyes, feel the Pleasure of the Mind in the least allayed.”

In 1747, Philadelphia was facing an unexpected crisis. Spanish, French, and Indian privateers were raiding properties along the Delaware River and capturing vessels en route to Philadelphia. The safety of residents and the viability of the port city’s economy were under threat. In his pamphlet Plain Truth, Benjamin Franklin urged the Pennsylvania Assembly to unite and establish a defensive voluntary military force to protect property and vet the incoming vessels. Franklin later recalled that the pamphlet, of which more than 2,000 copies were printed, “had a sudden and surprising Effect,” especially given the Quaker residents’ penchant to avoid confrontation. The pamphlet included the first political cartoon of any kind published in America, foreshadowing Franklin’s famous “Join or Die” cartoon of 1754 in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

As a writer, Benjamin Franklin is best known for the wit and wisdom he shared with the readers of his popular almanac, Poor Richard, which he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Saunders. In his autobiography, Franklin notes that he began publishing his almanac in 1732 and continued to do so for twenty-five years:

“I endeavour’d to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such Demand that I reap’d considerable Profit from it, vending annually near ten Thousand.”

This extremely rare broadside printing opens with Thomas Paine’s famous overture “These are the times that try men’s souls,” which soon became the catchphrase for the struggle for freedom and liberty throughout the American Revolution. When Washington viewed the first printing of Paine’s American Crisis on December 19, 1776, he immediately ordered it read to his troops before crossing the Delaware River to attack Trenton on Christmas Day. The successful attack reaffirmed Washington’s command, bolstered American morale, spurred reenlistments, and laid the groundwork for another successful attack days later. Boston printer John Gill published this broadside as an extra in his newspaper, the Continental Journal. It is among the few appearances of The American Crisis as a separate text and the only one issued as a broadside intended for public posting.

In preparation for the First Continental Congress in 1774, Thomas Jefferson set out a list of grievances against George III in a short pamphlet titled A Summary View of the Rights of British America. In this strong opening volley of the Revolution, Jefferson complained about the punitive aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and asserted that the king and Parliament had no right to govern the colonies. The pamphlet was printed in Williamsburg by Clementina Rind (ca. 1740–1774), who continued editing and publishing the Virginia Gazette for a year between the time her husband died in 1773 and her own death in 1774. Clearly the pamphlet was never proofed by the author’s astute editorial gaze at its printing, as it was later heavily annotated with corrections by Jefferson, an uncharacteristic gesture by someone who otherwise rarely marked his books.

Nowhere is the impact of the printed page on the American Revolution more evident than in the printing and distribution of Common Sense. Published anonymously in Philadelphia in January 1776, Common Sense appeared at a time when separation from Great Britain was being fiercely debated. Through simple rational arguments, Thomas Paine focused blame for colonial America’s troubles on the British king and pointed to the advantages of independence. With more than half a million copies in twenty-five editions appearing throughout the colonies within the first year, this popular pamphlet helped to turn the tide of sentiment toward revolution. Because of its treasonable content, the pamphlet was published anonymously, but the printer Robert Bell (ca. 1732–1784) was willing to take on the risk. John Adams later commented that “Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”

Throughout the Revolution pamphlets, posters, and newspapers fueled revolutionary zeal. Printers risked their property, and in some cases their lives, to continue a stream of pro-revolutionary rhetoric and information. Isaiah Thomas was no stranger to this notion. Thomas had successfully launched a short-lived monthly, The Royal American Magazine, or Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement in 1774. As the title suggests, Thomas hoped to borrow the best of the style of the British press while advancing the patriot cause. Paul Revere supplied engraved plates for some of the illustrations, such as the one shown here.

Irish-born John Dunlap, who had served with Washington in earlier revolutionary conflicts, emerged as one of the most successful American printers of the period. His weekly Pennsylvania Packet, or General Advertiser, established in 1771, became America’s first successful daily newspaper. Because he held the contract as printer for the Continental Congress, Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence was delivered to John Dunlap’s print shop in Philadelphia. It is estimated that of the two hundred copies of the “Dunlap Broadside” that were printed, twenty-six have survived, two of which are in the collections of the Library of Congress.

First published in 1728, the Pennsylvania Gazette was the most successful newspaper in colonial America. It owed its success to Benjamin Franklin, who wrested control of the paper from Samuel Keimer in 1729 and then used his influence as postmaster to increase its circulation and list of subscribers. Franklin introduced the editorial column, humor, and the first weather report. By 1776, the paper was owned and run by David Hall Jr., the son of Franklin’s partner, David Hall Sr., and William Sellers. On July 10, 1776, they printed the Declaration of Independence on columns one and two. Advertisements fill the remaining page and include rewards for the return of slaves and indentured servants. Such advertisements were a major source of revenue for colonial newspapers.

From the outset, women in America were involved with printing as a craft and as a business. Women such as Dinah Nuthead, Anne Franklin, Elizabeth Timothy, and Anne Catherine Green assumed the task of printing and the management of the family business upon the loss of their husband or father. Two women became printers in their own stead: Jane Aitken, daughter of the printer of the first American English Bible, Robert Aitken, and Mary Katherine Goddard (1738–1816), who conducted the family printing business in Baltimore from 1774 to 1784. Goddard also served as Baltimore’s postmaster from 1775 to 1789. In 1777 she was chosen to produce “an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence, with the names of the members of Congress subscribing to the same,” which for the first time revealed the names of all of the signers to a wider public.

By December 1776, the Continental Army was floundering. New York had been captured, New Jersey was under siege, and George Washington was being pushed back across the Delaware River. John Hancock approached Mary Katherine Goddard of Baltimore to publish this broadside to sound the alarm and plea for unity and support among the colonies. This is the only known copy of the Baltimore printing of this Revolutionary War broadside. Goddard, who would be asked to print a second edition of the Declaration of Independence in 1777, published more than 200 imprints during her career as a printer.

The Federalist Papers initially appeared in three New York newspapers: the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser. Beginning on October 27, 1787, the authors often published three or four new essays a week until May 1788. The essays were reprinted by newspapers in other states as the constitutional ratification debates were taking place. The publication of the essays in book form is noted by this front page advertisement in the New-York Packet—“in the presses and speedily will be published.”

The Federalist Papers were written specifically to advance the cause for a U.S. Constitution in New York. Their publication in book form was, in part, an effort to provide other states with a playbook for ratification, but the book appeared late in the process. Although it was widely known that the eighty-five essays that made up The Federalist were the work of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, the initial curious speculation about attribution of specific essays gradually developed into heated controversy. The authorship of some essays are still being debated by scholars. The edition on the left was once owned by Hamilton’s wife, whose sister gave it to Thomas Jefferson. As his notes indicate on the volume, Jefferson attempted to determine the authorship of each essay.

Isaiah Thomas’s enterprise in Worcester, Massachusetts, grew to be one of the great American printing houses, with its own paper mill and bindery. Thomas printed almanacs, newspapers, and magazines, and was the first to print music in America. He printed a folio bible in 1791 and then went on to publish the vast majority of school books and bibles used at the time in the United States. His History of Printing in America, with a Biography of Printers, and an Account of Newspapers celebrated the dramatic role printing had played in the formation of colonial America and marked the end of the era of the hand press.

During British colonial control, the printing of bibles in America was forbidden. Following the Revolution the dearth of bibles captured the attention of the U.S. Congress. When the call to import massive numbers of bibles failed, Congress entertained the 1781 petition of the Philadelphia printer Robert Aitken, who asked for sanction and support to print a bible. Publisher of the Pennsylvania Magazine and the initial Journals of Congress, Aitken had already printed several editions of the New Testaments before he proposed the project to Congress. Convinced of his credentials for this difficult task, Congress granted Aitken permission and financial support to print the first American bible. Although 10,000 copies of the Aitken Bible were printed, a copy of the first printing, such as the one shown here, is very rare. It is estimated that no more than forty survive today.

Newspapers and pamphlets dominated publishing in eighteenth-century America. The printing of poetry and narrative fiction lingered behind. William Hill Brown’s 1789 epistolary novel, The Power of Sympathy, or, The Triumph of Nature, Founded in Truth, was the first novel authored by an American published in America. Mirroring European conventions for prose fiction, the book’s storyline was riddled with seduction, suicide, infidelity, and incest. Rational characters withstood these ordeals, while the overly emotive succumbed to their own weaknesses. Such themes were a means of promoting virtue in the new republic, focusing on the moral education of women and the standard of rational thought. Scandalous as the work might seem, it was published by the leading book publisher in America, Isaiah Thomas, which gave the work national exposure.

Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral—one of the signal moments in American letters—was originally published in London, England, on September 1, 1773. Wheatley’s collection was the first volume of poetry by an African American poet to be published. Regarded as a prodigy by her contemporaries, Wheatley was approximately twenty at the time of the book’s publication. Although purchased as a domestic slave in Boston, she was educated in Latin, Greek, and the classics and, by age twelve, had published her first poem. Despite unsuccessful efforts to print Poems on Various Subjects in America, Wheatley found patronage to publish her work in London. She returned to Boston triumphant, only to be asked to defend the authorship of her poetry in court, under the examination of such Boston luminaries as John Hancock and Governor Thomas Hutchinson. The committee’s acknowledgement of her authorship, with a signed testimonial, was included in the 1787 Philadelphia-printed edition.