Humanities November 27, 2016
Name: Kaya
Printing with Power: Printing in Early America
By Kaya K.
The printer was essential by allowing the settlers in Colonial America to communicate. They also helped create the democratic world we live in today because they circulated key information. The printer was important to the colonists and had many jobs to do in the shop. These jobs included the compositor, editor, publisher, and pressman, plus many more. The colonial printer had a very important and challenging job, from setting the type to using the printer. What the printer did on a daily basis allowed people to communicate and circulate important information as well as enforce the rules in the colonies.
Women were key to the success of the printing business. The English settlers sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and founded a colony in Massachusetts in the early 1600s. In 1638 they built a college known as Harvard. Harvard housed the first printing press in America. A woman named Elizabeth Glover, the wife of a deceased reverend by the name of Joseph Glover, took over the operation of this printing press. Many females came later and thrived by working in the printing business. “Sarah Updike Goddard and her daughter Mary Katherine were two of the most prominent female printers in the colonies. Sarah came from a prominent Rhode Island family. She funded her son William’s training in the printing business with her inheritance after the death of her husband. The printing business soon became a family affair. Sarah became the printer of the Providence Gazette in Rhode Island.” (American History Online, Facts on File) But unfortunately, women were not given credit for their contributions to the printing business. Their actions affected the success of the printing press in colonies. Many women who got involved with the printing business simply got brushed aside. They were treated similar to slaves because they were considered inferior. Sexism was common in Colonial times and the women were treated as chattel. It is important to realize that people had no reason to treat women as something less than what they are, people.
The printing process required many tools to do intricate work. Printers used many different tools to make their prints as close to perfect as possible. The printers would use tools that we still use today. For example, hammers were used for many different purposes. There were many steps such as type set. Type set was an array of many small metal letters that would be arranged manually. The single letters could be arranged to become words then sentences, and finally pages. After the time consuming process was complete, the printer could make as many copies as he or she wanted. “Printing is a means of pressing letters, words, sentences, and pictures onto a sheet of paper. In order to do his work, the printer must have certain equipment. Chief among it are three things: metal type, ink, and a printing press. The Colonial printer’s type was made up of a great number of single metal letters of the alphabet. They could be put together to make words and sentences, which could then be combined into pages. Once each page of type was inked, it could be printed in as many copies as were needed. Then the single metal letters could be separated. They could be used again and again, to make many different words and sentences and pages. They were called movable type, because the single letters could be moved about to make a variety of words.” (The Printer, Colonial Craftsmen) Type was a very important tool. In fact, without type the printing press would not have a purpose. However, today, we use stamps that is a simplified version of the Colonial printing press. Lucky for us, technique and time consuming work was left in Early America.
Printing was a slow and detailed process that required technique. The first step would be to make a piece of type. The compositor would arrange the type in a specially built shallow case. The capital letters were held at the top, that is why they are called “upper case letters”. The lower case letters were on the bottom case. The letters were not arranged alphabetically they were arranged by most used. Now the compositor would turn the letters into words, etc. Letters that were the same size and style were called a font. “A complete collection of all the type characters in the same size and style was called a font. It contained greater quantities of some letters than of others, because the printer would use more E’s and X’s for example. A printer brought as many type fonts as he might need or could afford. Each piece of type had to be made in a special metal-working shop called a type foundry.” (Unknown) If the printer wanted to sell his work for more money s/he could buy more sets of the same style letters. More money was very important to shop owners and workers because they could keep improving the shop to sell merchandise for more money. The printer would have so many jobs and worked extremely hard to earn money to provide for their families. The more cash they earned the more there work payed off.The compositor was also the printer and had many other skillful jobs.
The printer had to be as precise as possible. Really anything could make a perfect book turn into not so good. The little steps were the most important. When the printer measured the cloth to finalize the cover and spine of the book s/he would have to know what s/he was doing or it could end of looking sloppy and risk the chance of getting their pay docked. “ Technical Methods: Measuring. The first step in good binding is accurate measuring. The ruler and one side of the carpenter’s square are graduated in sixteenths of an inch. Whether measuring paper, boards, cloth, or buckram, make it a rule to be precise.” (Watson, Aldren A. Hand Bookbinding) Good printers and binders would have to be a perfectionist. If they were not already a perfectionist they would soon become one. However, printers had many talents that were put to use to perfect their work.
Printers would have had to be a person of many talents. A printer had many jobs to do that required skill. A printer would have to be an editor, a publisher,a pressman and a compositor, (which means he or she would arrange letters into sentences and etc.) If the printer was wealthy he or she would hire an apprentice called a “devil” and if he or she was poor, he or she would have to do everything themselves. If the printer did not have so many jobs to do the apprentice would not be as necessary but not only was the apprentice a pair of helping hands, but he wasn’t paid. The printer would be in a much better place if he or she were wealthy because s/he could buy better tools. For example, he could buy the same font which was worth more money than mismatched sets.
Social class would determine how cultures would interact with printing. The social class with the most power, the English settlers, used the printing press the most. The Native Americans did not have a written language therefore they did not have much use for printing materials. The settlers used the printing press for many things. The first printers at Jamestown were white, English males. They took advantage of the freedom of the press to spread their ideas and stay in power. When the African-Americans would run away, to show rebellion, the printer would run advertisements to help catch them. This shows that the English used the printing press to stay “superior” to the other cultures who did not have access to the press.
In Colonial America, printers worked very hard to spread information and enforce rules. Printed materials benefitted the English Colonists and the printing press was an important tool for these colonists. Because Native Americans didn’t have a written language, they did not have many uses for a printing press. Those in power prohibited African-Americans from using the printing press to disempower them. Today, the printing press has evolved into computers and the internet. People in first world nations have more access to printed matter and also have the sophistication to best access this information. Other people who are not as privileged don’t have this access. Is it fair to exclude different people just because of their skin color? 
