Madam Davenport also furnished the rooms with tables and “chayres,” and “took care of yor apples that they may be kept safe from the frost that Mrs. Winthrop may have the benefit of them,” and arranged to send horses to meet them; so it is not strange to learn in a postscript that the hospitable kindly soul, who thus cheerfully worked to “redd the house,” had a “paine in the soles of her feet, especially in the evening;” and a little later on to know she was “valetudinarious, faint, thirsty, of little appetite yet cheerful.”
All these examples, and many others help to correct one very popular mistake. It seems to be universally believed that the “business woman” is wholly a product of the nineteenth century. Most emphatically may it be affirmed that such is not the case. I have seen advertisements dating from 1720 to 1800, chiefly in New England newspapers, of women teachers, embroiderers, jelly-makers, cooks, wax-workers, japanners, mantua-makers,—all truly feminine employments; and also of women dealers in crockery, musical instruments, hardware, farm products, groceries, drugs, wines, and spirits, while Hawthorne noted one colonial dame who carried on a blacksmith-shop. Peter Faneuil’s account books show that he had accounts in small English wares with many Boston tradeswomen, some of whom bought many thousand pounds’ worth of imported goods in a year. Alice Quick had fifteen hundred pounds in three months; and I am glad to say that the women were very prompt in payment, as well as active in business. By Stamp Act times, the names of five women merchants appear on the Salem list of traders who banded together to oppose taxation.
It is claimed by many that the “newspaper-woman” is a growth of modern times. I give examples to prove the fallacy of this statement. Newspapers of colonial times can scarcely be said to have been edited, they were simply printed or published, and all that men did as newspaper-publishers, women did also, and did well. It cannot be asserted that these women often voluntarily or primarily started a newspaper; they usually assumed the care after the death of an editor husband, or brother, or son, or sometimes to assist while a male relative, through sickness or multiplicity of affairs, could not attend to his editorial or publishing work.
Perhaps the most remarkable examples of women-publishers may be found in the Goddard family of Rhode Island. Mrs. Sarah Goddard was the daughter of Ludowick Updike, of one of the oldest and most respected families in that State. She received an excellent education “in both useful and polite learning,” and married Dr. Giles Goddard, a prominent physician and postmaster of New London. After becoming a widow, she went into the printing business in Providence about the year 1765, with her son, who was postmaster of that town. They published the Providence Gazette and Country Journal, the only newspaper printed in Providence before 1775. William Goddard was dissatisfied with his pecuniary profit, and he went to New York, leaving the business wholly with his mother; she conducted it with much ability and success under the name Sarah Goddard & Company. I wish to note that she carried on this business not under her son’s name, but openly in her own behalf; and when she assumed the charge of the paper, she printed it with her own motto as the heading, Vox Populi Vox Dei.
William Goddard drifted to Philadelphia, where he published the Pennsylvania Chronicle for a short season, and in 1773 he removed to Baltimore and established himself in the newspaper business anew, with only, he relates, “the small capital of a single solitary guinea.” He found another energetic business woman, the widow Mrs. Nicholas Hasselbaugh, carrying on the printing-business bequeathed to her by her husband; and he bought her stock in trade and established The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser. It was the third newspaper published in Maryland, was issued weekly at ten shillings per annum, and was a well-printed sheet. But William Goddard had another bee in his bonnet. A plan was formed just before the Revolutionary War to abolish the general public post-office and to establish in its place a complete private system of post-riders from Georgia to New Hampshire. This system was to be supported by private subscription; a large sum was already subscribed, and the scheme well under way, when the war ended all the plans. Goddard had this much to heart, and had travelled extensively through the colonies exploiting it. While he was away on these trips he left the newspaper and printing-house solely under the charge of his sister Mary Katharine Goddard, the worthy daughter of her energetic mother. From 1775 to 1784, through the trying times of the Revolution, and in a most active scene of military and political troubles, this really brilliant woman continued to print successfully and continuously her newspaper. The Journal and every other work issued from her printing-presses were printed and published in her name, and it is believed chiefly on her own account. She was a woman of much intelligence and was also practical, being an expert compositor of types, and fully conversant with every detail of the mechanical work of a printing-office. During this busy time she was also postmistress of Baltimore, and kept a bookshop. Her brother William, through his futile services in this postal scheme, had been led to believe he would receive under Benjamin Franklin and the new government of the United States, the appointment of Secretary and Comptroller of the Post Office; but Franklin gave it to his own son-in-law, Richard Bache. Goddard, sorely disappointed but pressed in money matters, felt forced to accept the position of Surveyor of Post Roads. When Franklin went to France in 1776, and Bache became Postmaster-General, and Goddard again was not appointed Comptroller, his chagrin caused him to resign his office, and naturally to change his political principles.
He retired to Baltimore, and soon there appeared in the Journal an ironical piece (written by a member of Congress) signed Tom Tell Truth. From this arose a vast political storm. The Whig Club of Baltimore, a powerful body, came to Miss Goddard and demanded the name of the author; she referred them to her brother. On his refusal to give the author’s name, he was seized, carried to the clubhouse, bullied, and finally warned out of town and county. He at once went to the Assembly at Annapolis and demanded protection, which was given him. He ventilated his wrongs in a pamphlet, and was again mobbed and insulted. In 1779, Anna Goddard printed anonymously in her paper Queries Political and Military, written really by General Charles Lee, the enemy and at one time presumptive rival of Washington. This paper also raised a tremendous storm through which the Goddards passed triumphantly. Lee remained always a close friend of William Goddard, and bequeathed to him his valuable and interesting papers, with the intent of posthumous publication; but, unfortunately, they were sent to England to be printed in handsome style, and were instead imperfectly and incompletely issued, and William Goddard received no benefit or profit from their sale. But Lee left him also, by will, a large and valuable estate in Berkeley County, Virginia, so he retired from public life and ended his days on a Rhode Island farm. Anna Katharine Goddard lived to great old age. The story of this acquaintance with General Lee, and of Miss Goddard’s connection therewith, forms one of the interesting minor episodes of the War.
Just previous to the Revolution, it was nothing very novel or unusual to Baltimoreans to see a woman edit a newspaper. The Maryland Gazette suspended on account of the Stamp Act in 1765, and the printer issued a paper called The Apparition of the Maryland Gazette which is not Dead but Sleepeth; and instead of a Stamp it bore a death’s head with the motto, “The Times are Dismal, Doleful, Dolorous, Dollarless.” Almost immediately after it resumed publication, the publisher died, and from 1767 to 1775 it was carried on by his widow, Anne Katharine Green, sometimes assisted by her son, but for five years alone. The firm name was Anne Katharine Green & Son: and she also did the printing for the Colony. She was about thirty-six years old when she assumed the business, and was then the mother of six sons and eight daughters. Her husband was the fourth generation from Samuel Green, the first printer in New England, from whom descended about thirty ante-Revolutionary printers. Until the Revolution there was always a Printer Green in Boston. Mr. Green’s partner, William Rind, removed to Williamsburg and printed there the Virginia Gazette. At his death, widow Clementina Rind, not to be outdone by Widow Green and Mother and Sister Goddard, proved that what woman has done woman can do, by carrying on the business and printing the Gazette till her own death in 1775.
It is indeed a curious circumstance that, on the eve of the Revolution, so many southern newspapers should be conducted by women. Long ere that, from 1738 to 1740, Elizabeth Timothy, a Charleston woman, widow of Louis Timothy, the first librarian of the Philadelphia Library company, and publisher of the South Carolina Gazette, carried on that paper after her husband’s death; and her son, Peter Timothy, succeeded her. In 1780 his paper was suspended, through his capture by the British. He was exchanged, and was lost at sea with two daughters and a grandchild, while on his way to Antigua to obtain funds. He had a varied and interesting life, was a friend of Parson Whitefield, and was tried with him on a charge of libel against the South Carolina ministers. In 1782 his widow, Anne Timothy, revived the Gazette, as had her mother-in-law before her, and published it successfully twice a week for ten years till her death in 1792. She had a large printing-house, corner of Broad and King Streets, Charleston, and was printer to the State; truly a remarkable woman.
Peter Timothy’s sister Mary married Charles Crouch, who also was drowned when on a vessel bound to New York. He was a sound Whig and set up a paper in opposition to the Stamp Act, called The South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal. This was one of the four papers which were all entitled Gazettes in order to secure certain advertisements that were all directed by law “to be inserted in the South Carolina Gazette.” Mary Timothy Crouch continued the paper for a short time after her husband’s death; and in 1780 shortly before the surrender of the city to the British, went with her printing-press and types to Salem, where for a few months she printed The Salem Gazette and General Advertiser. I have dwelt at some length on the activity and enterprise of these Southern women, because it is another popular but unstable notion that the women of the North were far more energetic and capable than their Southern sisters; which is certainly not the case in this line of business affairs.
Benjamin and James Franklin were not the only members of the Franklin family who were capable newspaper-folk. James Franklin died in Newport in 1735, and his widow Anne successfully carried on the business for many years. She had efficient aid in her two daughters, who were quick and capable practical workers at the compositor’s case, having been taught by their father, whom they assisted in his lifetime. Isaiah Thomas says of them:—