Colonial dames and good wives

by Alice Morse Earle

A gentleman who was acquainted with Anne Franklin and her family, informed me that he had often seen her daughters at work in the printing house, and that they were sensible and amiable women.

We can well believe that, since they had Franklin and Anne Franklin blood in them. This competent and industrious trio of women not only published the Newport Mercury, but were printers for the colony, supplying blanks for public offices, publishing pamphlets, etc. In 1745 they printed for the Government an edition of the laws of the colony of 340 pages, folio. Still further, they carried on a business of “printing linens, calicoes, silks, &c., in figures, very lively and durable colors, and without the offensive smell which commonly attends linen-printing.” Surely there was no lack of business ability on the distaff side of the Franklin house.

Boston women gave much assistance to their printer-husbands. Ezekiel Russel, the editor of that purely political publication, The Censor, was in addition a printer of chap-books and ballads which were sold from his stand near the Liberty Tree on Boston Common. His wife not only helped him in printing these, but she and another young woman of his household, having ready pens and a biddable muse, wrote with celerity popular and seasonable ballads on passing events, especially of tragic or funereal cast; and when these ballads were printed with a nice border of woodcuts of coffins and death’s heads, they often had a long and profitable run of popularity. After his death, Widow Russel still continued ballad making and monging.

It was given to a woman, Widow Margaret Draper, to publish the only newspaper which was issued in Boston during the siege, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News Letter. And a miserable little sheet it was, vari-colored, vari-typed, vari-sized; of such poor print that it is scarcely readable. When the British left Boston, Margaret Draper left also, and resided in England, where she received a pension from the British government.

The first newspaper in Pennsylvania was entitled The American Weekly Mercury. It was “imprinted by Andrew Bradford” in 1719. He was a son of the first newspaper printer in New York, William Bradford, Franklin’s “cunning old fox,” who lived to be ninety-two years old, and whose quaint tombstone may be seen in Trinity Churchyard. At Andrew’s death in 1742, the paper appeared in mourning, and it was announced that it would be published by “the widow Bradford.” She took in a partner, but speedily dropped him, and carried it on in her own name till 1746. During the time that Cornelia Bradford printed this paper it was remarkable for its good type and neatness.

The Connecticut Courant and The Centinel were both of them published for some years by the widows of former proprietors.

The story of John Peter Zenger, the publisher of The New York Weekly Journal, is one of the most interesting episodes in our progress to free speech and liberty, but cannot be dwelt on here. The feminine portion of his family was of assistance to him. His daughter was mistress of a famous New York tavern that saw many remarkable visitors, and heard much of the remarkable talk of Zenger’s friends. After his death in 1746, his newspaper was carried on by his widow for two years. Her imprint was, “New York; Printed by the Widow Cathrine Zenger at the Printing-Office in Stone Street; Where Advertisements are taken in, and all Persons may be supplied with this Paper.”

The whole number of newspapers printed before the Revolution was not very large; and when we see how readily and successfully this considerable number of women assumed the cares of publishing, we know that the “newspaper woman” of that day was no rare or presumptuous creature, any more than is the “newspaper-woman” of our own day, albeit she was of very different ilk; but the spirit of independent self-reliance, when it became necessary to exhibit self-reliance, was as prompt and as stable in the feminine breast a century and a half ago as now. Then, as to-day, there were doubtless scores of good wives and daughters who materially assisted their husbands in their printing-shops, and whose work will never be known.

There is no doubt that our great-grandmothers possessed wonderful ability to manage their own affairs, when it became necessary to do so, even in extended commercial operations. It is easy to trace in the New England coast towns one influence which tended to interest them, and make them capable of business transactions. They constantly heard on all sides the discussion of foreign trade, and were even encouraged to enter into the discussion and the traffic. They heard the Windward Islands, the Isle of France, and Amsterdam, and Canton, and the coast of Africa described by old travelled mariners, by active young shipmasters, in a way that put them far more in touch with these far-away foreign shores, gave them more knowledge of details of life in those lands, than women of to-day have. And women were encouraged, even urged, to take an active share in foreign trade, in commercial speculation, by sending out a “venture” whenever a vessel put out to sea, and whenever the small accumulation of money earned by braiding straw, knitting stockings, selling eggs or butter, or by spinning and weaving, was large enough to be worth thus investing; and it needed not to be a very large sum to be deemed proper for investment. When a ship sailed out to China with cargo of ginseng, the ship’s owner did not own all the solid specie in the hold—the specie that was to be invested in the rich and luxurious products of far Cathay. Complicated must have been the accounts of these transactions, for many were the parties in the speculation. There were no giant monopolies in those days. The kindly ship-owner permitted even his humblest neighbor to share his profits. And the profits often were large. The stories of some of the voyages, the adventures of the business contracts, read like a fairy tale of commerce. In old letters may be found reference to many of the ventures sent by women. One young woman wrote in 1759:—

Inclos’d is a pair of Earrings. Pleas ask Captin Oliver to carry them a Ventur fer me if he Thinks they will fetch anything to the Vally of them; tell him he may bring the effects in anything he thinks will answer best.