Early American publishers and printers

Early American publishers and printers played a central role in the social, religious, political and commercial development of the Thirteen Colonies in British America prior to and during the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War that established American independence.

Printing and publishing in the 17th and 18th centuries in the colonies first emerged as a result of religious enthusiasm and over the scarcity and subsequent great demand for bibles and other religious literature. By the mid-18th century, printing took on new proportions with the newspapers that began to emerge, especially in Boston. When the British Crown began imposing new taxes, many of these newspapers became highly critical and outspoken about the British colonial government, which was widely considered unfair among the colonists.^[1][2][3][4]

In the early years of colonial settlement, communication between the various colonies, which were often hundreds of miles apart, was generally restricted to dispatches, hand-written one at a time, then carried by private carriers to their destinations. Prior to 1700, there were no newspapers in the colonies, so official news came slowly, especially to those who lived away from the colonial seat of government in the major townships or in the remote countryside.^[5] Colonial law and news overall was therefore not available in comprehensive print form for the common colonist, whose only knowledge of these things was usually passed on by word of mouth from colonial officials or traveling couriers, or by means of a simple post in a town square. Religious literature was also scarce, and while many colonists possessed bibles, usually brought over from England, they were generally in short supply, while religious literature overall was in great demand among the colonists.^[6]

As the British Parliament continued imposing additional taxes, especially in 1765 with the Stamp Act, several colonial newspapers and pamphlets began openly editorializing against British policies and supporting the aims of the American Revolution. The most notable printers of the time included Benjamin Franklin, William Goddard, William Bradford and others, who were politically involved in the controversy with the British Crown over taxation, freedom of the press and other such rights. A number of printers, including Goddard and Bradford, belonged to the Sons of Liberty and used their printing presses as a means of promoting colonial opposition to the Stamp Act and other royal legislation they deemed unfair to them as colonial Englishmen who lacked representation in the Parliament.^[7] The open criticism of such advents coming from the press often brought accusations of printing libelous and seditious material.^[5][8]

The plentiful historical accounts of the colonial period still have brought little investigation into how printers affected the religious, social and political growth in the colonies. Most scholarship on printers and publishing in the colonies confines itself to either an account of individuals such as Isaiah Thomas in the context of each colony, or only lends itself to the mechanics of printing presses and typography, as does Lawrence Wroth in The Colonial Printer.^[9] According to Wroth, however, the overall subject of early American printing and publishing as it affected political and social issues in the colonies and how it ultimately led to a revolution, which is the focus of this article, has been pursued with a "noticeable reluctance".^[4][10]