The Colonial Printer

by Lawrence C. Wroth

Beautifully illustrated study explores every aspect of the American printer and his craft from 1639 to 1800.

Genres: Research

Paperback

First published October 1, 1930

About the author

Lawrence Counselman Wroth (1884-1970)

Reviews

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book, which is a Dover reprint of a book originally published in the 1930s, while visiting Colonial Williamsburg. Wroth's purpose is to identify the earliest printing houses in the American colonies and track the spread of the printing trade through English America along with giving a portrait of how those colonial printing houses operated. The book opens by identifying the earliest date when printing appeared in each of the colonies. Unfortunately, this is probably the weakest section for the book for modern readers as new historical evidence has undoubtedly been uncovered in the 70 years since this book was originally published. From there, the book tackles the details of the trade itself including the types of printing presses common in the colonies, the sources and costs of paper and ink, and the types of printed items that were commonly produced on the presses. There are plenty of fascinating nuggets scattered through the book. For instance, it wasn't uncommon for colonial printing houses to be run by women if the original owner died and only his widow or another female relative was left to inherit the business. The metal type used in the presses was imported from Europe and was often more expensive then all the other printing house's equipment combined. Type founding wasn't practiced locally until the late 1760s, which gives an idea of how rural the American colonies were during the time of the revolution. Wroth hypothesizes that it was English taxes on paper which helped turn the newspapers--which were edited and produced most often by the printers themselves--against the monarchy and encouraged them to promote the revolutionary agenda.

Besides the dated material, which is to be expected, the biggest problem with this book is that Wroth makes the assumption that the reader is familiar with printing press technology and processes. Much of the work serves to contrast the printing houses of colonial America from their counterparts in Europe and from the evolution of printing technology that occurred in post-revolutionary America. For a reader unfamiliar with this material much of book will be incomprehensible. Overall, the book is probably too dated to serve much purpose other than encouraging an interested reader to discover more about early American printing.