The Printed Book in America

As early as 1638 a printing press was established in Cambridge, Massachusetts Bay Colony, to provide reading material for the spiritual edification of the colonists. The Rev. Jesse Glover and a number of Dutch gentlemen jointly contributed "towards furnishing of a printing-press with letters, forty-nine pounds and something more". The press was run by Mr. Stephen Day, his first publication was the Bay Psalm Book of 1640. While leaden types were still imported from the mother country well into the 18th century, a paper mill was established in Germantown, Pennsylvania as early as 1690, which illustrates the high demand for printed material. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, brought a master printer by the name of William Bradford to Philadelphia. Bradford produced several religious publications and a small number of other printed material, but he soon found that he could not run a profitable business under the oppressive moral code that ruled Penn's colony. An interesting aspect of Colonial American printing is the uniformity of the typefaces used. Virtually every printer seems to have used the same exact type.