Mary Goddard
Mary Katherine Goddard (June 16, 1738 — August 12, 1816) was an early American publisher, and the postmaster of the Baltimore Post Office from 1775 to 1789. She printed the Goddard Broadside, which was the second printing of the Declaration of Independence.
Mary's parents, both prominent figures in Connecticut society, were Dr. Giles Goddard, a wealthy doctor and postmaster of New London under Benjamin Franklin, and Sarah Updike Goddard who was also well educated and later ran a family printing business.[1] Soon after Giles Goddard died, Goddard’s mother Sarah Updike moved the family to Providence, Rhode Island. Mary's younger brother was William Goddard, who founded the Providence Gazette in 1762. He later founded the Pennsylvania Chronicle in 1767, and Sarah and Mary later managed that paper so that William could spend more time on other businesses.[2] In 1773, the Pennsylvania Chronicle was forced to go out of business, because the British Crown post refused to deliver the newspaper in the mail. William Goddard circumvented these censorship efforts by designing an alternative, and distinctly American, postal system and challenged the Crown postal system. Together with Benjamin Franklin, William Goddard founded the Constitutional Post, which was so successful that it drove the Crown post out of business by Christmas 1775. The Constitutional Post was important in allowing pro-revolution activists to stay in communication despite Crown censorship.
William also had been the publisher and printer of the Maryland Journal, a Baltimore-based pro-revolution newspaper. Mary Goddard took control of the journal in 1774 while her brother was traveling to promote his Constitutional Post. She continued to publish it throughout the American Revolutionary War until 1784, when her brother forced her to give up the newspaper.
In 1775, Mary became postmaster of the Baltimore post office. She also ran a book store and published an almanac. She served as Baltimore's postmaster until 1789, when Postmaster General Samuel Osgood replaced her with a political crony. She continued to run the bookshop until 1810.
Goddard Broadside
On January 18, 1777, the Second Continental Congress moved that the Declaration of Independence be widely distributed, and Mary offered her printing presses. Signing and printing the declaration involved legal risks because the document was considered treason against the Crown. Although an early version was printed, the Goddard Broadside was the first to include the names of all the signers, and Mary printed her own name at the bottom as its printer.[3][4]
References
- ↑ Baltimore Heritage
- ↑ Vaughn, Stephen L. (2008). Elmira: Encyclopedia of American journalism. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-415-96950-5.
- ↑ Boonshoft, Mark (June 29, 2016). Mary Katherine Goddard's Declaration of Independence.
- ↑ Dvorak, Petula. "This woman’s name appears on the Declaration of Independence. So why don’t we know her story?", July 3, 2017. Retrieved on July 31, 2017.