The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 08 - The Later Renaissance: from Gutenberg to the Reformation by Unknown
page 22 of 511 (04%)
page 22 of 511 (04%)
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outside of Massachusetts.
In 1685 printing began in Pennsylvania, a few years later in New York, and in Connecticut in 1709. From 1685 to 1693 William Bradford, an English Quaker, conducted a press in Philadelphia, and in the latter year he removed his plant to New York. He was the first notable American printer, and became official printer for Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Maryland. His first book was an almanac for 1686. In 1725 he founded the _New York Gazette_, the first newspaper in New York. But the first newspaper published in the English colonies was the _Boston News-Letter_, founded in 1704 by John Campbell, a bookseller and postmaster in Boston. Only four American periodicals had been established when, in 1729, Benjamin Franklin, who was already printer to the Pennsylvania Assembly, became proprietor and editor of the _Pennsylvania Gazette_. Until the last quarter of the eighteenth century the progress of printing in America was slow. But in 1784 the first daily newspaper, the _American Daily Advertiser_, was issued in Philadelphia, and from this time periodical publications multiplied and the printing of books increased, until the agency and influence of the press became as marked in the United States as in the leading countries of Europe. Even since the time when Bohn wrote, the progress made in various branches of the printer's art has been such as might have astonished that famous publisher of so many standard works. Recent improvements for increasing the capacity of the press, and often the quality of its productions, are quite comparable to those which our own time has seen in other departments of industry, as in the applications of electricity and the like. In addition to the further development of stereotyping, there |
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