Mary Katherine Goddard

Born June 16, 1738
Groton, Connecticut
Died August 12, 1816
Baltimore, Maryland

Publisher, postmaster, printer of the "authentic copy" of the Declaration of Independence

"An expert and correct compositor of types [typesetter]," according to her brother William.

Mary Katherine Goddard was a successful businessperson of the eighteenth century who turned enterprises begun by her undependable brother into financial successes. She was the most acclaimed female publisher during the American Revolution. Her reputation for quality work spread far beyond the cities where her newspapers were produced. In the end, she was forced to live in near-poverty when she lost her government job because of limitations set on women of her day.

Mary Katherine Goddard was the daughter of Dr. Giles Goddard and printer Sarah Updike Goddard (see box). She was born in Groton, Connecticut. She and her brother William were the only two of the couple's four children who lived to maturity. Goddard received her schooling from her educated mother. Few facts are known about her early life, except that the family moved from Groton to nearby New London, Connecticut, where her father practiced medicine and served as postmaster.

In 1762, after the death of her father, Goddard joined her mother in the printing business in Providence, Rhode Island (owned by her brother). It was during this period that Goddard learned the printing business.

When William moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to open a new printing business, Goddard and her mother stayed behind to manage the Providence shop and print the weekly newspaper, the Providence Gazette. Faced with money problems, William had to sell the Providence business in 1768; the two women then joined him in Philadelphia.

Becomes publisher in Baltimore, Maryland

After her mother died, Goddard became the office manager, helping her brother produce the Pennsylvania Chronicle newspaper. In 1773 the ever-restless William moved once again, this time to Baltimore, Maryland, to launch a new business venture. Goddard stayed in Philadelphia, running the printing shop until it was sold in early 1774. She then went on to Baltimore to join William.

In 1775, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress (the legislative body of the American colonies) began work on establishing a national postal service. William was asked to help, and he put his sister in charge of the Baltimore business. She became publisher of Baltimore's first newspaper, the Maryland Journal, and she performed the task so well that her reputation as a newspaperwoman was made.

Goddard continued printing the Journal during the years of the American Revolution. When standard size paper was difficult to find because of wartime shortages, she sometimes had to produce the Journal on small sheets of paper, the only paper available to her. Throughout the war years other newspapers had similar problems, but only Goddard consistently managed to publish a newspaper. She kept American patriots informed about the latest war news, and she made a major contribution to the cause of independence by publishing facts, not rumors. When she retired as its editor in 1784, the Journal had become one of the most widely read publications in the United States.

Prints Declaration, gains reputation for excellence

Goddard's most famous contribution to the war effort occurred on January 18, 1777. She was chosen by the Continental Congress to print the first copies of the Declaration of Independence that included all the names of the document's signers.

The first printing of the document, on July 4, 1776, had contained only the names of John Hancock and Charles Thomson; the names of the other signers were kept secret for a time because of fear that the British would take revenge on them. By its order of January 18, 1777, Congress required that "an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence, with the names of the members of Congress subscribing to the same [supporting the document], be sent to each of the United States."

The complete copy was then printed, with all the signers' names, by Mary Katherine Goddard in Baltimore. The importance of this event did not escape Goddard; she signed the piece with her full name, rather than her customary initials. Each of the thirteen states in the union received a copy.

Unfortunately for historians, none of Goddard's personal letters have survived. Goddard's Baltimore printing business prospered during the ten years she was in charge of it. William helped only occasionally, as he pursued his other business interests. Mary Katherine Goddard remained a respected member of the Baltimore community, even though her brother was twice threatened by local mobs because of newspaper articles he had written that were thought to be unpatriotic.

Begins new career as postmaster

Near the end of Goddard's time as publisher, the two Goddard siblings often disagreed. Mary Katherine finally became completely alienated from William after a bitter battle between the two. William had decided to take over the paper from his sister and paid her a pitiful sum for her share of it. Forever after, she would have nothing to do with her brother, and she even refused to attend his wedding. The falling out marked the end of Mary Katherine Goddard's career as a printer.

Fortunately, Goddard had other interests she could fall back on. For years, she had been binding books (attaching the covers and backing on books), and she proceeded to further develop this business. In 1775 Goddard had accepted a position as postmaster of Baltimore, the first woman to hold such a position in the United States, and one of the few to be granted any type of public appointment in the 1700s. In 1781, as a patriotic service, she published An Almanac and Ephemeris (a calendar), which featured the schedule of court sessions in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Goddard kept the postmaster's job for fourteen years, until it began to require widespread travel—respectable women of the time did not travel alone. In a remarkable development, more than two hundred businessmen signed a petition that she be allowed to keep the position. But their protests fell on deaf ears within the federal government. Against her will, she was retired from her post in October 1789.

Runs bookstore, dies

Following the loss of her job, Goddard continued to live in Baltimore, where she ran a book shop on the city's Market Square from 1784 until about 1810. Mary Katherine Goddard, who never married, died in Baltimore on August 12, 1816, at the age of seventy-eight. She was buried in the cemetery of Baltimore's St. Paul's Church.

Goddard's will freed the female slave who had been her assistant during her later years. The woman, Belinda Starling, also inherited Goddard's meager estate. Some years later, Goddard's memory was honored when the Omaha, Nebraska, members of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a group of women who can trace their ancestry back to the earliest days of America, named its chapter for her.

For More Information

Claghorn, Charles E. "Goddard, Mary Katherine" in Women Patriots of the American Revolution, A Biographical Dictionary. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1991, pp. 87–88.

Farragher, John Mack, ed. "Goddard, Mary Katherine" in Encyclopedia of Colonial and Revolutionary America. New York: Facts on File, 1990, p. 171.

Henry, Susan. "Sarah Goddard, Gentlewoman Printer." Journalism Quarterly 57 (Spring 1980), pp. 23–30.

Humphrey, Carol Sue. "Goddard, Mary Katherine" in American National Biography. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, vol. 9, pp. 136–37.

Miner, Ward L. "Goddard, Mary Katherine" in Notable American Women. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1971, vol. 2, pp. 55–56.

Zeinert, Karen. Those Remarkable Women of the American Revolution. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press, 1996, p. 47–48.

Sarah Updike Goddard, Colonial Printer

Mary Katherine Goddard's mother, Sarah Updike Goddard, was also a remarkable woman. She was born around 1700 near Wickford, Rhode Island, to a family whose ancestors had emigrated from Germany in the 1600s. Her mother was Abigail Newton Updike, and her father, Lodowick Updike, was a public office holder and a landowner of some wealth.

Goddard studied French, Latin, and other subjects at her home under the guidance of a French tutor. She married Dr. Giles Goddard of Connecticut in 1735 and moved with him to New London, Connecticut. After the death of her husband in 1757, Sarah Goddard paid for her son, William, to be trained as a printer and to begin a printing business in Providence, Rhode Island. There she and her daughter Mary Katherine helped him run the newspaper he had established, the

Providence Gazette. The paper printed a number of articles speaking out in favor of colonial rights in pre-Revolutionary times. A special issue in 1765 rallied its readers in opposition to the Stamp Act, a British measure that required that colonists pay for specially stamped paper to be used for all official documents.

After her son moved to New York, Goddard continued to supervise the printing office, publishing the newspaper, the annual West's Almanack, and various pamphlets. She reorganized the business under the name Sarah Goddard and Company, working with her daughter and other assistants. When times were hard, she sometimes traded copies of the paper for food and other goods. Along with her daughter, she was forced out of the printing business by her son William in November 1768. She died in Philadelphia in 1770, at the age of seventy.