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Bibliography of early American publishers and printers is a selection of books, journals and other publications devoted to these topics covering their careers and other activities before, during and just after the American Revolution. Various works that are not primarily devoted to those topics, but whose content devotes itself to them in significant measure, are sometimes included here also. Works about Benjamin Franklin, a famous printer and publisher, among other things, are too numerous to list in this bibliography, can be found at Bibliography of Benjamin Franklin, and are generally not included here unless they are greatly devoted to Franklin's printing career. Single accounts of printers and publishers that occur in encyclopedia articles are neither included here.
Marmaduke Johnson was a London printer who was commissioned and sailed from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1660 to assist Samuel Green in the printing of The Indian Bible, which had been laboriously translated by John Eliot into the Massachusett Indian language, which became the first Bible printed in America. Johnson is considered the first master printer to emerge in America. When he attempted to operate his own privately owned printing house in Boston, without an official license from the Crown, the Massachusetts General Court interceded and censured his operation, which in turn started one of the first 'Freedom of the Press' issues in colonial America. After several appeals the Court conceded, where Johnson moved to Boston, set up and outfitted his printing shop, and ultimately became the first printer in America allowed to operate his own private printing press. During his printing career, Johnson printed several works for Eliot containing religious material translated for the Indian nations of Massachusetts.
References
- ↑ Littlefield, George Emery (1907). The Early Massachusetts Press, 1638-1711. Club of Odd Volumes. p. 26.
- 1 2 3 Shipton, Clifford Kenyon; Sibley, John Langdon (1873). Sibley's Harvard Graduates Biographical Sketches of Those who Attended Harvard College - 1642-1658. Massachusetts Historical Society. p. 208-9.
- ↑ Columbia Encyclopedia 6th Edition. New York City: Columbia University Press. 2000. p. 1139. ISBN 0787650153. Online article at Encyclopedia.com
- ↑ Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Volumes 62–69. American Antiquarian Society. 1874. p. 9.
- ↑ Barden, Cindy (2001). Life in the Colonies, Grades 4 - 7. Mark Twain Media. p. 46. ISBN 9781580371759.
- ↑ Hruschka, John (2015). How Books Came to America - The Rise of the American Book Trade. Penn State University Press. p. 30. ISBN 9780271068381.
- ↑ "Stephen Day". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 29 October 2022.