before the witch hunts in Salem would end.
In the male dominated Puritan Society, anything that empowered women to shed the meek and mild servitude role was perceived as a threat to the hierarchy. Certainly the controversial practice of witchcraft encouraged independence, strength, and insight in women. Reportedly, the Craft enabled women to call upon the kinds of natural forces and supernatural powers that threatened the very core of the Puritan belief system.
Westwood writes that Bridget Bishop “was independent, attractive, and aggressive. In another time, she would have been praised for these qualities; but, in 1692, she was executed.”
August 22, 1735
The sister-in-law of statesman Benjamin Franklin becomes the first female newspaper editor in the United States. Ann Smith Franklin takes over operation of the Newport Mercury upon the death of her son, James Franklin, Jr. in 1762. She would edit the paper until her death on April 16, 1763.
Ann Smith had married James Franklin Sr. in 1723, when James was operating The New-England Courant out of Boston. It was at the Courant that Benjamin Franklin had assumed his printer’s apprenticeship with his brother James, nine years his senior. The Courant enjoyed a controversial run in Boston, often challenging the established church of the famed minister Cotton Mathers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the end the Courant was sharply censored by the Colony’s General Court for publishing supposedly “wicked” articles, for which James was jailed. In 1726, James, Sr. and Ann moved to the freer atmosphere of Newport, Rhode Island, where they bought the first printing press in Colony, and published its first newspaper, The Rhode Island Gazette.
James Sr. died in 1735, leaving the widow Ann at age 39 to support four children: James, Jr., Abiah, Mary, and Elizabeth (a fifth child had died). Having been steeped in the printing business with James, Ann took over her husband’s printing business in Newport. She took on the role many colonial period wives assumed: the place of deputy husband, carrying on the business when the husband could no longer. In time, she proved her self a competent printer in her own right, and achieved the economic self-reliance that eluded so many women in that time period.
Ann’s son, James Jr., took over the printing business when he returned from his own apprenticeship in 1748. He started the Newport Mercury in 1758, but then he died in 1762. Once again, Ann was compelled to take over the family business, but this time including the role of editor for the Newport Mercury.
Over the years, Ann Franklin published many notable documents. She would revive the Rhode Island Almanack and became official printer to the colony. In 1745, she undertook her largest commission, printing five hundred copies of the folio edition of the Acts and Laws of Rhode Island. An original marbled copy remains with Princeton University, as does a copy of the Rhode Island Colony’s charter granted by Charles II, entitled The Charter Granted by His Majesty King Charles II to the Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence-Plantations, in New-England in America.
October 14, 1741
In a letter to her father Colonel George Lucas, nineteen year old Eliza Lucas reports of her success in cultivating a small crop of indigo bushes from seeds he had sent her from the West Indies. Eliza Lucas also bids him to send her more seeds from the indigofera tinctoria, so she can increase production of the crop. Within five years, this legume would generate one of the most coveted blue dyes in England and the American Colonies.
After beginning to experiment with the seeds in 1740, Lucas would quickly encourage her South Carolina neighbors to grow the bushy plant as well. By 1746 indigo would become the South Carolina’s most coveted export crop after rice, greatly enhancing the economy of the colony. Thus, Lucas became one of the most important agriculturists in the American Colonies.
Eliza Lucas was born in Antigua on December 28, 1722. Her father, Lt. Colonel George Lucas served in the British Army on British-ruled Antigua. Educated in England, Eliza studied French and music, but held a particular fascination with botany, even at an early age.
The Lucas family moved to South Carolina in 1737, where George acquired three plantations. He was recalled to Antigua to serve as Royal Governor, leaving young Eliza in charge of the plantations. George trusted Eliza to be a shrewd and capable manager, avoiding sloth and idleness, living neither a luxurious nor extravagant lifestyle. At a time when it was thought that hard work would spoil a woman for her marriage, Eliza seemed to relish her industriousness and sharp business acumen. Although the plantation owned slaves, Eliza operated a school for slaves at a time when it was thought it was wrong to educate slaves, for fear they would only want their freedom.
Already experimenting with crops such as flax, hemp, and silk culture, Eliza’s initial research with indigo did not fair well. Early attempts withered due to frost and pests. However, Eliza persisted, eventually succeeding. Largely due to her efforts, South Carolina increased exportation of indigo from five thousand pounds in 1746, to more than one million pounds by 1775. The legume was particularly popular in European & American textile industries; in the Colonies, indigo was used to dye the uniforms of the Colonial Army. After the Revolution, competition from India – then a British Colony – doomed indigo planting in South Carolina.
At age 22, Eliza Lucas married Charles Pinckney, a judge whose work called him away from home often. Eliza ran his plantation as well as their mansion in Charleston. She eventually gave birth to a daughter and three sons, one of whom died in infancy. Charles would succumb to malaria in 1758. Eliza Lucas Pinckney died in 1793. As an indication of her importance to the colonies, George Washington served as one of the pall bearers at her funeral.
July 26, 1775
The Continental Post Office for the “United Colonies” appoints Mary Katherine Goddard as postmaster of Baltimore, Maryland. Goddard thus becomes the first woman in the United States to hold such an office. She would serve until 1789 when she was removed from the post, apparently mostly for political reasons. Residents of Baltimore petitioned Postmaster General Samuel Osgood to keep Goddard at her post, but to no avail.
Goddard also has the distinction of being one of the first female publishers in United States History. After her father died in 1762, she moved to Providence, Rhode Island to run a print shop with her brother William. In 1766, they began publishing the Providence Gazette, as well as a book called the West’s Almanac.
Goddard was born on June 16, 1738 in Groton or New London, Connecticut. In 1768, she moved to Philadelphia, where she helped William publish the Pennsylvania Chronicle. In 1773, she and her brother opened a third print shop in Baltimore, from which she published a newspaper called The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser from 1774 to 1884. Among the nation’s best newspapers, it was the only one serving Baltimore at the time. A three-column account of the Battle of Bunker Hill appeared in the Advertiser less than a month after it happened. It was considered a major scoop at the time. Goddard would also be the first printer in the country to offer the Declaration of Independence with all the signer’s names listed. Goddard died in Baltimore on August 12, 1816, in Baltimore.
The first woman appointed postmaster after the adoption of the United States Constitution was Sarah De Crow, of Hertford, South Carolina. Reportedly she tried to resign her post several times, due to the small compensation she received for the work. DeCrow was appointed on September 27, 1792, serving until 1795.
March 31, 1776
