The Press of Names — Mary Katherine Goddard

A print shop in Baltimore, January 1777. Months ago Congress declared independence. The official copy of the Declaration has two names at the foot of the page. Hundreds of men signed it. The rest of the names are not on any printed document yet. They need to be.

It is January 1777.

She does not just run a newspaper. She runs the Maryland Journal and the Baltimore Advertiser through the war, keeping the colonial press alive when most printers have gone quiet.

She does not just keep the press alive. She serves as postmaster of Baltimore for eight years, organizing the mail routes that carry the war’s news across the colonies, doing the job well enough that no one questions it until the post office decides the position requires a man.

She does not just print a broadside. She prints the first official copy of the Declaration of Independence to carry every signer’s name. The earlier printing had two. This one has all of them. At the bottom, in the printer’s imprint, is her own.

Her Spark of Liberty was the imprint. The printer’s name at the foot of the page that says: this was made here, by this hand, in this city, in this year, and the name is hers.

Now, “Where History Comes to Life.”

She set the type and ran the press in Baltimore in January 1777. The document listed the men who had signed the Declaration of Independence, every name in full. If the Revolution had failed, that sheet was a death list, and hers was the only name on it that had signed nothing. She put it there anyway. She was dismissed from the Baltimore postmaster’s office years later when the federal government decided the position was a man’s job. She contested the dismissal. She never got the job back. She died in Baltimore in 1816.

Her name was Mary Katherine Goddard.

Now We Know Em
by Christopher B. Gordon

The Speedwell’s Confession, Book One of the Sparks of Liberty series, is live on Amazon Kindle and free with Kindle Unlimited. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GZ5QH7L8

www.NowWeKnowEm.com

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