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History of Women In Business
– Mary Katherine Goddard
Well not well known, it is possible that she had almost as big a
part in the Declaration of Independence as the signer of the document
themselves.
A printer, patriot and the first postmaster general of Baltimore,
she was most probably the first person to hold such a position. In
January 1777, she issued the first printed copy of the Declaration of
Independence.
In colonial times, printing and newspapers were usually a family
operation. Her mother, having set up her younger brother, Will in the
printing business, he then set up the first newspaper in Providence,
RI, the leaving shortly to begin a newspaper in Philadelphia, PA
followed shortly by Mary. In 1773, both brother and sister moved to
Baltimore, MD to start a paper there. Mary Katherine Goddard worked
along side of her brother Will in his printing business and managed
them while her brother went elsewhere to drum up support for his many
newspapers, almanacs and while he began to set up a colonial postal
system.
Through her brother’s influence, Mary became the first postmaster in
1775. After holding that post for 14 years, but in 1789, the then
Postmaster General, Samuel Osgood, removed her from the
position. stating “more travel…than a woman could undertake…”so she was
replaced by a man who was much less experienced in the postal area than
she. After much complaining about the sexist remark (even to George
Washington himself) and getting no positive response, after leaving the
newspaper business following an argument with her brother in 1785, she
then became a proprietor of a book store until 1810 (probably the first
woman to do so then) and died in 1816.
Besides being the first female publisher and postmaster, Mary
Katharine Goddard was a champion of women’s rights and encouraged other
women to begin careers, to fight the sexism of the era and a very brave
woman. The distribution of the Declaration of Independence had been
seen as treasonable document by the British government.
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