Goddard, Mary Katherine

Mary Katherine Goddard, (born June 16, 1738, Groton or New London, Conn. [U.S.]—died Aug. 12, 1816, Baltimore, Md.), early American printer and publisher who was also probably the first woman postmaster in America.

Goddard grew up in New London, Connecticut. In 1762 she and her widowed mother moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where her elder brother William had opened a printing office. Both she and her mother assisted in the business, and from the summer of 1765, when William moved to Philadelphia, they operated it themselves, including the editing and publishing of the Providence Gazette from 1766 and the issuing of the annual West’s Almanack. Late in 1768 they sold the business and joined William in Philadelphia. Mary Goddard assisted in the publishing of the Pennsylvania Chronicle until August 1773, when William moved to Baltimore and she took over sole responsibility for the Philadelphia business. In February 1774 she sold that interest and moved to Baltimore, where she soon took over William’s weekly Maryland Journal and the Baltimore Advertiser.

From May 1775 Goddard’s role as editor and publisher was formally acknowledged in the paper’s colophon. She maintained the newspaper and the printing business through the American Revolution. In 1775 she also became postmaster of Baltimore; she was probably the first woman to hold such a position in America. In January 1777 she issued the first printed copy of the Declaration of Independence to include the signers’ names. Following a quarrel in January 1784, William displaced his sister as publisher of the Maryland Journal; she nonetheless managed to issue an almanac in her own name late that year. She continued as postmaster until October 1789, when she was replaced by a male appointee who could undertake the travel necessary to supervise the operations of the postal service through the South. Her removal was widely protested in Baltimore. Goddard operated a bookstore until 1809 or 1810.