vi

Biographical material about the printers of these
books and newspapers was considerably more difficult to
find. Only throe of the forty-three individual printers
who fall within the scope of this study ever achieved
national prominence. Of these three, William Goddard
belongs primarily to an earlier period, the Revolution-
ary War and the Constitutional Period of United States
history; Hezekiah Niles, of Weekly Register fame, to
a later period; and the third, the Reverend James Jones
Wilmer was very probably not a printer at all; he appears
with William Pechin as joint publisher of the Eagle of
Freedom, but his connection with that newspaper was very
likely confined to editing.

The newspapers published in Maryland between 1791
and 1800 were the chief - sometimes the only - resource.
Besides giving titles of books published, they often con-
tained notices or advertisements which were the only
duos for fixing the dates of a printer's work in Mary-
land, for opening or closing a partnership, or -
usually in the case of newspaper printers - for fixing
small but important details about the organization of
the business, the staff employed, and the success of the
enterprise. These notices have often been reproduced
here in the printer's own words, fer in no other way
can the spirit and stylo of the period be effectively
carried into another century.