Isaiah Thomas
Encyclopedia
- For people with the same or similar name, see Isiah Thomas (disambiguation)Isiah Thomas (disambiguation)Isiah Thomas is a retired basketball player.Isiah or Isaiah Thomas may also refer to:*Isaiah Thomas , revolutionary-era publisher and author*Isaiah Thomas , University of Washington college basketball player...
Isaiah Thomas (January 30, 1749 - April 4, 1831), was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
newspaper publisher
History of American newspapers
The history of American newspapers goes back to the 17th century with the publication of the first colonial newspapers.-Colonial period:-The New England Courant:...
and author. He performed the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence
Declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...
in Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
and reported the first account of the Battles of Lexington and Concord
Battles of Lexington and Concord
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy , and Cambridge, near Boston...
. He was the founder of the American Antiquarian Society
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society , located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and national research library of pre-twentieth century American History and culture. Its main building, known also as Antiquarian Hall, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark...
.
Early life and career
Thomas was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was apprenticed on July 7, 1756 to Zechariah Fowle, a Boston printer, with whom, after working as a printer in HalifaxCity of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
, Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Portsmouth is a city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire in the United States. It is the largest city but only the fourth-largest community in the county, with a population of 21,233 at the 2010 census...
, and Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, he formed a partnership in 1770.
In Boston, in 1774, Thomas published the Royal American Magazine
Royal American Magazine
The Royal American Magazine, or Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement was a short-lived monthly periodical published in Boston, Massachusetts by Isaiah Thomas and later by Joseph Greenleaf. It supported patriot sentiment...
, which was continued for a short time by Joseph Greenleaf, and which contained many engravings by Paul Revere
Paul Revere
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
.
The Massachusetts Spy
Massachusetts Spy
The Massachusetts Spy was a newspaper published by Isaiah Thomas in Boston and Worcester, Massachusetts in the 18th century.-Further reading:...
three times each week, then (under his sole ownership) as a semi-weekly, and beginning in 1771, as a weekly which soon espoused the Whig cause and which the government tried to suppress.
Escape to Worcester
On the April 16, 1775 (three days before the Battle of Concord, in which he took part), Thomas took his presses from Boston and set them up in WorcesterWorcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
, where he was also postmaster for a time. There he published and sold books, built a paper-mill and bindery, and continued the paper until 1802 save for gaps in 1776-1778 and in 1786-1788. The Spy supported Washington and the Federalist Party.
Thomas Married Mary Fowle, described as a "half-cousin", on May 26, 1779. Around 1802, Thomas gave his Worcester business over to his son, including the control of the Spy.
Later life
Thomas set up printing houses and book stores in various parts of the country.From 1775 until 1803, Thomas published the New England Almanac, continued until 1819 by his son, Isaiah Thomas, Jr. In Boston he published the monthly Massachusetts Magazine
Massachusetts Magazine
The Massachusetts Magazine was published in Boston, Massachusetts, from 1789 through 1796. Also called the Monthly Museum of Knowledge and Rational Entertainment, it specialized in "poetry, music, biography, history, physics, geography, morality, criticism, philosophy, mathematics, agriculture,...
, with Ebenezer T. Andrews, from 1789 to 1793. At Walpole, New Hampshire
Walpole, New Hampshire
Walpole is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,734 at the 2010 census.The town's central settlement, where 605 people resided at the 2010 census, is defined as the Walpole census-designated place , and is east of New Hampshire Route 12...
, he also published the Farmer's Museum. His ambition throughout his life was to write an extensive book on the history of publishing. He began what would become History of Printing in America in 1808. Fully titled History of Printing in America, with a Biography of Printers, and an Account of Newspapers, it was published in two volumes in 1810. A second edition, published in 1874, was prepared by his grandson Benjamin Franklin Thomas and included a catalog of American publications previous to 1776 and a memoir of Isaiah Thomas.
In November 1812, Thomas founded the American Society of Antiquaries, now known as the American Antiquarian Society
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society , located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and national research library of pre-twentieth century American History and culture. Its main building, known also as Antiquarian Hall, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark...
, partly to take care of the extensive library he had accumulated in preparing his history of publishing. At its first meeting, Thomas was elected president, a role he held until his death.
Thomas spent his final days in Worcester. Upon his death in 1831, he bequeathed his entire library, his collection of early American newspapers, as well as his personal papers and records to the American Antiquarian Society.
Legacy
Thomas's grandson B. F. Thomas noted his grandfather's importance in founding the American Antiquarian Society. "He saw and understood, no man better, from what infinitely varied and minute sources the history of a nation's life was to be drawn; that the only safe rule was to gather up all the fragments so that nothing be lost." In 1943, Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
created the Carey-Thomas Award for creative publishing, naming it honor of Mathew Carey
Mathew Carey
Mathew Carey was an Irish-born American publisher and economist.-Early days:Carey came from a middle-class family and was born in Dublin in 1760. He entered the bookselling and printing business in 1775, and when still only seventeen published a pamphlet criticizing dueling...
and Isaiah Thomas.
Quotation
"But, to my great disappointment, I soon found that people were not to be reasoned out of measures, that they never reasoned themselves into." Worcester Magazine, v. 3, p. 46. 1787.Sources
- unsourced biography from the University of Delaware
- Isaiah Thomas: Find A Grave Memorial