Jane Aitken

Early Life and Background

Jane Aitken (11 July 1764 – 29 August 1832) was an early American printer, publisher, bookbinder, and bookseller whose career made her a pioneer among women in the book trades.[1][2][3][6] She was born in Paisley, Scotland, on 11 July 1764, the eldest of four children of Robert Aitken and Janet Skeoch Aitken.[2][3] Her father worked in Scotland as a stationer and book merchant and was already skilled as a printer and bookbinder, professions that would later shape Jane’s own life.[2]

In the later 1760s, Robert Aitken sought new opportunities in the American colonies. Sources indicate that he emigrated from Paisley to Philadelphia around 1769, with Jane arriving there as a child when the family moved.[4][7] Aitken thus grew up in a transatlantic context, experiencing both Scottish and American cultures at a formative age. In Philadelphia, her father established himself as a printer, bookbinder, and bookseller and would become known for publishing in 1782 the first complete English‑language Bible printed in America, the only Bible ever authorized and approved by the Continental Congress.[4][7][8]

Almost nothing is definitively known about Jane’s formal education; printing historian Leona Hudak notes that “almost nothing is known of Jane Aitken’s personal life and work” beyond what can be inferred from imprints and scattered records.[7] However, her later technical competence in printing and binding suggests that she received extensive practical training in her father’s shop. As a girl and young woman, she appears to have worked as a bookbinder for Robert Aitken, learning skills that were essential both to producing books and to running a print establishment.[4][5][7]

Career Beginnings and Development

Aitken’s earliest documented appearance in print occurs in 1796, when her name appears on an imprint as printer.[5] This suggests that by the mid‑1790s she had assumed a visible role in the family business, beyond behind‑the‑scenes assistance. Her work in her father’s office would have included binding, typesetting, and managing the production of books and pamphlets, experience that laid the foundation for her later independent career.[4][5]

In 1802, Robert Aitken died, leaving Jane, by then in her late thirties, to deal with the future of the enterprise. According to detailed research published by the American Antiquarian Society, she was thirty‑eight when she took over his shop after his death, carrying on the business “in all its aspects—printing, binding, and bookselling.”[11] She inherited not only equipment but also substantial debt. Exhibitions from Bridwell Library and Duke University note that the debts were partly incurred by a late brother‑in‑law, and that she inherited the printing works and bookshop along with these obligations.[4][5]

Despite these liabilities, Aitken maintained and expanded the business. Between 1802 and 1812, she published at least sixty imprints, a notable output for any printer of the period and remarkable for a woman.[2][4][5][11] Her clients included learned and civic organizations such as the American Philosophical Society and the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, for whom she printed reports and treatises.[2][4][11] She also printed literary works, notably Kelroy, a novel by Rebecca Rush, which is frequently cited among her publications.[2][11]

As an unmarried woman, Aitken carried significant family responsibilities. Bridwell Library’s "Fifty Women" exhibition notes that she was responsible for her widowed younger sister and a disinherited older brother, obligations that compounded the financial pressures of running a business.[4] She often had to appeal for advances and loans, illustrating the precariousness of women’s economic independence in the early nineteenth century.[4] Nevertheless, contemporary evidence indicates that she earned a strong professional reputation, particularly for the quality of her printing and binding.[4][5][8]

Major Works and Accomplishments

Aitken’s most celebrated achievement is her role in printing Charles Thomson’s English translation of the Septuagint Bible. In 1808, she printed and bound this work in four octavo volumes in Philadelphia, producing what Princeton University Library and Duke University describe as the first English translation of the Septuagint published in America.[4][5][7] Thomson, a former secretary of the Continental Congress, had devoted years to translating the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. When he sought a printer for his major project, he turned to Jane Aitken, whose workshop had demonstrated its capacity for both scholarly and religious printing.[4][5]

The Thomson Bible required careful typography and layout to present the translated text in a readable format. Aitken not only printed but also bound the four volumes, reflecting command of multiple aspects of book production.[5] The resulting edition, while beautifully produced, was a commercial failure, and unsold copies became part of the financial strain she faced.[4][5] Nonetheless, institutions such as the Museum of the Bible and Princeton University Library note that her work on this Bible secured her “a place in history as the first American woman to print a Bible” and specifically the first woman in the United States to print an English translation of the Christian Bible.[4][7][8]

In addition to the Thomson Bible, Aitken produced a variety of other significant works. She printed reports for the American Philosophical Society, including scientific and intellectual texts, and agricultural publications for the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture.[2][4][11] Her imprint appears on Kelroy, a novel by Rebecca Rush, which has received attention from literary scholars and book historians in part because it was printed by a woman at a time when female printers were rare.[2][11][14]

Another major milestone was Aitken’s role in printing the Census directory for 1811 for Philadelphia. This publication has been recognized as the first published census to include African Americans by listing the names, addresses, and occupations of residents and institutions, with a specific section devoted to “persons of colour.”[1][5] The directory thus constitutes one of the earliest examples of a printed census‑style listing that incorporated free Black inhabitants into the civic record. Aitken’s imprint on this work links her career to the history of demographic documentation and the visibility of African Americans in public records.[1][5]

Awards, Honors, and Later Recognition

During her lifetime, Aitken’s recognition appears to have been primarily professional and local, reflected in the commissions she received from learned societies and authors. Formal awards were rare in her field and era, especially for women. However, her reputation has grown significantly through twentieth‑ and twenty‑first‑century scholarship and institutional commemoration.

In 1930, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women conducted a historical search to identify early women in commerce. According to educational summaries, the Federation concluded that Jane Aitken, through her independent printing and publishing enterprise—particularly her work in 1808—had been the first American businesswoman.[6] This designation was retrospective rather than contemporaneous; Aitken did not describe herself in those terms. Nevertheless, the Federation’s conclusion has been widely cited and situates her within narratives of women’s economic history.[6]

Modern exhibits and articles continue to highlight Aitken’s achievements. Bridwell Library’s "Fifty Women" exhibition profiles her as one of fifty historically significant women in book history, emphasizing both her printing of Thomson’s Bible and the difficulties she faced as an unmarried woman bearing family responsibilities and business debts.[4] Duke University Libraries classify her as “the most significant woman bookbinder of the early American Republic,” drawing attention to her technical skill and the quality of her bindings.[5]

In 2026, the Library of Congress blog Bibliomania published an article titled “The Aitken Bible(s)”, which revisited the contributions of Robert and Jane Aitken and explicitly recognized Jane’s 1808 edition as the first Bible printed in the United States by a woman.[4] This piece, along with digital exhibits from Princeton and other institutions, has helped make her work more accessible to scholars and the public and reinforced her status as a pioneering figure in the history of printing and the Bible in America.[4][7][8]

Personal Life

Direct documentation of Aitken’s personal life is sparse. Printing historian Leona Hudak remarks that almost nothing is known of her personal affairs beyond what can be gleaned from business records and imprints.[7] Sources agree that she never married, and that she was responsible for supporting family members, including a widowed younger sister and an older brother who had been disinherited.[4] These responsibilities added to the financial pressures of operating her press.

Religious affiliation is suggested by later accounts stating that she was a member of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. The History of American Women blog notes that her burial place is assumed to be in that church’s now‑destroyed cemetery, though documentation is incomplete.[2] This association aligns with the Scottish Presbyterian background of her family and with the religious character of much of the printing undertaken by her father and herself.

Her daily life would have been structured around the intense labour of printing and binding: managing apprentices or assistants, ordering paper and type, negotiating with authors and booksellers, and meeting the deadlines of institutional clients. The significant output of her shop between 1802 and 1812 suggests that she worked long hours and maintained a high standard of craftsmanship despite limited financial resources.[4][5][11]

Later Life and Death

By the early 1810s, Aitken’s business was under severe financial strain. The combination of inherited debts and the commercial failure of large projects like the Thomson Bible led to mounting obligations. Exhibits from Bridwell Library and Duke University report that in 1813 her printing equipment was sold and she was imprisoned for debt, serving time in the Norristown debtors’ prison.[4][5] The sale of her presses and type effectively ended her ability to function as an independent printer.

After her release, she continued to work as a bookbinder, with sources emphasizing that she was an “outstanding bookbinder” for clients such as the American Philosophical Society.[4][5] Her career as a printer, however, had effectively ended by 1815

Aitken’s health in her later years is not well documented, but her obituary in the Germantown Telegraph reported that she died after a “long and painful illness,” indicating extended suffering prior to her death.[2] She died on 29 August 1832, aged about sixty‑eight, with modern reference works placing her death in Germantown, Pennsylvania.[2][6][10] Although the exact details of her burial are uncertain, the assumption that she was interred in the now‑destroyed cemetery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church reflects both her religious affiliation and the loss of many early nineteenth‑century burial records.[2]