First American woman to print a Bible

Beginning in the publication year 1808, marked here as 1 January 1808, Jane Aitken achieved a landmark in religious and printing history by becoming the first American woman to print a Bible.[4][5][7][8] Her edition was Charles Thomson’s English translation of the Septuagint, issued in four octavo volumes and printed and bound in Philadelphia.

This accomplishment represented multiple firsts. Aitken was the first woman in the United States to print an English translation of the Christian Bible, and Thomson’s work itself was the first English translation of the Septuagint published in America.[4][5][7][8] In an era when women rarely appeared in imprints except as widows maintaining family businesses, seeing “Printed by Jane Aitken” on a major biblical work signalled a significant breach in gender barriers within the book trades.

Institutional histories from Princeton University Library, the Museum of the Bible, and printing historians consistently highlight this 1808 Bible as her defining achievement, noting that she inherited her father’s press and substantial debts before undertaking the project.[4][5][7][8] Although the edition was commercially unsuccessful, its symbolic importance has grown over time. Modern scholars and curators treat Aitken’s role as a milestone in the recognition of women printers and in the history of Bible production in the United States, demonstrating that women could manage demanding religious publishing ventures traditionally controlled by male printers.[4][7][8]