Jane Aitken (1764 - 1832)

Born 11 Jul 1764 in Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, Scotland

Ancestors

Died 29 Aug 1832 at age 68 in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

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Biography

Jane Aitken is Notable.

Her greatest printing achievement was the four-volume Thomson Bible of 1808.

" Jane Aitken was born July 11, 1764 in Paisley, Scotland (where her father ran a stationar's shop and circulating library) the eldest of four children born to Robert and Janet Skeoch Aitken, The Aitken family joined the Scottish migration to the American Colonies arriving in Philadelphia on 10 May in 1771 where Robert Aitken set up a business selling stationery and books, as well as printing and binding books.

As she grew older, Jane Aitken became more and more involved in her father’s business. Her handwritten bookkeeping entries show that the shop printed a newspaper, journals, books and stationery. The business gained an excellent reputation from the printing of the Aitken Bible of 1782, the first English Bible printed in the colonies.

Despite Robert Aitken’s hard work, when he died in 1802 he left a debt of $3000, an enormous amount for the time. This debt was largely incurred by Jane’s late brother-in-law Charles Campbell, a clock and watchmaker who struggled to make his business a success, and for whom her father had signed a number of notes. Jane's invalid mother was not named in her fathers Will.

Robert Aitken Jr., who was a year younger than Jane, had been disowned by their father. Therefore, Jane inherited the printing and bookbinding business from her father’s estate when she was thirty-eight years of age. As the oldest child, she also assumed the responsibility of caring for her two younger sisters, one recently widowed with three children. Probably because of all these familial responsibilities, Jane never married.

As the oldest and the second most experienced printer in the Aitken family, Jane might have decided to remain unmarried in order to better assist her father with the printing business. At any rate, Jane spent the entirety of her adult life struggling to contend with her father’s legacy: a solid reputation for printing and an enormous debt. There are conflicting accounts as to whether that debt was ever paid.

Jane Aitken produced at least sixty publications between 1802 and 1812. Like her father, she undertook an ambitious Bible project called the Thomson Bible, the first English Bible printed by a woman in the United States. The four-volume Bible printed in 1808 was, like her father’s before her, well-received for its craftsmanship but a commercial failure.

This Bible, prepared by former secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson, was the first English translation from the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament). According to the contemporary printing historian Isaiah Thomas, this work firmly established Aitken’s reputation for excellence. But, like her father, Jane fell into debt.

The American Philosophical Society’s Librarian and wealthy merchant John Vaughan is described as a tireless supporter of Miss Aitken. Little is known of their relationship, but it appears that he served as her investor and benefactor when she fell on hard times. After her printing equipment was seized and sold at a Sheriff’s sale for nonpayment of her debts in 1813, Vaughan bought most of her equipment and leased it back to her.

In spite of continuous printing work, Aitken sometimes had to rely on bookbinding to earn a living. The similarity of her known bindings from later years to those issued from her father’s shop from the 1780s to 1802 raises the possibility that she was responsible for much of the bindery output during those years. The quality of her bindings qualifies Aitken as a distinguished bookbinder; in fact, the only known woman bookbinder with such skill from this period.

Aitken’s great skill, hard work, and even Vaughan’s generosity were not enough to overcome the burden of her inherited debts. In 1814 Jane served time for nonpayment of her debts in a Norristown, Pennsylvania prison. While it is uncertain exactly how long the prison term lasted, Aitken is recorded as doing binding work in 1815. The next record of her is in the 1819 city directory, which lists her as the “late printer.”

It is difficult to determine exactly when and why her business career ended, but her reputation as one of the finest publishers and binders of this period lives on, as does her achievement as the first woman printer of the Bible in America.

Jane Aitken died August 29, 1832 at the age of sixty-eight, and her obituary in the Germantown Telegraph reported that she had died after a “long and painful illness.” Her burial place is assumed to be in the destroyed cemetery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, of which she was a member. "

Her brother Robert Aitken, an undistinguished printer, died in 1826. Her nephew James McLaren Campbell, carried on the family tradition as a Philadelphia bookseller in the 1830's

Sources

Find A Grave: Memorial #36100028 Jane Aitken

American Ancestors and New England Historic Genealogical Society

http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2014/06/jane-aitken.html

Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Volume 2; Page 26-27 Source: Google Books

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Aitken

https://www.greatsite.com/ancient-rare-bible-leaves/aitken-1782-leaf.html

https://prabook.com/web/robert.aitken/3760784

See Also

WikiTree profile Aitken-171 created through the import of Ancestry Candlish file.ged on Aug 11, 2012 by Fiona Candlish. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Fiona and others.

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Note: Jane Aitken printer

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Note: Jane Aitken

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Note: Jane Aitken

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