First Woman in Printing

During the 1600s the governor of Virginia was against schooling and printing. He assumed these to be great dangers to the people of his colony and would lead people to have the knowledge then be given a voice to act against him. His hope that the colony would end stay this way ended a William Nuthead was brought to Jamestown in 1682.

Fighting would go on between the government of Virginia and Nuthead. Nuthead just wanting to set up shop and begin his printing career would end up just moving to Maryland. Before 1685, Nuthead would set up shop in the city of Saint Mary's City and began to be paid in Tobacco. He would continue to work in Saint Mary's City and print until his death around 1695.

His widow, Dinah Nuthead, didn't want to sell of her husbands business. During the end of his life William Nuthead had collected over sixty different accounts. The family had nothing to its name besides the printing press itself for them to survive. It would seem that over the years she had taken an interest in his husbands profession. She packed up the press and moved from Saint Mary's City to Arundel County.

One of her biggest problems was that Nuthead knew how to use her husbands press, but wasn't literate. She would have to take on a journeyman to help with her typesetting. One of the main reasons Dinah is believed to be illiterate was due to her never signing her own name, instead she would use her mark in its place.

One year after her husband's death, she petitioned the government of Maryland to allow her to retain the business. She was issued a license to print blanks of forms for the government. She would have to pay a bond of one hundred pounds and a promise to forfeit her license and fold up shop if she printed anything else. The idea behind Nuthead only being allowed to print for the government, was done by the government for "protection of the Province against of the evils of indiscriminate printing". The press itself was seen as a tool that could bring rebellion and power to the people of the state at the time.

A year after she started her printing career, she was actually allowed to print a sermon. It was a sermon from a preacher that would give sermons in front of the House so no harm was found in the printing. This would make her the first woman printer of the Americans, however nobody has been ever to find any of the prints left.

After this no more records of Dinah Nuthead were found dealing with printing. It could either be that she had her license taken away, or that she was overwhelmed with the work and gave over the business to her journeyman. Another theory is this is also around the same time she would get remarried. After her second husband had passed away a year later she would remarry once more.

In a time when women were seen as more of property then people. Dinah Nuthead, an illiterate woman took her over his husband's business. Get the government to agree and allow her to print for them. She is a truly one of America's great unsung heroes.