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New Jersey: History of Printing and Publishing

History of Printing in New Jersey

Isaac Collins, printer. Eighteen pence. To counterfeit is death. 1776. Colonial Currency Collection. Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

"The story of the development of printing and of newspapers in New Jersey is much the same as in other parts of the country, and hence, while the theme here discussed is nominally local, it actually represents the experience of nearly every other Province and State in our Union."William Nelson, "Some New Jersey Printers and Printing in the Eighteenth Century." Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, 1911. (PDF, 10.6MB) External


Early New Jersey printers typically started their careers as apprentices and journeymen before establishing shops of their own, unless they were fortunate enough to inherit an established family printing shop.  As a result, many of New Jersey's earliest printers trained with established printers, such as Benjamin Franklin and William Bradford, whose businesses were located in the commercial centers of Philadelphia and New York.

The abundance of newspapers already available from New York and Philadelphia meant that for much of the 18th century, few communities saw the need for local New Jersey papers. The events surrounding the American Revolution, however, created a commercial opportunity for increasing the production of accurate and up-to-date information across the colonies. In 1787, New Jersey became the third state to join the union, and the new government was in need of local printers and presses for the creation and dissemination of official government documents.

Early publications largely consisted of almanacs, orations, sermons, and the acts and minutes of New Jersey Government meetings. As the 19th century progressed, new presses and publishers emerged throughout the state, and locally printed literary works appeared more frequently in the New Jersey market.

Centers for higher education created an additional need for printed materials. New Jersey's colleges and universities, such as Queens College (now Rutgers University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), were crucial to the development and diversification of New Jersey's printing history.


Notable New Jersey Printers and Publishers

Below we have outlined just a few of the important printers and publishers from New Jersey, from the 18th to 20th centuries.

Please note: unless otherwise noted, most of the names (people, groups, or organizations) below link to fuller information in the Library of Congress Authorities Online Catalog. Authority records enable librarians to provide uniform access to materials in library catalogs and to provide clear identification of authors and subject headings. For example, works about "movies," "motion pictures," "cinema," and "films" are all entered under the established subject heading "Motion pictures."

Authority records also provide cross references to lead users to the headings used in the catalog, e.g., a search under: Snodgrass, Quintus Curtius, 1835-1910 will lead users to the authorized form of heading for Mark Twain, i.e., Twain, Mark, 1835-1910. These authority records also provide a direct link to browse materials under that heading in the Library's Online Catalog. These authority records also provide a direct link to browse materials under that heading in the Library's Online Catalog.

James Parker (1714-1770)

  • Born in Woodbridge, NJ; Apprenticed with William Bradford in New York
  • First Printer to the Assembly of New Jersey
  • Printed the first general history of New Jersey (item listed below), on a press in Burlington, NJ that had belonged to Benjamin Franklin.

Isaac Collins (1746-1817) 

  • Apprenticed in Delaware with James Adams, then worked as a journeyman printer in Philadelphia
  • Second Printer to the Assembly of New Jersey
  • Established first printing press in Trenton, NJ.
  • Publisher of The New Jersey Gazette, the first newspaper of New Jersey.
  • Printer of New Jersey’s first Almanac.
  • First Bible printed in New Jersey. (See second item in list below)

Shepard Kollock (1750-1839)

  • Likely apprenticed with James Adams in Wilmington, DE
  • Printer in Chatham, Elizabethtown, and New Brunswick, NJ
  • Established The New-Jersey Journal n 1779

See Also:


The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

John L. Murphy, printer (1828?-?)

  • Apprenticed with James T. Sherman at 16 years old
  • Became journeyman printer with the firm Sherman & Harron until 1856
  • With the $500 he saved as a journeyman, he opened the first job printing office in Trenton, NJ

Daniel Fenton, publisher (1775?-1845)

  • Operated as publisher and bookseller out of Trenton, NJ

James J. Wilson, printer and publisher (1775?-1824)

  • Trained as a printer in Elizabeth, NJ
  • Printed the True American out of Trenton, NJ

William Tuttle, publisher (1781-1847)

  • Published the First New Jersey Register in 1811

See also:


The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.

Ira Washington Rubel - (1860-1908) - Nutley, NJ

  • Born in Chicago, Ira and his brothers expanded their printing and paper company to the east coast, opening a lithographic printing and paper mill facility in Nutley, New Jersey, around 1900.
  • At the Nutley facility Ira discovered the offset printing technique in 1903 and 1904, and built the first offset press.

Oriole Press - Berkeley Heights, NJ

Golden Hind Press - Madison, NJ

  • Founded in 1927 by book designer Arthur W. Rushmore (1883-1955) and his wife Edna Keeler Rushmore.
  • The press was set up in their home; Edna would set the type, their daughter would proofread, and Arthur was responsible for design.
  • A room is dedicated to Rushmore in the Madison Public Library.

Pickering Press - Maple Shade, NJ

  • Founded in 1946 by John Anderson (1915-1997), book designer, typographer and printer.
  • Named for the nineteenth-century printer, William Pickering.
  • Some of his apprentices went on to become famous printers themselves
    • Claire Van Vliet of Janus Press
    • Leonard Seastone of Tideline Press

See also:


The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional online content are included when available.