Lydia Bailey: A Checklist of Her Imprints

Appendix 2: Bailey’s Journal

Appendix 2 Bailey’s Journal As is evidenced by the list of unlocated imprints in appendix 1, abundant information about Bailey and her operations can be uncovered in a close examination of her few extant workbooks. The following analysis of a single open-book spread from one of these books reveals some of their potential. This particular workbook documents a near-contemporary account of her business exchanges arranged by client; the work her shop did for her clients appears on the left-hand side, while the goods received from her clients appear on the right (see fig. 10). The entries are arranged in a loose chronological order, often in groups, suggesting that these accounts attempted to be entire summaries for a given period of time, sometimes a day, sometimes a week, sometimes longer, depending on the quantity of work. Emendations and annotations are scattered throughout the entries, some with added commentary; one entry is crossed off “in a mistake,” and she circles two entries that she wants to “transpose .” This demonstrates that these accounts are both somewhat reflective in nature and an attempt at a thoughtful and accurate accounting, falling under the category of “journal,” most likely culled from a “waste” or “day” book and succeeded by a “ledger.” This spread shows the work that she was engaged in with the firm of Johnson & Warner between October 1809 and February 1810. Jacob Johnson and Benjamin Warner, each of whom had flourishing businesses independent of the other (Warner as a Quaker merchant and bookseller and Johnson as a printer, inkmaker, and bookseller), were leading publishers of textbooks and children’s books throughout the first quarter of the nineteenth century and had a number of printers they called on to print their works.1 At the top of each column is an amount brought forward from a previous entry (in this case on folio 20). Some of the work she performs for individual clients spans decades and, consequently, many folios; others are single entries with no further exchanges recorded. Here she does not calculate totals at the bottom of each column, nor does she balance her charges with her expenditures ; this again is something she does with some inconsistency (the entries for Johnson & Warner continue on folio 38). The figures that are brought over in this case are significant because of their size ($562.52 in credit and $531.351 ⁄2 in Appendix 2 D 267 debt). Bailey’s first entry for Johnson & Warner was in March 1808 (immediately following her husband’s death); that the totals have reached such levels in a year and half indicates that she and Johnson & Warner were engaged in a high level of activity together. In fact, a comparison with other clients recorded in her journal and listed in the checklist of identifiable imprints makes it abundantly evident that Johnson & Warner was her primary customer at the outset of her career.2 In setting her entries for 1808 to 1810 against the known Johnson & Warner imprints for this period, it would not be an overstatement to estimate that she was doing a third of its printing during these three years.3 Bailey is at this moment busy printing a variety of material for Johnson & Warner, much of it of an ephemeral nature. Although she is printing just one book, Ruddiman’s Rudiments of the Latin tongue, she records printing five smaller items, a bill of lading, an almanac, a children’s chapbook, and two catalogs. This ratio is not atypical; the number of jobs she has at any given time for the printing of ephemera not surprisingly far outweighs the number of jobs she has for printing books.4 During this period Bailey is also busy printing for others. On other folios her journal records the steady stream of certificates she is printing for the Port Fig. 10 Lydia Bailey, Journal (HSP, Am 9065, vol. 1, 26) 268 D Appendix 2 of Philadelphia (courtesy of her uncle, John Steele, the collector of the port); the many small jobs of cards, notices, and bills she is working on for multiple clients; and the numerous almanacs being printed for the local booksellers. In October 1809 she records printing one thousand copies of a sizable book, Zion’s pilgrim, for James Martin (when it was published, this duodecimo totaled 184 pages). More significantly, this is precisely the time at which she is...