Jane Aitken

Early life

Aitken was born in Paisley, Scotland, on July 11, 1764. She was the first of four children (two girls and two boys) that grew to adulthood in the family. Her father was Robert Aitken (1734–1802), a Scottish stationery and book merchant who later became a Philadelphia printer and bookbinder. Her mother’s maiden name was Janet Skeoch. Aitken and her family were among several Scottish families that emigrated to Colonial America in 1771. The Aitken family settled in Philadelphia, their port of importation.

Aitken was involved with her father's Philadelphia publishing business, which consisted of a print shop and bindery. Her handwritten bookkeeping shows the print shop printed a newspaper, journals, books, and stationery. She inherited the printing business from her father's estate after his death in 1802 when she was thirty-eight years of age. The publications were thereafter in her own name as Printed by Jane Aitken from her printing business, which she ran on Third Street in Philadelphia. Her father's estate came with a heavy debt that was incurred from notes he had signed for. The debt was $3,000. Her brother, Robert Aitken Jr., who was a year younger than she and had been disowned by their father, was financially incapable to assist in this debt. Jane, being the oldest child, assumed the responsibility of caring for her two younger sisters, as her mother had previously died. She never married.

Mid life

Aitken's bookbinding business sometimes gave more support to the family than the actual printing part of the business. She bound many of the author's books she printed up, work for the Athenaeum of Philadelphia and some 400 volumes for the American Philosophical Society. Binding work of the 1780s to 1802 from her father's shop shows similarity to her binding work she did from 1802 to 1812 and shows that perhaps she did most if not all the binding work from his shop when she was younger.

Later life and death

John Vaughan, a friend of hers and a librarian from the American Philosophical Society, gave her much work and even some financial assistance, but her business failed in 1813 and her equipment was sold off. Vaughan bought the equipment at a sheriff's sale and leased it back to her at under the going market rate, however after she failed again in 1814, she was put into debtors' prison at the Norristown Jail, 20 miles outside Philadelphia. She basically is unheard of in historical records other than the "late printer" until her death record of 1832 appearing in an obituary in Germantown, Pennsylvania. 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.

Legacy

Aitken was the first woman in the United States to print an English translation version of the Christian Bible.

This bible is known as Thomson's Bible, being translated by the famous US revolutionary Charles Thomson.

Works

Aitken published at least sixty works from 1802 to 1812. Some of her works are: