American Antiquarian Society
185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
United States
Join the American Antiquarian Society for a free community open house commemorating 250 years since Isaiah Thomas brought his printing press and newspaper to Worcester--a move that helped shape the American Revolution. Activities for all ages include operating a full-size replica of an eighteenth-century wooden printing press; chatting with curators and getting up close to original printed materials from the Revolutionary War; touching a variety of early publications in a paper petting zoo; and taking a guided, behind-the-scenes tour to see how AAS stores and preserves its vast collections.
On April 16, 1775, printer Isaiah Thomas smuggled his printing press out of Boston to Worcester so it wouldn’t be seized by the British. Three days later the Battles of Concord and Lexington started the American Revolution. On May 3, 1775, with his press safely in Worcester, Thomas produced the first thing ever printed in the city: his newspaper, The Massachusetts Spy, which included his eye-witness account of the battles. Thomas would later found the American Antiquarian Society, a national research library that collects and makes accessible to all more than four million original printed, handwritten, and visual sources from North America before 1900.
Related reading:
Jeffrey D. Groves, "Pressing Matters: An experiential study of the Isaiah Thomas printing press at the American Antiquarian Society," October 2012, Commonplace: the journal of early American life, https://commonplace.online/article/pressing-matters/