Thomas Jefferson Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-02-02-0258

Lydia R. Bailey to Thomas Jefferson, 22 March 1810

From Lydia R. Bailey

Philada March 22 1810

Sir

by this days mail Stage I forward to you a box containing eleven Copies Freneaus Poems directed to the care of James Madison President. you will please accept the copy bound in calf. also the pocket Almanac. I thank you for your very liberal Subscription to the Poems

Yours with the highest respect
Lydia R. Bailey
No 10 North alley.
Mr Thos Jefferson Dr
To Lydia R. Bailey
To—10 Copies Freneaus Poems at 2. Dollars pr $20.00

RC (DLC); between dateline and salutation: “Mr Thos Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 15 Apr. 1810 and so recorded in SJL.

Lydia R. Bailey (1779–1869) was a native of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who married her cousin Robert Bailey late in the 1790s and carried on the family printing business following his death in 1808. She turned what had been a struggling enterprise into one of the largest and most highly respected printing concerns in Philadelphia, employing more than forty workers at its height. During a career that spanned more than half a century, Bailey had a long stint as Philadelphia’s official city printer and filled numerous contracts with local banks, canal companies, charitable organizations, the Presbyterian Church, and the University of Pennsylvania. She also published blank books, almanacs, religious tracts, and instructive works for children (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; Leona M. Hudak, Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639–1820 [1978], 613–5).

In the spring of 1809 TJ had subscribed to the third edition of Philip Freneau, Poems Written and Published during the American Revolutionary War, and Now Republished from the Original Manuscripts; Interspersed with Translations from the Ancients, and Other Pieces not Heretofore in Print, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1809; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 4438) (Freneau to TJ, 8 Apr. 1809, TJ to Freneau, 22 May 1809).

Index Entries

  • Bailey, Lydia R.; and P. Freneau’s poems search
  • Bailey, Lydia R.; identified search
  • Bailey, Lydia R.; letters from search
  • books; for children search
  • children; books for search
  • Freneau, Philip; Poems Written and Published during the American Revolutionary War search
  • Jefferson, Thomas; Books & Library; orders books search
  • Madison, James; mentioned search
  • Poems Written and Published during the American Revolutionary War (Freneau); TJ’s subscription to search
  • poetry; subscriptions to, sent to TJ search
  • subscriptions, for publications; poetry search
  • women; letters from; L. R. Bailey search