Benjamin Kite (ca. 1754–1838) worked as a schoolmaster in Philadelphia from about 1797 until 1807. In 1806 he entered the bookselling and stationery trade in partnership with his son Thomas Kite (1785–1845). The Kites published books, almanacs, and directories. They also involved themselves in various philanthropic enterprises. Benjamin Kite supported charity schooling and was an officer of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Thomas Kite, who was also a Quaker minister, became a manager of the Association of Friends for the Printing and Distribution of Tracts on Moral and Religious Subjects. The Kites initially housed the association in their bookstore after its inception in 1817. Thomas Kite continued the family firm under his own name after his father retired late in the 1820s (William Kite, Memoirs and Letters of Thomas Kite [1883], esp. 9, 36, 92, 232, 479; William Wade Hinshaw and others, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy [1936– ], 2:386, 574; Cornelius William Stafford, The Philadelphia Directory, for 1797 [Philadelphia, 1797], 106; James Robinson, The Philadelphia Directory, for 1807 [Philadelphia, 1807]; James Robinson, The Philadelphia Directory, for 1808 [Philadelphia, 1808]; Robert Desilver, Desilver’s Philadelphia Directory and Stranger’s Guide, 1829 [Philadelphia, 1829], 104; Edwin B. Bronner, “Distributing the Printed Word: The Tract Association of Friends, 1816–1966,” PMHB description begins Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography,1877– description ends 91 [1967]: 346–7; William C. Kashatus III, “The Inner Light and Popular Enlightenment: Philadelphia Quakers and Charity Schooling, 1790–1820,” PMHB description begins Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography,1877– description ends 118 [1994]: 103; Philadelphia Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 16 Jan. 1801, 3 Oct. 1811, 17 Sept. 1838; The Friend; a Religious and Literary Journal, 8 Feb. 1845).