Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831), printer and publisher, was born in Boston. At the age of six he was apprenticed to a Boston printer, with whom he remained until 1765. Thomas afterward worked successively in printing offices in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Boston; and Charleston, South Carolina. He returned to Boston in 1770 and partnered with his former employer to publish the Massachusetts Spy, which Thomas purchased outright three months later and continued alone. He used this newspaper to promote American independence and was active in the Sons of Liberty before being forced to move his printing operation in 1775 to Worcester when British forces occupied Boston. Thomas soon resumed publication of the Massachusetts Spy in Worcester and continued it, leasing it to others between 1776 and 1778, until he passed it to his son in 1801. After the Revolutionary War ended Thomas commenced publishing and selling books on a large scale, and he also expanded the geographical range of his printing and bookselling operations to Boston, Newburyport, and Brookfield, Massachusetts; Walpole, New Hampshire; Baltimore; and Albany, all of which were managed by partners, many of whom had previous experience as Thomas’s apprentices. With his associates he published more titles than any other contemporary American, including the Massachusetts Magazine, almanacs, works using a Greek typeface, musical scores, numerous books for children, and what has been called the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy: or, the Triumph of Nature, 2 vols. (Boston, 1789), attributed to William Hill Brown. Having achieved great financial success, Thomas retired from business in 1802. After he used his extensive private library to write The History of Printing in America, 2 vols. (Worcester, 1810), he was elected to most of the learned societies in the United States, including the American Philosophical Society in 1816. Thomas founded the American Antiquarian Society in 1812 and served as its president until his death in Worcester, with the bequest of his library forming the core of that institution’s collections (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 ; MWA: Thomas Papers; Clifford K. Shipton, Isaiah Thomas: Printer, Patriot and Philanthropist, 1749–1831 [1948]; Benjamin Thomas Hill, ed., The Diary of Isaiah Thomas, 1805–1828, 2 vols. [1909]; Thomas, History of Printing in America, esp. 1:368–85, 401–4; Brigham, American Newspapers description begins Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690–1820, 1947, 2 vols. description ends ; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 18 Oct. 1816 [MS in PPAmP]; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 11 Apr. 1831).

No letter from Thomas covering the American Antiquarian Society’s Archæologia Americana: Transactions and Collections 1 (1820; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 4 [no. 115]) is recorded in SJL, and none has been found. Around this time he also sent this work to James Madison (Madison, Papers, Retirement Ser., 2:127–8).