Anthony Finley opened a bookshop and publishing house in Philadelphia by 1809. A sales catalog he issued in 1811 concentrated on medical, botanical, and other scientific works. By 1824 Finley was producing maps and by 1832 he specialized in cartography. Finley was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Philadelphia Common Council in 1818. A founding officer of the Philadelphia Apprentices’ Library, he was also a life member of both the American Sunday-School Union and the Franklin Institute. In 1826 he sat on the board of trustees of a proposed new college in Philadelphia. Finley was in business until at least 1836 (H. Glenn Brown and Maude O. Brown, A Directory of the Book-Arts and Book Trade in Philadelphia to 1820 Including Painters and Engravers [1950], 48; Catalogue of Books in Medicine, Surgery, Anatomy, Physiology, Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Botany. For Sale by Anthony Finley [Philadelphia, 1811]; J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884 [1884], 2:1208; The American Advertising Directory for Manufacturers and Dealers in American Goods for the Year 1832 [1832], 189; Walter W. Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers: Commercial Cartography in the Nineteenth Century [1985], 268–70; Philadelphia Franklin Gazette, 17 Oct. 1818; Finley to TJ, 25 Jan. 1822; The American Sunday School Magazine 7 [1830]: 95; “Annual Report of the Franklin Institute,” Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvania 9 [1832]: 212; “College in Philadelphia,” American Journal of Education 1 [1826]: 568; Robert Desilver, Desilver’s Philadelphia Directory and Stranger’s Guide for 1835 & 36 [1835], 70; Hartford Connecticut Courant, 15 Aug. 1836).