Digital Extra

 Ann Franklin (1696-1763)
'The Widow Franklin,' printer to R.I.

  By ARLINE A. FLEMING
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer

She was, in '90s terminology, a single mother who worked outside the home.

Ann Smith Franklin had three young children and a business to run when her husband, James, older brother to Benjamin Franklin, died in Newport in 1735.

She and James had married in Boston on Feb. 4, 1723, amid controversy surrounding his publication, the New England Courant. James had been imprisoned there after criticizing the governor in print. Deciding that Boston was not a wise place to conduct a business, James and Ann accepted the invitation of his brother John, a tallow chandler in Newport, and moved there.

Bringing the first printing press to operate in the colony, James, with Ann as his assistant, launched the Rhode Island Gazette, the colony's first newspaper, on Sept. 27, 1732. The weekly newspaper was published for less than a year.

After a long illness, James died on his birthday and wedding anniversary, leaving Ann the responsibility of caring for the family and operating the print shop.

From the basement of the town's schoolhouse in Washington Square, just a short distance from where, today, their printing press is on display at the Museum of Newport History, Ann Franklin continued to run the business, taking in mostly commercial work the first year.

She not only had a family to support, but a reputation to uphold, as James was the colony's printer. She took over the title and was known as the Widow Franklin.

She revived the profitable Rhode Island Almanack, which James had begun in 1727 under the pseudonym Poor Robin. From 1739 to 1741, Ann wrote, edited and printed this second series, thereby becoming the first woman in America to write an almanac, in addition to being the first female printer.

Born in Boston Oct. 2, 1696, a daughter of Samuel and Anna Smith, Ann most likely didn't plan a "career" as a printer. But according to Joan Youngken, curator of the Newport Historical Society, "I think it was absolutely remarkable, but it was not terribly unusual for women to inherit their husband's business and manage it."

Ann Franklin printed Rhode Island's ballots in the election of 1744 and many legal forms, such as mortgages and ship's registrations. While her son James was being apprenticed with his uncle Ben in Philadelphia, Ann's two daughters helped her with the business. James took over in 1748 -- but Ann didn't relinquish total control. Bills were found made out in the name of "Ann & James Franklin."

Mother and son printed the colony's currency and in 1758, created another newspaper, the Newport Mercury. But young James died in 1762, and the printing establishment was again in Ann's hands. At age 65, she was a full-fledged newspaper publisher and editor.

Despite having been Rhode Island's official printer and a founder of the colony's first newspaper, she is often overshadowed in historical accounts by her husband and brother-in-law. The obituary of Ann Smith Franklin in 1763 relates little of her professional accomplishments.

Rather, it eulogizes her industriousness, compassion and Christian "uprightness."

More than 200 years after her death, she was the first woman to be inducted into the Journalism Hall of Fame at the University of Rhode Island.

Sources: Early American Women Printers and Publishers, 1639-1820 by Leona Hudak, 1978, part of the Special Collections at the University of Rhode Island Library, and "Ann Franklin of Newport, Printer, 1736-1763," by Howard Millar Chapin.

More Women in R.I. history