Ann[e] Catharine Hoof Green
American, born in Holland, ca. 1720-1774
Married to Jonas Green of Boston in 1738, Ann Catharine Hoof Green
seems to have been entirely occupied for the first thirty years
of their marriage with bearing their fourteen children, and rearing
the
six who survived infancy. Upon Jonas's death in 1767, however,
she assumed control of his printing operations and successfully
petitioned the Maryland legislature to appoint her public printer
to the province, a post her husband had also held. With the help
of her son William, she completed the printing of the Acts and Votes of
the 1767 session. The province at first paid her fee in tobacco,
the local currency,
until in 1770 she was commissioned to print $318,000 in paper money.
Ann also continued to publish The Maryland Gazette, the
newspaper established by Jonas in 1745.
The Deputy Commissary's Guide, one of the last items
to come from Green's press before her death, describes the procedures
for writing and filing wills and testaments in eighteenth-century Maryland.
The title page is alleged by scholars of American printing history
to be the first in this country to use the technique of copper engraving,
and is considered to be Thomas Sparrow's best work.
The Deputy Commissary's Guide Within the Province of Maryland,
by Elie Vallette. Annapolis: Printed by Ann Catharine Green and
Son, 1774.
Graphic Arts Division
