Mary Katherine Goddard was the only woman who signed the Declaration of Independence.It was she, a Baltimore printer,who published the first official copies of the Declaration,the first copies that included the names of its signers and therefore announced the support of all thirteen colonies.Mary Goddard first got into printing at the age of 24 when her brother opened a printing shop in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1762.(1)_______________________.In 1765 they began publishing the Providence Gazette, a weekly newspaper.Similar problems seemed to follow her brother as he opened businesses in Philadelphia and again in Baltimore.Each time Ms. Goddard was brought in to run the newspapers.After starting Baltimore's first newspaper,the Maryland Journal, in 1773,her brother went broke trying to organize a colonial postal service.While he was in debtor’s prison,Mary Katherine Goddard’s name appeared on the newspaper’s masthead for the first time.When the Continental Congress fled there from Philadelphia in 1776,it commissioned Ms. Goddard to print the first official version of the Declaration of Independence in January 1777.(2)_______________________.During the American Revolution,Mary Goddard continued to publish Baltimore’s only newspaper,which one historian claimed was “second to none” among the colonies.She was also the city’s postmaster from 1775 to 1789,appointed by Benjamin Franklin,(3)________________________________.
