The Illustrated Imprints of Isaiah Thomas

Isaiah Thomas was a leading 18th-century patriot, printer, publisher, and bookseller in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin. Founder of the American Antiquarian Society, he donated his library and newspaper files to the society’s archive. Barbara E. Lacey offers a representative sampling of the illustrated publications of the Massachusetts printer to show the great variety of 18th-century American imprints that used images to enhance or modify the meaning of the text. She bridges the gap between several scholarly fields, including art history, literary criticism, the study of visual culture, and the history of the book. Illustrations are not judged exclusively on their artistic merit; they are analyzed for what they say about early American values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions. This volume will be of interest to students of early American history and art, to American Studies scholars, and to general readers interested in early book publication and illustration.

Barbara E. Lacey graduated with honors in history at Smith College, and received a master’s degree in history at the University of Connecticut and a doctorate at Clark University. She has published articles in The New England Quarterly, The William and Mary Quarterly, The Journal of Social History, and other scholarly journals. Dr. Lacey held an American Antiquarian Society–National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. She has presented papers on imagery in early American publications at conferences in France, the Netherlands, Ireland, England, and Spain, as well as the United States and Canada. Publications include The World of Hannah Heaton (Northern Illinois University Press, 2003) and From Sacred to Secular: Visual Images in Early American Publications (University of Delaware Press, 2007). Now professor emerita of history, she taught a variety of American history courses at Saint Joseph’s College in West Hartford for more than 20 years, utilizing both written sources and visual imagery.