Harvard’s first impressions
As Harvard celebrates its 375th anniversary, the Gazette is examining key moments and developments over the University’s broad and compelling history. In the summer of 1638, the John of London set sail from Hull, England, bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. On board was Puritan minister Joseph Glover with his wife Elizabeth and their five children. In the ship’s hold was his wooden printing press valued at 20 pounds, paper worth twice that much, and a quantity of lead alloy type. Centuries later, Harvard historian Samuel Eliot Morison called the John of London “the publishing fraternity’s Mayflower.” That little press, made of pegged timber and iron, was destined to be the first in British North America, the first at Harvard, and the first printing press in the New World managed by a woman. (Glover died during the trans-Atlantic crossing, and his wife carried on.) The press, designed to print one sheet of moistened...