Before the 1800s, Boston sat on a tombolo, or island peninsula, connected to the mainland by a narrow neck of land. Because of this tight geography, people of different classes, backgrounds, and occupations lived closely packed together in the area that is now downtown Boston. Many of the people involved in printing and news trades had homes and businesses within a short walk from one another.
Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, Bostonians relied on printers, engravers, typesetters, paper dealers, and other specialists for the technologies required to circulate news of current events. Here, you will see selected entries from the 1789 Boston Directory. These entries record people involved in the printing industry—although the Directory listed only adult men, leaving out the networks that made professional work possible, from apprentices to domestic laborers. Those entries are matched to locations on a map that depicts Boston in the year 1798. The shop of Gill, Powars, and Willis, who printed the two Boston copies of the Declaration, can be found on Court Street—the new name given to Queen Street after independence.