Christopher Sower (elder)

Johann Christoph Sauer ( baptized February 2, 1695 in Ladenburg, † September 25, 1757 in German Town ) was the first German book printer in North America.

Life and meaning

Sauer was born in 1695 in Ladenburg near Heidelberg, the son of a Reformed pastor. About 1701 he moved as a child with his widowed mother to Laasphe, where he married Maria Christina ( nee Gruber ) widow 1720. In 1721 their son Christopher was born. 1724 the family emigrated from Pennsylvania and finally settled in German Town, a northern suburb of Philadelphia down where Sauer initially pursued his learned profession as a tailor. He worked, among others, as well as a watchmaker and booksellers for Christian devotional literature.

Since 1735, he tried to demonstrably to the procurement of equipment for a German printing company. In 1738 he received letters from a fracture - type foundry in Frankfurt am Main. Since 1739 Sauer printed numerous calendars, books and a newspaper, the Weekly later appeared as " German newspaper Towner " (until 1777).

In 1743 he printed the first German-language Bible, they had 1,272 printed pages. It is considered the first Bible printed in America at all, the first English first appeared 40 years later.

Sauer and his eponymous descendants influenced the German-language book printing in colonial America decisive.