Into this environment Zadok Cramer had come in the early spring of 1800. He was a young man of twenty-six, and was lured by the promise of fortune and perhaps fame. In the short span of years that he lived and flourished in Pittsburgh, he did more to advance the literary culture of his adopted town, than perhaps all the other educational agencies combined, which came before or after his time. It is customary to glorify statesmen and soldiers; monuments are erected to their memory, eulogies are pronounced in their praise, and memoirs are written setting forth the deeds they have done. But one scarcely ever thinks of the men who made possible the statesmen and soldiers: the teachers, the men who conduct the newspapers, the writers of books, and above all, the men who publish and sell books. The publishers and sellers of books not only supply the wants of the reading public, but they lead it into new channels. They place temptingly before it the latest and best productions in every branch of human activity of the brightest minds in the world. Cramer was born in New Jersey, in 1773, but spent most of his life since boyhood in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he learned the humble trade of bookbinding. He was of Quaker origin, but had fallen away from the tenets of that faith, although he still affected the drab coat and straight high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat of the sect.[271] He possessed withal the worldly shrewdness that is often an accompaniment of Quaker devoutness. On March 30, 1800, he advertised in the _Pittsburgh Gazette_ that he was about to open a bookbindery. His announcement was couched in somewhat stilted language. “Under a conviction that an establishment of the above business will meet the approbation and encouragement of the inhabitants of Pittsburgh and its vicinity, the undersigned is determined to prosecute it as soon as he can make the necessary arrangements. His hopes of the success of this undertaking are flattering; he hopes likewise, that the public on whom he is depending for encouragement will not be disappointed in placing in him that confidence merited only by industry and attention to their favors.”