August 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

Who was the subject of an advertisement in revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (August 13, 1776).

“IN MENS CLOTHES … a Mulatto woman slave, named MARIA.”

What kind of story would Maria have told about herself if she had the opportunity to record it in print?  How would it have differed from the account that appeared in an advertisement on the first page of the August 13, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet?

That advertisement described Maria as “a Mulatto woman slave” who “RAN AWAY … from the Jerseys to Philadelphia or New York” at the end of July.  Maria likely thought of that act as freeing herself from her enslavers rather than running away from “a good master and mistress.”  The enslavers who applauded themselves for their supposed benevolence condemned Maria for “going towards New-York after a married white man, who is a soldier in the Continental army there.”  In doing so, she “left behind her three young children.”  They also noted that Maria was “hardly discernable from a white woman,” yet that was not the only form of passing as someone else that threatened the social order or their attempt to exert authority over her.  The headline for the advertisement proclaimed, “IN MENS CLOTHES,” indicating that Maria might make good on her escape by disguising both her sex and her race.  That compounded her transgressions.

Maria’s unnamed enslavers certainly cast her in a negative light, yet just because their account appeared in print did not make them reliable narrators.  That they portrayed themselves as “a good master and mistress” already demonstrated their bias.  They told a lively story, one that probably stunned or distressed many readers, but Maria certainly would have given a much different version of what occurred had she been given the opportunity.  There are too many possibilities to conjecture about the “married white man” or “her three young children” or any of Maria’s relationships except to say that they had to have been more complex than what her unnamed enslavers insinuated in a brief newspaper advertisement.  During the era of the American Revolution, Maria made choices of her that deserve much more consideration than the few lines that her unnamed enslavers published in an advertisement seeking her capture and return.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 13, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (August 13, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (August 13, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (August 13, 1776).

August 12

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Norwich Packet (August 12, 1776).

“A NUMBER OF ELEGANT POCKET-BOOKS, TO BE SOLD AT THE PRINTING-OFFICE.”

More than a dozen advertisements appeared in the August 12, 1776, edition of the Norwich Packet.  Among them, Leonard Hills, a post rider, called on delinquent customers to pay for his services, William Mansfield sought to hire a journeyman shoemaker, and John Baker Brimmer solicited “Small Furrs, Bees-Wax, OLD COPPER AND PEWTER.”  In separate advertisements, Peabody Clement and Peter Lanman each offered rewards for the return of lost pocketbooks, while Thomas Adams advertised that he had “TAKEN up … a bay Mare” and would return it to the owner upon “proving his Property” and paying for expenses.

Norwich Packet (August 12, 1776).

Even though the compositor used a variety of fonts to draw attention to each advertisement, only two of them featured borders made of decorative type.  Both concerned business conducted “AT THE PRINTING-OFFICE IN NORWICH.”  One announced, “A NUMBER of ELEGANT POCKET-BOOKS, TO BE SOLD AT THE PRINTING OFFICE.”  If they checked the newspaper to confirm that their advertisements did indeed appear, Clement and Lanman likely spotted the notice that informed them where they could purchase replacements for their lost pocketbooks, though John Trumbull, the printer, certainly hoped to attract other customers as well.  The other decorative border enclosed a call for “CLEAN LINEN RAGS” that the printer would recycle at the paper mill and, in turn, use to publish subsequent issues of theNorwich Packet.  Trumbull promised “CASH … FOR Clean Linen Rags.”  Similar notices appeared in newspapers throughout the new nation, though not usually spruced up with printing ornaments.  In addition, the advertisements with borders did not run on the same page.  That further distinguished each of them since readers would spot only one at a time.  Neither border was especially sophisticated, but they did not need to be to serve their purpose.  They only needed to create visual interest that enhanced their visibility compared to news and other advertisements.  Trumbull exercised his discretion as printer to give his notices an advantage.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 12, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Boston-Gazette (August 12, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (August 12, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 12, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 12, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 12, 1776).

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Newport Mercury (August 12, 1776).

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Newport Mercury (August 12, 1776).

August 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Freeman’s Journal (August 10, 1776).

“The Acts and Laws Of this State, passed since the new Form of Government took Place.”

A month after the Continental Congress voted to declare independence, Robert L. Fowle set about publishing “The Acts and Laws” of New Hampshire “passed since the new Form of Government took Place.”  He placed an advertisement, dated August 3, 1776, in three consecutive issues of the Freeman’s Journal, printed by Benjamin Dearborn in Portsmouth.  He likely also ran advertisements in his own newspaper, the New Hampshire Gazette, or, Exeter Morning Chronicle.  (That newspaper has not been digitized for greater accessibility.)

Fowle’s advertisement made its first appearance in the Freeman’s Journal on August 10.  He announced, “The Acts and Laws Of this State,” no longer a colony, “are now in the Press, and in a few Weeks will be published, at the Printing Office in Exeter.”  When Fowle referred to statutes passed “since the new Form of Government took Place,” he did not mean the actions taken by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in early July.  Instead, he invoked the Constitution of New Hampshire devised by a provincial congress that met at Exeter on December 21, 1775.  Two weeks later, delegates to that convention “VOTED, That this Congress take up CIVIL GOVERNMENT for this colony,” displacing British authority, and outlined the “manner and form” in a framework now known as the Constitution of New Hampshire.  In so doing, they implemented the first state constitution … six months before the Continental Congress declared independence.  Accordingly, the “Acts and Laws Of this State, passed since the new Form of Government took Place” advertised by Fowle in August 1776 did not consist of legislation passed solely in the past month but instead during the seven months since the Constitution of New Hampshire written at Exeter went into effect.  Publishing the “Acts and Laws Of this State” buttressed the legitimacy of the new government, while purchasing or perusing the statutes kept citizen-consumers better informed about current events.  The legislature, the printer, and readers each played a role in disseminating the new acts and laws in their state, weaving together the fabric of a new nation from many threads.  Establishing and maintaining a “new Form of Government” required more than the Declaration of Independence.

August 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Evening Post (August 10, 1776).

“Hare’s American best bottled PORTER.”

Most goods advertised and sold in eighteenth-century America did not have brand names associated with them.  Patent medicines were the exception.  Consumers were familiar with a variety of patent medicines, so much so that advertisers could mention them by name without giving any further explanation of their use and purpose.  In an advertisement in the August 10, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, for instance, George Weed informed the public that he stocked “Dr. Bateman’s pectoral drops[,] Turlington’s balsam of life[,] Dr. Anderson’s pills[,] Dr. Hooper’s female pills[, and] Dr. Benjamin Godfrey’s cordial” at his apothecary shop in Philadelphia.

On the same page, Robert Appleby once again advertised “Hare’s American best bottled PORTER.”  Unlike the generic descriptions of the other items in his notice, “OLD MEDEIRA WINE” and “SPRUCE BEER,” Robert Hare’s porter described a particular beer produced by a particular brewer.  When Hare, the son of an English brewer, migrated to Pennsylvania, he became the first brewer to produce porter in the colonies.  He did so at a time that patriotic Americans boycotted imported goods and made a point of supporting “domestic manufactures” and their producers.  Consumers knew Hare’s Best American Draught Porter by name and for many months by the time Appleby ran his advertisement consumers already associated drinking it with support for the American cause.  In a notice in the Pennsylvania Evening Post published the previous November, William Dibley expressed his confidence “that the sturdy friends of American freedom will afford due honor to this new and glorious manufacture.”  A few weeks later, Dibley’s advertisement appeared alongside one from Patrick Meade who promoted Hare’s porter to “the TRUE FRIENDS to LIBERTY” and another from Joseph Price that offered “HARE’s and Co. best DRAUGHT and BOTTLED AMERICAN PORTER” to “all the SONS of AMERICAN LIBERTY.”  Beyond those accolades, Hare’s porter achieved the distinction of becoming one of the dew products other than patent medicines known to consumers by a brand name during the era of the American Revolution.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 10, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Evening Post (August 10, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (August 10, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (August 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (August 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (August 10, 1776).

August 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 9, 1776).

“NEW BATH … has every accommodation necessary for gentlemen and ladies.”

A health tourism industry began developing in America before the American Revolution.  As Vaughn Scribner explains, “Americans relied on improvements in transportation, roads, and communication during the second half of the eighteenth century to push spa culture forward.  …  Such improvements caused colonists increasingly to view mineral springs – as well as the all-important spas that accompanied them – as a prime opportunity for fashionable ‘improvement’ and genteel leisure.”[1]  The proprietors of various baths, spas, and mineral springs placed newspaper advertisements inviting guests to visit their establishments.  Such notices continued appearing shortly after the Continental Congress declared impendence in July 1776.

Although “regions surrounding northeastern urban centers such as Philadelphia and Boston became especially popular for their well-dev eloped mineral spas,” entrepreneurs in other regions also established and advertised similar facilities.  In early August 1776, for example, Nathaniel Anderson placed an advertisement in Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.  “THE publick are hereby informed,” he announced, “that NEW BATH, in Louisa county, ten miles above the courthouse, is now in good repair,, and has every accommodation necessary for gentlemen and ladies who are inclinable to retire from the lower parts of the country, during the unhealthy season.”  While some clients might visit New Bath merely for leisure, the proprietor emphasized the health benefits for those afflicted with various maladies.  “The waters, from long experience,” Anderson confided, “have been found excellent for removing slow fevers, agues and fevers, and all lingering disorders.”  In addition, they provided “a speedy remedy for ulcers, inflammations,” and other afflictions.  No matter why clients traveled to New Bath, Anderson would extend exemplary hospitality, promising that the “the utmost diligence will be used to render the place agreeable.”  With his advertisement and his facilities at New Bath, Anderson contributed to a process of spas, “along with other ‘improving’ public spaces such as taverns, bowling greens, theaters, and pleasure gardens, … defin[ing] a region’s gentility, sociability, and, ultimately, civility” in the eighteenth century.[2]

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[1] Vaughn Scribner, “‘The happy effects of these waters’: Colonial Mineral Spas and the British Civilizing Mission,” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 14, no. 3 (Summer 2016): 440.

[2] Scriber, “happy effects of these waters,” 440.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 9, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Gazette (August 9, 1776).

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Essex Journal (August 9, 1776).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 9, 1776).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 9, 1776).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (August 9, 1776).

August 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Journal (August 8, 1776).

“DRUMS … equal to any that have been imported, for sound or beauty.”

The frequency that advertisements for drums appeared in American newspapers increased significantly after fighting commenced at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.  Drums, after all, were essential military equipment.  Advertisers who made or sold drums often did not consider it necessary to say much in their newspaper notices.  One brief advertisement, for instance, proclaimed, “AMERICAN MADE DRUMS, Sold by PHILIP PELTON, At the Foot of Cowfoot-hill, in NEW-YORK.”  Pelton made sure that prospective customers knew that his drums were made in America, but he did not make other appeals in that notice.

In a subsequent advertisement, however, he decided to go into more detail in hopes of convincing readers in the market for drums to choose the ones that he “MADE and sold” and provided to an associate, Daniel Pelton, likely a relation, to sell.  In case it was not enough that they were made in America, Pelton asserted that his drums were “equal to any that have been imported, for sound or beauty.”  His customers did not have to sacrifice quality when they purchased his drums.  They looked as good as imported alternatives and they sounded as good.  In addition, the Peltons had a “great variety on hand,” so “any gentlemen may be served at the shortest notice.”  Customers did not need to place orders and wait for Pelton to make their drums.  Instead, they could select from a wide inventory, making choices according to size and appearance and price.  No matter which drums customers chose, the Peltons sold them “on the most reasonable terms” or, in other words, for fair prices.  As an ancillary service, the Peltons pledged that “purchasers may depend upon having their Drums tun’d to sound well.”  That was yet another marketing appeal intended to resonate with prospective customers.  As Pelton had done when mentioning the sound and beauty of his drums earlier in the advertisement, he invited readers to engage their senses by imagining the sounds of drums “tun’d to sound well.”  This more elaborate advertisement gave prospective customers more reasons to purchase the drums that Pelton made and sold.