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.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 8, 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.

Continental Journal (August 8, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (August 8, 1776).

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New-York Journal (August 8, 1776).

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New-York Journal (August 8, 1776).

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New-York Journal (August 8, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (August 8, 1776).

August 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Massachusetts Spy (August 7, 1776).

“He once more earnestly begs that those who are indebted to him for News-Papers … would immediately pay their respective ballances.”

When Isaiah Thomas transferred the Massachusetts Spy to William Stearns and Daniel Bigelow and returned to Boston in the summer of 1776, he had difficulty collecting payments from his former customers.  Even though he made several trips to Worcester to tie up loose ends, that was not enough so he resorted to placing advertisements in the newspaper he formerly printed.

“I. THOMAS, the late publisher of this Paper,” he declared, “is very sorry that so many of his Customers are so unkind as to neglect paying him the several small sums due to him for services already performed.”  In addition to newspaper subscriptions, those services likely ranged from job printing of handbills and blanks to purchases of books, pamphlets, stationery supplies, and even patent medicines.  Thomas may even have allowed credit for newspapers advertisements.  He expressed exasperation that he “made several journeys to Worcester on purpose to receive his just due” for the services he had rendered to the public in printing the first newspaper in the town and establishing its first printing office, “but, to his surprise, finds the old proverb verified, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’”  In case his former customers considered what they owed so inconsequential that Thomas would not miss it, he made a plea that “that those who are indebted to him for News-Papers, &c. (if it is but two-pence) would immediately pay their respective ballances … as so many small sums when collected together will be of essential service” to him.  In contrast, “the want of which will be of great detriment” as he pursued new endeavors.

That advertisement, dated “Boston, July 22, 1776,” was not the first that Thomas ran in the Massachusetts Spy.  He previously inserted a shorter notice, dated “Worcester, June 14, 1776.”  When it did not have the desired effect, Stearns and Bigelow enclosed Thomas’s new advertisement with a border of ornamental type and gave it a privileged place as the first item in the first column on the first page of the July 24 edition of the Massachusetts Spy.  Thomas may have instructed or insisted that the inexperienced printers do so rather than leaving it completely to their discretion.  In subsequent issue, the notice moved to the final page, but the border remained, distinguishing the advertisement from all other content in the newspaper.  The format demanded the attention of readers who had treated Thomas as “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Slavery Advertisements Published August 7, 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.

Constitutional Gazette (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (August 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (August 7, 1776).

August 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (August 6, 1776).

“No advertisement will be inserted in this paper, if the money be not sent with it.”

Benjamin Towne, the printer of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, published a dozen advertisements in the August 6, 1776, edition of his newspaper.  They appeared at the end of the issue, following “EXTRACTS from the Minutes of the Proceedings of the Convention for the State of Pennsylvania” held in Philadelphia shortly after the Continental Congress declared independence and news updates from Williamsburg, Boston, Providence, Newport, New Haven, and New York.  Immediately above the first advertisement, Towne issued instructions to prospective advertisers: “No advertisement will be inserted in this paper, if the money be not sent with it.”  The printer included three asterisks to call attention to his notice.

Historians of the early American press have long contended that newspaper printers extended generous credit to subscribers but insisted that advertisers had to pay in advance.  Printers, they explain, prioritized their circulation numbers as a means encouraging advertisers to purchase space in their newspapers.  In turn, revenue from advertising more than made up for losses from subscribers who did not pay.  Notices like this one from Towne likely contributed to that narrative.  Other printers sometimes ran similar notices … yet some also ran notices calling on advertisers to make payment, suggesting that they did not require advertisers to submit payment with the copy for their advertisements.  In addition, Towne’s notice indicates his policy for new advertisements that he anticipated receiving at his printing office but did not necessarily reflect the practice he previously adopted.  In an address to readers that ran in the first issue of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, Towne solicited advertisements, stating that they “shall be punctually and conspicuously inserted at the usual Rates,” but he did not specify those rates, nor did he demand payment in advance.  Perhaps Towne found it necessary to institute a new policy – payment in advance – only after too many advertisers neglected to pay for their notices in a timely fashion.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 6, 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 6, 1776).

August 5

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

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

Connecticut Courant (August 5, 1776).

“Old books he can metamorphose into new.”

When Nathaniel Patten, a bookseller, bookbinder, and stationer, “opened shop under the Printing-Office in Hartford” in the summer of 1776, he placed an advertisement in the Connecticut Courant.  He described himself as a “BOOK-BINDER and STATIONER from BOSTON” even though he had been pursuing those trades in Norwich, Connecticut, for more than two years.  He may have believed that prospective customers considered a bookbinder from Boston more qualified than one from Norwich.  He stated that he had been “regularly bred” to bookbinding; in other words, he received training as a youth, perhaps as an apprentice and perhaps in Boston.  That prompted Patten to confidently proclaim that he could “bind, gild, and letter books in as splendid a manner as if done in London.”  Consumers may have considered a bookbinder from Boston more likely to possess such skills than a bookbinder from Norwich.

Patten sought to dazzle prospective customers with a description of what he could do to their books when entrusted to him for new bindings.  “Old books,” he declared, “he can metamorphose into new.”  Yet that promise held only as long as the books remained on shelves to impress those who saw them, but not necessarily upon closer examination.  The bookbinder clarified that “the difference will not be perceptible to those who do not open them.”  Patten encouraged readers to judge a book by its cover … and by its binding and by the gilded edges of its pages.  Appearances mattered, at least according to the bookbinder seeking customers after arriving in a new town.

Patten had some experience making both appeals.  The copy in the first paragraph of his advertisement in the Connecticut Courant replicated copy from the advertisement in which he introduced himself to residents of Norwich and nearby towns in the Connecticut Journal two years earlier, suggesting that Patten clipped the notice from the newspaper or retained his correspondence with the printer.  He apparently considered the appeals effective since he deployed them again.  Artisans often touted their training and skill.  Patten merely adopted a popular marketing strategy when he did so.  His claim about transforming old books, however, was not one that other bookbinders used.  Patten seemingly devised it on his own when deciding the best way to market his services.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 5, 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 5, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (August 5, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 5, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 5, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (August 5, 1776).

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Norwich Packet (August 5, 1776).

August 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (August 3, 1776).

“For the benefit of others I desire that you may make my case public, that those being imposed upon and labouring under the same complaint may know where to apply for a cure.”

Testimonials worked!  Anthony Yeldall must have thought so because the apothecary repeatedly included testimonials from grateful patients in his newspaper advertisements.  Perhaps some patients mentioned testimonials they read in his advertisements when they consulted him “at his Medicinal ware house” in Philadelphia, prompting him to publish more testimonials.  The testimonials often accounted for much more space than any copy that Yeldall wrote himself.  His advertisement in the August 3, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger, for instance, consisted of five paragraphs.  The last four were testimonials that his patients stated that they wanted published “[f]or the benefit of others.”  It was one thing for the apothecary to claim that his “Abilities are well known through most parts of the United Colonies,” but the testimonials demonstrated that was indeed the case.  Joseph Spenser, “Grocer in Second-street,” Benjamin Wilson, “Elizabeth-town, New-Jersey,” Christopher Hughes, “Bedminster-township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania,” and William Bell, “Vincent township, Chester County, Pennsylvania,” each praised the treatment that “DOCTOR YELDALL” provided.

Those testimonials had some common features that suggest Yeldall may have worked with his patients in composing their testimonials or they may have used testimonials that appeared in previous advertisements as models.  Three of the testimonials began with “For the benefit of others” and a request “that my case may be made public” (or some close variation of that phrase).  Hughes expressed similar sentiments but deviated from the formulaic language used by the others: “being desirous that they may reap the same benefit that I have done, I desire that you may make my case public.”  Each testimonial made clear that Yeldall published success stories at the behest of patients he returned to good health.  They did not make their way into print solely due to the self-interest of an apothecary seeking more patients.  Each also told a frustrating story about seeking medical care from physicians and surgeons whose assistance proved ineffective before turning to Yeldall for treatments that returned them to full health.  Spenser, for instance, “applied to several able Physicians in the city, but could find no relief” for a pain that cause him to lose the use of his arm.  He then turned to Yeldall, “who in a short time removed the pain, restored the use of my arm, and I now follow my business.”

Yeldall certainly considered testimonials effective when he decided on his marketing strategy.  He would not have continued to publish them (and invest so much in the space required for each testimonial) if he did believe that they yielded a return on his investment in placing them in the public prints.  He likely appreciated that testimonials helped build trust with patients before they even consulted him for “advice and medicines.”

August 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Constitutional Gazette (August 3, 1776).

“Four weeks, for FIVE Shillings, and One Shilling, for each week afterwards.”

When the Constitutional Gazette completed its first year of publication, John Anderson, the printer, updated the masthead to include both a volume number and an issue number.  The masthead previously featured only an issue number.  The July 31, 1776, edition was the first with both: “VOL. II” AND “NUMB. 105.”  That was not the only way that Anderson marked the conclusion of one year and the beginning of another.  The advertisements in the August 3 edition started with a notice from the printer.

Anderson declared that he “takes this method, of returning his unfeigned thanks, to those Gentlemen, who, favoured him, with their custom, for the NEW-YORK CONSTITUTIONAL GAZETTE, of last year, and hopes for a continuance of their favours.”  In addition to expressing appreciation to his subscribers, Anderson encouraged them to renew their subscriptions.  To that end, he pledged that “he shall, still continue, to make it, his constant study and endeavour, that the CONSTITUTIONAL GAZETTE, shall be, a vehicle, of foreign, as well as domestic intelligence.”  In other words, he promised to publish all the news that was fit to print!

He also used the occasion to solicit advertisements.  “Those Gentlemen, who chuse to advertise in the CONSTITUTIONAL GAZETTE,” Anderson declared, “shall, (in a conspicuous manner) be inserted, (if short) four weeks, for FIVE Shillings, and One Shilling, for each week afterwards.”  Most printers did not regularly disclose the fees they charged for advertisement, though they sometimes mentioned “the usual rates” with an expectation that prospective advertisers were already familiar with them.  A few printers included the price of advertising in the masthead or the colophon, but most did not.  That made Anderson’s disclosure of what he charged to run advertisements a relatively rare occurrence.

Subscriptions and advertisements accounted for only two of the revenue streams that Anderson cultivated.  He concluded his notice with a reminder that “Printing, of all sorts,” including handbills, broadsides, trade cards, and other advertising ephemera, “is done, in the neatest manner, with care and expedition, and on the shortest notice” at his printing office.  Anderson commemorated a full year of publishing the Constitutional Gazette by simultaneously thanking his customers and encouraging all readers to place the orders for subscriptions, advertisements, and job printing necessary to keep his press busy and the newspaper in print.  He did not call on subscribers to make overdue payments, as printers often did in their notices, but instead focused on the services he provided.