November 6

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (November 6, 1776).

“BEHOLD A COWARD!”

The harsh tone exceeded what appeared in other advertisements placed for the same purpose.  Before the Revolutionary War, advertisements for runaways abounded in American newspapers.  Aggrieved masters ran advertisements for runaway indentured servants, runaway apprentices, and runaway convict servants.  The notices described the runaways and offered rewards for their capture and return.  Disgruntled enslavers ran similar advertisements about enslaved men and women who liberated themselves by running away.  After the war began, desertion notices started appearing.  In many instances, the number of desertion notices eclipsed advertisements about indentured servants, apprentices, convict servants, and enslaved people combined.

Like those familiar advertisements, desertion notices usually followed a familiar format.  Consider one that appeared in the November 6, 1776, edition of the Massachusetts Spy: “DESERTED from Captain William Gate’s Company, in Colonel Jonathan Holman’s Regiment, … Arthur Cary, a Soldier.”  The advertisement described Cary’s featured and clothing.  “Whoever will take up said deserter,” the notice continued, “and return him to me … shall have ten dollars reward and all reasonable charges paid.”  Many similar advertisements appeared in other newspapers in the fall of 1776.

The advertisement that ran immediately above that one in the Massachusetts Spy took a different approach.  It started with a headline that forcefully condemned the deserter: “BEHOLD A COWARD!”  It then told a story about the circumstances under which “DANIEL PITTEE, Ensign, in Capt. Timothy Stow’s Company, in Col. Wheelock’s Regiment,” deserted from “Head Quarters, [at] Ticonderoga” in October.  “THE PUBLIC are desired to take notice,” the advertisement proclaimed, that Pittee “applied … for a discharge upon hearing that the enemy were likely to attack our lines – he was refused and the next Day deserted the Camp.”  The notice, “Published by order of Brigadier General [James] Brickett,” ran in the Massachusetts Spy and newspapers published in Boston because the “infamous Runaway belongs to the south Parish of Dedham, County of Suffolk,” and his officers apparently suspected he was headed that way.  Unlike other advertisements about deserters, this one did not offer a reward for returning him to his regiment.  Instead, it aimed to humiliate and demean the deserter.  Pittee’s request for a discharge when an attack was likely may have been the deciding factor.  Such cowardice differed from the motivations of other soldiers who deserted in hopes of returning home to protect and aid their families.  The headline certainly attracted attention.  From the very first line, this desertion notice differed from others that so often appeared in newspapers during the Revolutionary War.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 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.

Connecticut Journal (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Journal (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Journal (November 6, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Journal (November 6, 1776).

November 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (November 5, 1776).

“THE Work-shop of the subscriber was broke open on Saturday night.”

It was bad luck for John Hallberstat, a leather dresser, that someone broke into his workshop in Philadelphia and stole a variety of goods during the night of Saturday, November 2, 1776.  Losing no time, he arranged for advertisements to appear in the next newspapers published in the city.  That meant Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet and the Pennsylvania Evening Post, both printed and distributed on Tuesdays.  The Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal would not come out until Wednesday and the Pennsylvania Ledger not until Saturday.  Hallberstat needed to move quickly to increase the chances that newspaper advertisements would help him recover the stolen items.

In notices with nearly identical copy, Hallberstat described the stolen goods: “twenty-four reed or summer deer skins in the hair, one feather bed, blanket and sheet, and three pairs of leather breeches just scowered.”  Most victims of theft or burglary who ran newspaper advertisements called on all readers to assist in identifying the perpetrators and returning the stolen goods.  Hallberstat, however, made a plea directly to those he thought the culprits most likely to approach to sell the items from his workshop.  “As it is likely the skins may be offered for sale to some skinners,” he declared, “they are requested to stop them and the thief.”  Similarly, “Vendue-master” or auctioneers “are requested to give information if the bed and blankets should be offered them for sale.”  Skinners and vendue masters could collude with the thief or thieves to their own advantage.  In case doing the right thing was not sufficient motivation for assisting Hallberstat, he offered “THREE POUNDS REWARD … to any person who shall discover the goods so that the owner may have them again, or for the thief or thieves so that they may be brought to justice.”

Hallberstat was fortunate that his advertisement ran in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet at all on November 5.  It appeared as (almost) the last item at the bottom of the last column on the third page.  That would have been the final type set in place for that issue since printers tended to print the first and fourth pages on one side of the broadsheet first and finished with the second and third pages on the other side.  Only a brief note from the printer followed Hallberstat’s notice: “Advertisements omitted this week for want of room shall be inserted in our next.”  The printer selected some advertisements to exclude.  Given the urgency of Hallberstat’s advertisement, the printer may have made sure to give it a place in the November 5 edition.  That increased the chances that Hallberstat might recover the stolen goods.  Waiting to published the advertisement in the next issue on November 12 made it even less likely that it would yield the result that Hallberstat sought.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 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.

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (November 5, 1776).

**********

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (November 5, 1776).

November 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Boston-Gazette (November 4, 1776).

“THE Publisher of this Paper … has removed from Watertown … to the Printing-Office … in Queen-Street, Boston.”

After a year and a half of being printed in Watertown, the Boston-Gazette returned to Boston!  Benjamin Edes, the printer, inserted a notice to that effect at top of the first column on the first page of the November 4, 1776, edition, making it the first item that readers encountered.  “The Publisher of this Paper,” he declared, “hereby informs his Customers, that he has removed from Watertown, to the Printing-Office opposite the Court-House in Queen-Street, Boston; where they and others may be supplied with the same as usual.”  Edes hoped to retain his current subscribers and add news ones now that he printed the Boston-Gazette in the city once again, though he did acknowledge in the advertisement announcing his intention to “remove to Boston” that it might not “accommodate” his subscribers “to continue [as] his Customers.”  He requested that those who wished to discontinue their subscriptions “settle their arrears” before he moved to his new location.

Edes had previously partnered with John Gill in printing the Boston-Gazette in Boston.  Their newspaper earned a reputation as a staunch advocate of the American cause.  They printed their final issue together on April 17, 1775, two days before the battles at Lexington and Concord.  The start of the war caused a major disruption for every newspaper in Boston.  Isaiah Thomas had already suspended the Massachusetts Spy and announced plans to relocate to Worcester.  All the other newspapers printed in Boston folded, suspended publication, or moved outside the city.  Edes and Gill dissolved their partnership and then Edes revived the Boston-Gazette in Watertown.  The Massachusetts Provincial Congress met there, making it a good spot for a patriot printer to publish a newspaper.  Edes remained in Watertown after the British evacuated Boston and the siege of the city ended in March 1776.

Boston-Gazette (November 4, 1776).

When he did return to Boston in November 1776, he supplemented the notice on the first page of the Boston-Gazette with an advertisement that appeared immediately after local news on the second page.  “THE Town Customers to this Paper,” Edes announced, “may be supplied as heretofore, by leaving the Place of their Residence with the Printer.”  Even if he lost some customers in Watertown and other towns outside Boston, Edes hoped to replace them with new ones in the city.  He also welcomed back former subscribers who had not been able to continue their subscriptions during the siege.  He met with sufficient success to continue publishing the Boston-Gazette for more than two decades.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 4, 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 (November 4, 1776).

**********

Connecticut Courant (November 4, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [New York] (November 4, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [New York] (November 4, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [New York] (November 4, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [New York] (November 4, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [New York] (November 4, 1776).

**********

Newport Mercury (November 4, 1776).

November 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 2, 1776).

“EDWARD POLE … MAKES and sells all kinds of the best FISHING TACKLE.”

As the Pennsylvania Evening Post carried news about the war and decisions made by the Continental Congress in the fall of 1776, it also carried a variety of advertisements, including one in which Edward Pole promoted the goods available at his “TACKLE SHOP in Market-street, near the Court-house, Philadelphia.”  Pole informed readers that he “MAKES and sells all kinds of the best FISHING TACKLE, for use of either sea or river: and has now on hand a very general assortment.”  He stocked “artificial flies, minnews and chub, leads, Indian grass, swivels, nets, and a great variety of other sorts too tedious for an advertisement.”  He intended for that last comment to entice prospective customers to visit his shop to see the “great variety” for themselves.

Pole called attention to his advertisement with a woodcut depicting a fish.  That image accounted for one-third of the space that he purchased for that notice.  It also distinguished it from all other advertisements in that issue since it was the only one to feature a woodcut.  By November 1776, consumers in Philadelphia likely associated that image with Pole and his tackle shop.  He had previously used it in advertisements in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet in May and June 1774, in the Pennsylvania Ledger in January 1775, and again in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet in April 1776.  Now it appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Few entrepreneurs commissioned woodcuts depicting some aspect of their business to adorn their newspaper advertisements.  Those who did owned those woodcuts and could collect them from one printing office and deliver them to another at their discretion.  Such was the case with Pole, who published an image associated exclusively with his business in multiple newspapers.  Doing so required more than submitting copy to printing offices.  It meant that he had to oversee the woodcut itself, handing it over to printers when he ordered new advertisements, retrieving it when he discontinued his notices, and storing it securely during the interim when he did not advertise.  For Pole, running advertisements in local newspapers required more than quill, ink, and paper to write the copy.  He also managed the woodcut, a physical object, the produced the image that represented his tackle shop.

November 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [Newark] (November 2, 1776).
“Members of the New York Whaling Company are desired to meet … in Newark.”

The advertisement called on “Members of the New York Whaling Company … to meet at the House of Josiah Pierson, in Newark,” on November 9, 1776.  It ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury published by Hugh Gaine in Newark following the British occupation of New York.  Gaine left the city, as did the New York Whaling Company, yet the printer did not remain in Newark for long.  The November 2 edition that carried the New York Whaling Company’s notice happened to be the last one that Gaine printed in Newark before returning to New York to resume publication of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in the occupied city.  He published a total of seven issues in Newark from September 21 through November 2.

Meanwhile, according to Clarence S. Brigham, “Gaine’s New York office, under the inspection of the British authorities, had been used for the publication of a paper with the same title, and the same volume numbering, … but issued weekly” from September 30 to November 4.[1]  Gaine’s name remained in the imprint in the first of those issues, but did not appear in subsequent ones.  It returned with the November 11 issue.

In his History of Printing in America, Isaiah Thomas provided a brief overview of Gaine and his newspaper during the imperial crisis and the war.  The New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury “appeared rather a neutral paper.  Gaine seemed desirous to side with the successful party; but not knowing which would eventually prevail, he seems to have been unstable in his politics.”  When the war began, Gaine “leaned toward the country,” but then left New York for Newark just before the occupation.  He soon returned “and printed under the protection of the king’s army; and … devoted his paper to the royal cause.”[2]  He apparently believed “that appearances were against the ultimate success of the United States,” but after the American victory Gaine petitioned the state legislature for leave to remain in the city, and having obtained permission, his press was employed in book printing.”[3]  He discontinued the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury after the British left the city, having published it for thirty-one years.

Ironically, the first item on the first page of the last issue published in Newark was “An ACT to punish TRAITORS and disaffected PERSONS” passed by the state government in Princeton on October 4, 1776.  Gaine would soon become one of those “disaffected PERSONS” when he returned to New York and resumed publication of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury there.

**********

[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspaper, 1690-1820 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 512-513.

[2] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers (1810; New York: Weathervane Books, 1970), 497-498.

[3] Thomas, History of Printing, 472-473.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 2, 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.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury [Newark] (November 2, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 2, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Ledger (November 2, 1776).

**********

Providence Gazette (November 2, 1776).

November 1

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

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

Essex Journal (November 1, 1776).

“A Boarding-School.”

“EVENING SCHOOL for Youth of Both Sexes.”

“EVENING SCHOOL at the Town-House.”

“An Evening School.”

Compositors usually did not cluster together newspaper advertisements inserted for similar purposes, yet that was the case for four advertisements for schools that appeared one after the other in the November 1, 1776, edition of the Essex Journal.  Each advertisement also ran in the previous issue, but they were scattered throughout the other notices.

The first announced “A Boarding-School” in the headline.  Eleanor Druitt relocated from Boston to Newburyport in the spring of 1775, about a month before the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Despite the disruptions caused by the war, she operated “a Boarding, and Day-School, for the reception of young Ladies, near the Assembly-House.”  She planned to begin a new term on “Monday the 28th of October,” so instruction had already commenced when her advertisement ran for the second time on November 1.

In the next advertisement, John Vinal declared his intention to open an “EVENING SCHOOL for Youth of both Sexes … at the NORTH SCHOOL HOUSE” on the “first Monday Evening in November.”  Vinal’s school offered some competition for Druitt’s school, but competed even more directly against Nicolas Pike’s “EVENING SCHOOL at the Town-House” that would begin its new term “on the first Monday in November next.”  Pike’s notice was dated October 1 and the notation that appeared on the final line, “44-46,” indicated that it was supposed to run in issues 144, 145, and 146 on October 4, 11, and 18.  Vinal’s advertisement was dated October 24 with “47-49” on the final line to remind the compositor to insert it in the issues for October 25 and November 1 and 8.

Yet the Essex Journal did not discontinue Pike’s advertisement after the three insertions indicated in the notation.  The fourth advertisement, dated October 11, may help to explain that.  Robert Long proclaimed that he “DETERMINES to open an Evening School the first Monday in November next” in a notice that first ran on October 11 with “45.-47.” as the notation on the final line.  Perhaps Pike saw the advertisement for the competing school and instructed the printing office to extend the run of his own notice.  Long may have been similarly concerned and desired additional insertions of his advertisement.  The notation with issue numbers disappeared on October 25, the first time that Druitt and Vinal ran their advertisements, though the compositor may have dropped the notation to achieve uniform length for each column on that page (and Long’s advertisement did appear at the bottom of the column).  Alternately, perhaps neither Pike nor Long requested that their advertisements continue running in the Essex Journal.  Both should have been discontinued before issue 148 on November 1, according to the original notations, yet the compositor may have continued running them to fill the page.  An advertisement for an auction for a house with a “45.-47.” notation ran immediately below Long’s notice.

The schoolmasters and schoolmistress may have been deploying their advertisements strategically … or day-to-day operations in the printing office may have explained the additional insertions of some of the advertisements for schools opening in Newburyport in the fall of 1776.  Whatever the explanation, four advertisements for schools running one after the other was an unusual example of clustering notices placed for a similar purpose.  Early American newspapers did not tend to classify or categorize advertisements.