February 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

“When the Association was once and upon a sudden offered to me to sign, I declined signing it.”

Joseph Lyon, a farmer “living at the White Plains in Westchester County” in New York, wanted to get back into the good graces of his community.  He had offended many people when he refused to sign “the Association,” most likely the “General Association, agreed to, and subscribed by the Freeholders, Freemen, and Inhabitants” of New York.  The New York Provincial Congress devised the General Association upon learning of the battles at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.  Delegates then disseminated the General Association throughout the colony, expecting supporters of the American cause to sign it.  In doing so, subscribers pledged to “adopt and endeavour to carry into Execution, whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress; or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for the Purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposing he Execution of the several arbitrary, and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament; until a Reconciliation between Great-Britain and America, on Constitutional Principles … can be obtained.”

Lyon did not sign and apparently others in White Plains made their displeasure with that decision known to him.  The situation eventually prompted the farmer to take out an advertisement in the February 15, 1776, edition of the New-York Journal.  He attempted to explain what caused his error in judgment: “having spent my life in hard labour, and absence from the means of political knowledge, when the Association was once and upon a sudden offered to me to sign, I declined signing it.”  In other words, he did not regularly follow politics, so he did not understand the significance of the General Association when it was first presented to him.  Furthermore, he had not been allowed time to consider the document thrust at him “upon a sudden.”  When colonizers in Massachusetts published advertisements apologizing for signing an address to Thomas Hutchinson when the governor returned to England, many also claimed that they had not had time to consider the implications.  In both instances, those asking forgiveness claimed that events moved too quickly so they should not be faulted for making a poor decision.  Lyon gave the matter “further consideration” and then “applied to the Chairman or one of the Committee for leave to sign” the General Association, but by then “the paper was gone to New-York.”

Since Lyon could not sign his name alongside others on the original document, he resorted to a newspaper advertisement.  “I therefore take this method,” he proclaimed, “to declare, that in my heart I am a sincere friend to the Liberties of America, my native country.”  In addition, “all the worldly comfort I expect for myself and my children, is connected with the happiness of America.”  To demonstrate that point, “I have not done, nor been concerned in any thing in opposition [to] the present measures of America, in defence of its Liberties, nor ever will.”  Although he could not sign the General Association, Lyon made his own pledge to “comply with the recommendations and orders of the Congress and Committees in all things, as far as my conscience will permit.”  He may have hoped that others did not pay too much attention to that caveat.  Lyon concluded by stating that he was “sixty six years of age, and diligently employed in farming and grinding” so he hoped “this will afford full satisfaction to my countrymen.  He asked for sympathy for an old man who knew far more about working a farm and operating a mill than anything involving politics.  Humbling himself in the public prints, Lyon believed, offered a means for restoring his standing in his community.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 15, 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.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

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

Maryland Gazette (February 15, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (February 15, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 15, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published February 15, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 15, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 15, 1776).

February 14

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

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

Constitutional Gazette (February 14, 1776).

“The Devil drives Lord North, and Lord North drives the People.”

In the February 14, 1776, edition of the Constitutional Gazette, William Green, a bookbinder, advertised “three political Prints” for sale for one shilling each at his shop in Maiden Lane in New York.  He listed the titles, but he did not describe them to prospective customers.  Perhaps he did not wish to pay for the additional space in the newspaper.  Perhaps he thought the titles provided sufficient description.  Perhaps he considered the titles evocative enough to spark curiosity among readers, prompting them to visit his shop to discover for themselves what exactly each print depicted.  After all, titles like “The Ministerial Robbers, or the Americans virtually represented in England” and “The Devil drives Lord North, and Lord North drives the People” simultaneously told a story and expressed support for the American cause.  Notably, the purveyor of these “political Prints” was the first person to advertise Thomas Paine’s Common Sense outside of Philadelphia, doing so just eleven days after Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, announced its publication.

Readers may have been familiar with some of the political cartoons that Green advertised.  In the fall of 1775, William Woodhouse, John Norman, and Robert Bell placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Journal to promote “The MINISTERIAL ROBBERS; or AMERICANS VIRTUALLY Represented in ENGLAND,” a “SATYRICAL PRINT” that “LATELY ARRIVED FROM LONDON.”  Green may have sold copies from London or an American edition of the print.

Another of those political cartoons, “The Devil drives Lord North, and Lord North drives the People,” originated in London as “The State Hackney Coach,” a plate that adorned the London Magazine for December 1772.  The print depicted a coach pulled by eight men rather than horses with Lord North, the prime minister, driving them.  Most of those men did not have distinguishing features; they represented any of the members of Parliament and other officials who allowed the prime minister to dominate them.  The first figure had a face that looked more like a rat than a man, additional commentary on the character of those members of Parliament.  Henry Fox, one of North’s proteges, and Jeremiah Dyson, Lord of the Treasury, were recognizable.  Although North drove the men with a whip, a devil perched on the back of the coach had his own whip that he used to steer North’s course.  A caption above the image declared, “They go fast whom the Devil drives.”  Inside the carriage, George III slept, apparently oblivious to any problems.

Green almost certainly displayed these political cartoons in his shop.  Customers who came to purchase Common Sensewould have seen images that worked in tandem with Paine’s attitudes toward monarchy and calls to declare independence.  They may even have decided to purchase both a print and a pamphlet, expressing their own political principles through the choices they made in the marketplace.

“The State Hackney Coach,” a print that adorned the London Magazine (December 1772). Courtesy Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 14, 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.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

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

Constitutional Gazette (February 14, 1776).

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Maryland Journal (February 14, 1776).

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Maryland Journal (February 14, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 14, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 14, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published February 14, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 14, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (February 14, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 14, 1776).

February 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

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

“FATHER ABRAHAM’s ALMANACK, For the Year of our LORD 1776.”

John Dunlap, the printer of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette, apparently had surplus copies of “FATHER ABRAHAM’s ALMANACK, For the Year of our LORD 1776,” that he hoped to sell in the middle of February of that year.  Although the “Astronomical Calculations by the ingenious DAVID RITTENHOUSE” for the first six weeks of the year were no longer of use to readers, the rest of the contents still had value.  Hoping to move some or all the remaining copies out of his printing office in Baltimore, Dunlap once again placed an advertisement that had first appeared in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette in October, well before the new year began and readers would refer to the calendars and astronomical calculations in the handy reference manual.  Prospective customers knew that the phrase “Just Published” at the beginning of the advertisement merely meant that copies were available to purchase, not that the almanacs just came off the press.

In addition to operating a printing shop and publishing a newspaper in Baltimore, Dunlap also ran a printing shop in Philadelphia.  It was there, according to his advertisement, that he had printed the almanac and then sent copies to his printing office in Baltimore.  He had also advertised the almanac in the newspaper he published in Philadelphia, Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  He did not, however, continue running advertisements for the almanac in that newspaper in February 1776.  Perhaps he sold out of copies in Philadelphia.  After all, he established his printing office and newspaper there before his second printing office and newspaper in Baltimore.  Consumers in Philadelphia and its hinterlands had greater familiarity with Dunlap, the printer, and Rittenhouse, the astronomer and mathematician who did the calculations for the almanac.  Alternately, Dunlap may not have continued advertising the almanac in the newspaper published at his printing office in Philadelphia because that location received a heavier volume of advertisements.  The printer may have determined that the revenue generated from advertisements submitted by customers outweighed any potential revenue from advertising the almanac once again.  With limited amount of space in each issue, delivering news also took precedence over yet another advertisement for the almanac.  Dunlap and those who labored in his printing offices may have had other reasons for continuing to advertise the almanac in Baltimore but not in Philadelphia.  Whatever the explanation, the advertisement in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette became a familiar sight to readers over the course of several months.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 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.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

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

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

February 12

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

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

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

“JOHN RICHARDSON’s HARDWARE and JEWELLERY STORE.”

John Richardson ran an advertisement for his “HARDWARE and JEWELLERY STORE” in the February 12, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  He was not alone in his marketing efforts.  Richard Sause also placed an advertisement for a “JEWELLERY, CUTLERY, HARD-WARE, and HABERDASHERY STORE.”  Both emphasized consumer choice as a marketing strategy, but they deployed very different formats in demonstrating the choices they offered to customers.

The bulk of Richardson’s advertisement consisted of a dense paragraph of text that listed his inventory, including a “neat and general assortment of jewellery, and jewellers materials; watches and watch materials, good choice of gilt and plated buckles, metal and steel buckles; materials for coach-makers, ditto for saddlers and cabinet-makers; … ladies pocket books, hand vices, plyers, nut crackers, buckle patterns, metal shoe clasps, lables for bottles, mother of pearl tea tongs, [and] gilt sleeve buttons.”  It was an array of merchandise that Richardson invited readers to imagine and, hopefully, examine for themselves.

Sause listed even more items in his advertisement, yet that was not the only reason that it occupied more than twice as much space on the page.  Rather than cram everything together in a single paragraph, Sause opted to list small collections of items – one, two, or three at a time – together yet on separate lines.  Those lists sometimes overflowed onto indented second and subsequent lines; the indentations provided a visual cue that further distinguished the wares that Sause promoted.  For instance, the entry for “Gold lace, tinsel and com- / mon watch braids” did not run into the next entry for “Silver corals, and a variety of / fashionable silver buckles.”  Sause also divided his advertisement into two columns (just as he had done in a previous advertisement), making it even more visually distinctive.

Although Richardson and Sause sold similar merchandise and both made appeals to consumer choice, they made different decisions about how to present their goods to prospective customers in the public prints.  Richardson may have opted for economy by purchasing less space in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, while Sause, drawing on experience, could have considered it worth the investment to take up more space in the newspaper.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 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.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

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

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