November 12

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (November 12, 1776).

“FATHER ABRAHAM’S ALMANACK.”

“THE BURLINGTON ALMANACK.”

“The WILMINGTON and PENNSYLVANIA ALMANACKS.”

It was the time of year for advertising and buying almanacs.  Although the advertisements for the popular pamphlets did not begin appearing in newspapers as early in 1776 as they had in previous years, they gained momentum by the middle of November.  The November 12 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet even carried advertisements for almanacs published in printing offices in three towns.

John Dunlap, the printer of that newspaper, promoted “FATHER ABRAHAM’s ALMANACK, For the Year of our LORD 1777,” an almanac that he “published and … sold” at his printing office in Philadelphia.  He trumpeted that “the ingenious David Rittenhouse, A.M. of this city, has favoured us with the Astronomical calculations …, therefore they may be most firmly relied on.”  The printer leveraged the reputation of the well-known astronomer and mathematician in marketing the almanac he published.  He also inserted standard language that appeared in advertisements for other almanacs: “Containing, besides the usual Astronomical calculations, a variety of useful and entertaining matter, in prose and verse.”

An advertisement for another almanac that ran immediately below Dunlap’s notice deployed almost identical copy, substituting “Astronomical Observations” for “Astronomical calculations.”  Isaac Collins announced that he “Just published … THE BURLINGTON ALMANACK, For the YEAR of our LORD 1777” and sold it “at his Printing-office in Burlington,” New Jersey.  With no local newspaper in that area, Collins resorted to advertising in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet and other newspapers printed in Philadelphia each fall when he published the new edition of the Burlington Almanack.

James Adams found himself in a similar position when it came to marketing the “WILMINGTON and PENNSYLVANIA ALMANACKS, For the Year of our LORD 1777” that he “published and … sold … at his Printing-office in Wilmington, Delaware.”  That town also did not have its own newspaper, so Adams regularly advertised his almanacs in newspapers published in Philadelphia.  In addition to advertising in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet in the fall of 1776, he increased the visibility of his almanacs by placing notices in the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal.

Advertisements for almanacs were a sign of the season each fall.  Readers encountered them for weeks (and sometimes months) as they perused newspapers, often exposed to multiple advertisements in a single issue.  They were often given choices among several almanacs published in the same town as the newspaper, but sometimes, depending on the market served by a newspaper, it carried notices about almanacs published in other towns and even other states.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 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.

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (November 12, 1776).

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Freeman’s Journal (November 12, 1776).

November 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Boston-Gazette (November 11, 1776).

“She will instruct them in the English and French Languages Grammatically.”

When Eleanor Druitt opened a “Boarding and Day-School, for the reception of young Ladies,” in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1776, she ran an advertisement in the Essex Journal, the newspaper published in that town.  She was likely familiar to many of her prospective pupils and their parents, having relocated from Boston to Newburyport in the spring of 1775, shortly before the battles at Lexington and Concord.  At that time, she placed an advertisement in the Essex Journal to promote the “Boarding-School” that she planned to open there, going into great detail about a curriculum that included speaking “French and English Grammatically; Writing, … [especially] Epistolary correspondence, … Arithmetic, … Drawing, … every kind of Needle-work, … and every other polite accomplishment necessary.”  She proclaimed that “her abilities” for teaching embroidery “are well known in Boston and many other parts of the continent.”

As Druitt started a new term in the fall of 1776, she did not limit her advertising to the Essex Journal.  She placed an advertisement with identical copy in the Boston-Gazette.  She likely hoped that readers in Boston and other towns served by that newspaper remembered her reputation and would consider sending their daughters to her boarding school.  Her advertisement first appeared in the October 25 edition of the Essex Journal, a few days before she planned to commence instruction on October 28, but it did not run in the Boston-Gazette until November 11.  That may explain why the advertisements had identical copy; they did not even have variations in capitalization or italics as was common when advertisements appeared in more than one newspaper.  Rather than writing out the advertisement a second time, Druitt may have clipped her notice from the Essex Journal and sent it to the Boston-Gazette.  Once it arrived in the printing office, the compositor could have set the type exactly as it appeared in the other newspaper.  Whatever the explanation, Druitt wanted to enlarge the size of her class beyond those she attracted with her advertisement Newburyport’s Essex Journal.  She apparently believed that she could gain students by advertising more widely, especially in a newspaper published in the town where she formerly resided and readers remembered her.  Druitt expected a return on the investment she made when she placed her advertisement in the Boston-Gazette in addition to the newspaper published in her town.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 11, 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 11, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (November 11, 1776).

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Newport Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 11, 1776).

November 10

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

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

Connecticut Gazette (November 8, 1776).

“John Hudson, late of Sagharbour, … has removed to Long-Point in Stonington.”

The November 8, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Gazette, published in New London, carried an advertisement for the purpose of informing readers that John Hudson, “late of Sagharbour” on Long Island, “Tanner and Currier, has removed to Long-Point in Stonington” on the Connecticut coast.  At his new location, he “still carries on the Business of Currying” or processing leather “and making Women’s Heels.”  New to the area, he assured prospective customers that “Any Person inclined to employ him, may depend on having their Leather well done.”  Hudson hoped to build a clientele in the region.

At the same time, he also used the advertisement to communicate with customers who had hired him when he still lived and worked in Sag Harbor.  “He takes this Method,” he added to his notice, “also to inform Thomas Deering, Esq; late of Shelter-island, and Mr. Riell Howell, late of Southampton, on Long Island, where they may have their Leather by sending for it.”  That Deering was “late of Shelter-island” and Howell was “late of Southampton,” just as Hudson was “late of Sagharbour,” suggested that all three had moved to other places because of the British invasion of Long Island.  In addition to capturing New York City, the British also occupied Sag Harbor and used it as a base for monitoring Long Island Sound.  Hudson may have attempted to contact Deering and Howell directly before he moved his shop from Sag Harbor to Stonington, but he could not locate them in the turmoil caused by the war.  Whether or not he had dispatched messages to those customers, Hudson expected that an advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette had a reasonable chance of coming to the attention of Deering and Howell.  At the very least, the tanner and currier could assert that he had not absconded with the leather entrusted to him for processing without making some attempt to let his customers know where they could collect it.

Following the battles of Lexington and Concord and the siege of Boston in the spring of 1775, newspapers published in other towns in New England carried advertisements by former residents of Boston who introduced themselves to prospective customers in their new communities.  Similar advertisements began appearing in newspapers in New England and Pennsylvania once the British took possession of New York City and Long Island.

November 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 9, 1776).

“THAT well accustomed TAVERN … at the sign of Admiral Warren.”

An advertisement for the upcoming sale of the “well accustomed TAVERN on the Lancaster road at the sign of Admiral Warren, twenty-three miles from Philadelphia,” appeared in the November 9, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  The sale included “a good convenient house, a large stone barn lately built with the best conveniences for stabling on said road, good sheds and other offices.”   The property came with “240 acres of land, 25 acres of which are meadow, watered by two constant streams.”  It also had “a never failing spring” that would allow for the creation of additional streams for any “gentleman farmer” who chose to work the land.

The “TAVERN … at the sign of Admiral Warren” continues to operate today as General Warren Historic Hospitality.  Their website explains that the “story of the General Warren can be followed through its name change.”  George Aston founded the tavern in 1745, originally naming it in honor of Edward “Old Grog” Vernon (1648-1757), an admiral who served in the Royal Navy for forty-six years.  A tavernkeeper in Boston also named his establishment for Vernon.  More famously, George Washington’s estate and plantation, Mount Vernon, was named for the admiral.  Just a year later, Aston renamed the tavern to the Sign of Admiral Warren to honor Admiral Peter Warren when news arrived about his command of the Royal Navy squadron that blockaded and aided in the capture of the French fortress at Louisbourg on Ile-Royale (Cape Breton Island) in 1745.  Troops from New England contributed to the British victory over the French in that theater of the War of Austrian Succession, known as King George’s War in the colonies.  In addition to a tavern in Pennsylvania, the towns of Warren, New Hampshire, and Warren, Rhode Island, were named for the admiral.  Even after the Continental Congress declared independence, the tavern continued to be known as the Admiral Warren, a remnant of how the colonizers had previously embraced their British identity as members of the empire and participated in the celebration of its heroes.  It was not until 1825, half a century after the battles at Lexington and Concord, that “it was renamed The General Warren Tavern … to honor Dr. Joseph Warren, who died at Bunker (Breed’s) Hill, Boston, in 1776, the first American general killed in the Revolution.”  With just a slight alteration to its name, the tavern venerated an American hero and became part of a larger process of creating a distinctive American identity that took place throughout the nation during the eras of the American Revolution and the Early Republic.

Fittingly, the General Warren has its own “Washington slept here” story: “In 1777, New Jersey Continentals from Washington’s Army camped [there] the night before the ‘Battle of the Clouds’ on September 16.”

Slavery Advertisements Published November 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.

Pennsylvania Ledger (November 9, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (November 9, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (November 9, 1776).

November 8

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).
“Demands from the Country it is expected will be accompanied with the Cash.”

When November arrived in 1776, John Dixon and William Hunter, the printers of the Virginia Gazette, began advertising “The VIRGINIA ALMANACK For the Year 1777.”  They ran their first advertisement on November 1, allowing prospective customers two months to purchase their almanacs before the new year began.  That also gave retailers in Williamsburg and other towns time to acquire almanacs to stock in their own shops and stores.  Dixon and Hunter printers advised that they sold the almanac “at the usual Prices,” though they did not specify the price in their advertisement.  The printers may have wished to assure readers that shortages of paper and other disruptions caused by the war had not resulted in significant increases in what they would pay for almanacs compared to previous years.

When Dixon and Hunter ran their advertisement a second time on November 8, they added a couple of lines that gave more information.  That included expanding the title to “The VIRGINIA ALMANACK For the Year 1777, Fitting VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, NORTH CAROLINA, &c.”  Readers in those states could depend on the astronomical calculations corresponding to their locations.  Dixon and Hunter did not mention in their advertisement that David Rittenhouse, a prominent mathematician and astronomer in Philadelphia, was credited as the author since he provided those calculations (and the printers, as editors, likely selected other contents).  Rittenhouse also supplied the calculations for Father Abraham’s Almanack, For the Year of Our Lord 1777, published by John Dunlap in Philadelphia.  In an advertisement in the November 12 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, the printer boasted, “Our kind customers are requested to observe, that the ingenious David Rittenhouse, A.M. of this city, has favoured us with the Astronomical calculations of our Almanack for this year, therefore they may be most firmly relied on.”  Dixon and Hunter did not go into such detail, though Rittenhouse apparently undertook a separate set of calculations for states to the south of Pennsylvania.

Dixon and Hunter also added instructions for customers outside Williamsburg who sent orders rather than visiting the printing office to purchase their almanacs: “Demands from the Country it is expected will be accompanied with the Cash.”  That suggested that prospective customers were indeed familiar with “the usual Prices.”  It also revealed that the printers would not extend credit to either customers purchasing their own almanacs or retailers purchasing them to sell again.  Despite the upheavals of the war, they set a reasonable price, but in exchange they needed payment at the time of sale.  The printers declined to take on the risk of credit in such uncertain times.

Slavery Advertisements Published November 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.

Connecticut Gazette (November 8, 1776).

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Essex Journal (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

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Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (November 8, 1776).

November 7

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 7, 1776).

“THE BATTLE of BUNKERS-HILL.  A dramatic piece of five acts, in heroic measure.”

In the fall of 1776, Robert Bell printed, advertised, and sold “THE BATTLE of BUNKERS-HILL.  A dramatic piece of five acts, in heroic measure.  By a Gentleman of Maryland.”  His advertisement in the November 7 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post featured a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid, “Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis,” along with a translation for readers who did not happen to know Latin, “‘Tis glorious to die in battle.”  Both the quotation and the translation also appeared on the title page of the play.  Most prospective customers were likely familiar with the Battle of Bunker’s Hill that occurred on June 17, 1775, during the siege of Boston.  Although the British won, they took such heavy losses at the hands of the Americans that they did not launch other attacks during the siege.  In that regard, the battle was an American victory, but one that came at cost.  General Joseph Warren, a patriot leader who only a few months earlier delivered the annual oration commemorating the Boston Massacre, was killed during the battle.

Bell’s advertisement did not go into such detail, perhaps because the printer expected that many prospective customers already knew the most significant details.  He expected that a “dramatic piece” would arouse both their curiosity and their patriotism, encouraging them to purchase the play.  Scholars have supplied some of the details that Bell did not include in his advertisement.  Curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for instance, explain that “the headmaster of Maryland’s Somerset Academy,” Hugh Henry Brackenridge, “responded [to the battle] with a play for his students to perform.”  Bell printed the play and distributed it more widely to American readers.  When he did so, he included a frontispiece, “The Death of Warren,” that depicted the general on bended knee with his right hand over his chest and his left hand on his rifle for support.  Concerned soldiers appeared on the left of the mortally wounded general and a fallen comrade, another American casualty, laid on the ground on the right.  John Norman, who had produced other patriotic images, engraved the scene, though Bell did not promote it in his advertisement.  Instead, he announced that he stocked “all the new publications of the Military Art” as well as “a considerable variety of books in Navigation, and other branches of the Mathematics.”

Brackenridge demonstrated his patriotism by writing the play and then resigning from his position to join the Continental Army as a chaplain.  Bell, like many other printers, artists, and booksellers presented consumers with an opportunity to show their patriotism by buying and reading the play.  Such commemoration and commodification of the events associated with the American Revolution began before the war and continued during the war.

Hugh Henry Brackenridge, The Battle of Bunkers-Hill, a Dramatic Piece, of Five Acts, in Heroic Measure (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1776). Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.