May 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (May 8, 1776).

“It hath been a noted and good-accustomed store for looking-glasses near 14 years.”

At the same time that John Elliott promoted a “CONSIDERABLE assortment” of looking glasses available at his store on Walnut Street in Philadelphia, he also aimed to sell the entire business to an entrepreneur who would purchase his complete inventory and the location that had been familiar to residents of the bustling port for more than a decade.  To draw attention to his advertisement in the May 8, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, he included a woodcut depicting “the sign of the Bell and Looking-glass” that, according to previous advertisements, marked his location.

Among his inventory, Elliott had “Pier and Sconces GLASSES” as well as “a large choice of neat Dressing GLASSES, together with a great number of smaller sizes.”  He made retail sales, but he also hoped to supply “country stores and shopkeepers” who would make wholesale purchases to augment the merchandise they had on hand in their towns and villages.  The consumer revolution, after all, extended far beyond major urban ports, reaching eager consumers in the countryside.  Elliott hoped that the enthusiasm for acquiring goods would convince someone to purchase his entire store, despite the uncertainty of the war.  After all, even if consumers shifted from purchasing imported textiles and accessories to homespun fabrics, they still wanted to assess how they appeared in looking glasses.  As fashions changed, due to either tastes or politics, consumers continued to strive to make themselves presentable to others and depended on looking glasses in their efforts to do so.

That made selling looking glasses an attractive venture.  At least Elliott hoped that was the case.  He announced that he planned “to sell the house he lives in, which is properly fitted up for carrying on the LOOKING-GLASS business, particularly for quicksilvering.”  A prospective buyer did not need to have previous experience peddling looking glasses. Elliott declared that he was “willing to communicate to any person who may purchase” his house, store, and “the remaining stock on hand” the methods of the “art” of quicksilvering and “all other instructions for carrying on said trade.”  To sweeten the deal, he also assured prospective buyers that the location “hath been a noted and good-accustomed store for looking-glasses near 14 years.”  Elliott offered an opportunity for an entrepreneur interested in running their own business to take over a successful enterprise, one that he would “sell very low.”  For a small investment, a new owner could benefit from all the advantages that Elliott accumulated over the years.  Did those advantages outweigh the risks? Elliott tried to convince prospective buyers that they did.

Slavery Advertisements Published May 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.

Pennsylvania Journal (May 8, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published May 8, 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.

Pennsylvania Journal (May 8, 1776).

May 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (May 7, 1776).

“THE DISEASES incident to ARMIES … published for the use of military and naval surgeons.”

During the first week of May 1776, Robert Bell announced the publication of “THE DISEASES incident to ARMIES, with the Method of Cure; translated from the original of Baron Van Swieten, physician to their imperial Majesties.”  Yet that was not the only title in the volume.  Bell compiled an anthology that also included “the Nature and Treatment of GUN SHOT WOUNDS, by John Ranby, Esq; Surgeon General to the British army,” “Preventatives of the Scurvy at Sea, by William Northcote, surgeon many years in the sea service,” “Rules for preserving Health in warm and cold climates, by Doctor Lind,” and “Directions to be observed by sea surgeons in engagements.”  Bell presented the compilation “for the use of military and naval surgeons.”  Over the past year, Bell and other printers in Philadelphia published an array of military manuals for officers and soldiers.  The publication of this volume acknowledged another aspect of the war that began at the battles in Lexington and Concord in April 1775.

To promote this medical manual, Bell added a “Memorandum” to his advertisement in the May 7 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  “It is presumed,” he declared, “that whatever contributeth to promote the health and happiness of such valuable lives as those of American soldiers and sailors, should meet with a generous reception.”  He considered it appropriate that “those who are more immediately engaged in the pecuniary superintendment of [soldiers’ and sailors’] welfare” would purchase and consult the volume, yet those were not the only prospective customers who should support the publication of the medical manual.  The printer suggested that “all friends to liberty and humanity” should demonstrate their support for American soldiers and sailors, including civilians “who are in opulent circumstances” and, especially, “all the capital land sea officers, whose personal safety, wither from or in diseases (as well as the very large number of privates under their command) are so very dependent on the knowledge and abilities of their physicians.”  In other words, officers should purchase copies that they could later give or loan to the doctors and surgeons who provided medical care to the soldiers and sailors under their command.  Doing so, Bell suggested, was an obligation they assumed when they accepted the responsibilities of leadership.  That made his medical anthology an essential companion to the military manuals that he published and sold during the Revolutionary War.

May 6

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

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

Norwich Packet (May 6, 1776).

“FOUR different Views of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, &c. on the 19th  of April, 1775.”

With the war now in its second year, Joseph Carpenter, a goldsmith and jeweler, marketed a series of commemorative prints depicting the battles of Lexington and Concord that he sold at his shop “Near the Court-House” in Norwich, Connecticut.  Even though he stated that these “FOUR different Views” had “Just come to Hand,” other retailers had made them available months earlier.  In fact, his advertisement in the May 6, 1776, edition of the Norwich Packet replicated large portions of the James Lockwood’s advertisement in the December 13, 1775, edition of the Connecticut Journal.

In addition to the description of the series of prints matching, the titles that Carpenter listed for the prints reflected Lockwood’s advertisement rather than the titles engraved at the top of each of them.  Plate I was called “The Battle of Lexington” on both the print and in the advertisement, but Plate II was simply called “A View of the Town of Concord” on the print.  In both advertisements, however, it had a more elaborate title, “A View of the Town of Concord, with the Ministerial Troops destroying the Stores.”  The title engraved on Plate III named it “The Engagement at the North Bridge in Concord,” yet the advertisements called it “The Battle at the North-Bridge in Concord.”  Finally, the tile on Plate IV declared that it presented a “View of the South Part of Lexington,” yet the advertisements said that it show “The south Part of Lexington, where the first Detachment were joined by Lord Percy.

Both advertisements informed prospective customers that “[t]he above four Plates were neatly engraved on Copper, from original Paintings take on the Spot.”  Amos Doolittle engraved the images based on painting by Ralph Earl.  How Carpenter acquired them, he did not say, only that they had “Just come to Hand.”  When they did, it appears that whoever supplied them to the goldsmith and jeweler in Norwich also sent an advertisement clipped from a newspaper printed in New Haven or a letter that copied the notice in the Connecticut Journal.  Lockwood’s original advertisement circulated in unintended ways before being disseminated in print once again for the benefit of another purveyor of the commemorative prints in another newspaper.  Carpenter did not generate his own copy when he marketed the “FOUR different Views of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, &c. on the 19th  of April, 1775,” but instead relied on an advertisement originally published months earlier.

Slavery Advertisements Published May 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 (May 6, 1776).

**********

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (May 6, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 6, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 6, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 6, 1776).

**********

Norwich Packet (May 6, 1776).

**********

Norwich Packet (May 6, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published May 6, 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.

Connecticut Courant (May 6, 1776).

May 5

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

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

New-England Chronicle (May 2, 1776).

“News-Carriers from Boston to Northampton, Deerfield, &c.”

An advertisement that Silent Wilde and Isaac Church inserted in the May 2, 1776, edition of the New-England Chronicletestifies to the infrastructure for disseminating information in Massachusetts as the Revolutionary War entered its second year.  These “News-Carriers from Boston to Northampton, Deerfield,” and other towns, as they described themselves, helped in keeping residents in western Massachusetts informed about the latest news from Boston and, via letters from correspondents and items reprinted from newspapers from other colonies, about current events throughout the continent and the Atlantic world.

Wilde and Church stated that they “go into Boston weekly” and “leave Boston on Mondays … to bring the Monday’s papers to such gentlemen and ladies as shall desire them.”  By “go into Boston,” they may have meant Watertown, where Benjamin Edes published the Boston-Gazette and Country Journal during the siege of Boston and remained for several months after the British evacuated the city.  Edes distributed new issues on Mondays.  The “News-Carriers” composed their message on April 16, during a period that Samuel Hall briefly suspended the New-England Chronicle when relocating from Cambridge (with the final issue published there on April 4) to Boston (with the first issue published there on April 25).  Whether in Cambridge or Boston, new issues of the New-England Chronicle came out on Thursdays.  Wilde and Church apparently planned their service around the Boston-Gazette even though they carried both newspapers printed in the Boston area and picked up Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy (published on Fridays) when they passed through Worcester.

Wilde and Church also reminded their customers that “the printers have advanced” or raised “their price” for subscriptions, so those who availed themselves of the delivery service needed to take that into account when making payment.  In addition, due to the “greatly increasing charge of travelling, they hope the gentlemen who have employed them, will generously consider the same, by contributing each one a small matter to them on this account.”  In other words, Wilde and Church requested tips to help cover expenses that had gone up since entering into agreements with their customers in Northampton, Deerfield, and other towns in western Massachusetts.  They also “can’t let slip the present opportunity without very earnestly calling upon those who are in arrears with them for former services to settle their accounts forthwith.”  If customers were not inclined to give the “News-Carriers” a tip, they could at least pay what they owed.

May 4

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

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (May 4, 1776).

“His large and elegant STOCK of China, Glass and Earthern Wares.”

The extensive advertisement for a “large and elegant STOCK of China, Glass and Earthern Wares” that Joseph Stansbury ran in the May 4, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger looked more like advertisements that appeared before the Continental Association went into effect on December 1, 1774, and before the war began on April 19, 1775.  It filled an entire column, listing countless items that Stansbury sticked at his store “opposite Christ Church [in] Philadelphia.”

To help prospective customers navigate his inventory, Stansbury used headings for “CHINA,” “GLASS,” and “EARTHERN WARE.”  To make the most efficient use of the space, he divided the column into two columns with a line of decorative type running down the center.  Under each heading, he grouped similar items together and, when their description extended more than one line, indented the second and subsequent lines so the resulting white space guided readers.  Some categories of goods were short, just two lines, such as “Rich enamelled tea-table sets complete” and “Blue and white soup terrines, two sizes.”  Others were much longer, including one that extended for twenty-two lines.  That one offered “Cream-pots, salts, mustards, pepper-castors, egg slices, custard cups, blamange moulds, cheese-toasters, cream-buckets, Italian lamps for the chambers of the sick, garden pots, flower horns, jarrs and beakers, sauce-boats, terrines, butter-tubs and stands, egg cups, bottles and basons, water dishes, fish drainers, cream cheese dishes, chamberpots, pattypans, baking dishes, compotiers, pudding dishes, pap boats, sallad dishes, plates, oblong dishes, mugs, jugs, childrens tea sets, whistling birds, &c.”  The “&c.” (the abbreviation for et cetera commonly used in the eighteenth century) suggested an even greater array of goods available to consumers who visited Stansbury’s store.  He promoted “a great choice of patterns” among his “Chocolate, & coffee tea-cups and saucers,” part of his larger theme of presenting all kinds of choices to consumers.

Stansbury encouraged the sort of conspicuous consumption that had become increasingly popular in the middle decades of the eighteenth century as colonizers participated in a transatlantic consumer revolution.  A series of boycotts (known at the time as nonimportation and nonconsumption agreements) during the imperial crisis and then the disruptions to trade during the war prompted many merchants, shopkeepers, and consumers to suspend some of their operations or abstain from importing and purchasing all sorts of goods.  Stansbury’s advertisement, however, testified to an active market or, at least, his desire to continue making sales despite the trying times.  As a Loyalist, Stansbury may not have much cared about the Patriot position when he ran his advertisement.  He was imprisoned later in 1776 for boisterously singing “God Save the King” and eventually served as an intermediary between Benedict Arnold and John André.

Slavery Advertisements Published May 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.

Pennsylvania Ledger (May 4, 1776).

**********

Providence Gazette (May 4, 1776).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (May 4, 1776).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (May 4, 1776).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (May 4, 1776).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (May 4, 1776).