March 11

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

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

Norwich Packet (March 11, 1776).

“A few Copies of a Pamphlet, ENTITLED, COMMON SENSE, May be had of the Printers hereof.”

Alexander Robertson, James Robertson, and John Trumbull, the printers of the Norwich Packet, ran out of space for all the content intended for the March 11, 1776, edition of their newspaper.  They inserted a brief notice advising, “Advertisements omitted in this Paper will be in our next.”  They did have just enough space to insert a revised advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense immediately above that notice: “A few Copies of a Pamphlet, ENTITLED, COMMON SENSE, May be had of the Printers hereof.”

Norwich Packet (March 11, 1776).

The printers first ran a variation of that advertisement on February 26, but that was not the extent of the notice that Common Sense received in that issue.  Nathanel Patten, a bookbinder and stationer, inserted a separate advertisement that provided an overview of the contents by listing the section headings.  That replicated advertisements for Common Sensethat previously appeared in other newspapers.  In addition, the Robertsons and Trumbull published “EXTRACTS from aPamphlet entitled COMMON SENSE; addressed to the INHABITANTS of AMERICA” on the third page.  In making their selection, they passed over the first section of the pamphlet, “Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on the English Constitution,” and went directly to the second section, “Of MONARCHY and hereditary succession.”  The printers devoted half a column to the “EXTRACTS” and promised, “[To be continued.]” They were more generous the following week, allowing nearly two columns for “EXTRACTS FROM A PAMPHLET, ENTITLED, COMMON SENSE.”  In the issue that “omitted” advertisements and promised publication “in our next,” the printers designated two columns for further “EXTRACTS.”  They sacrificed valuable advertising revenue as they disseminated a portion of the popular political pamphlet to readers, though they may have recouped some of that lost revenue by enticing readers to purchase the pamphlet.  The Robertsons and Trumbull continued publishing “EXTRACTS” in another two columns on March 18 and just over two columns on March 25.  On April 1, they gave over the entire first page and another two columns on the last page to continuing the “EXTRACTS.”  On April 8, they concluded the extracted portion of Common Sense, once again featuring it on the first page along with nearly two columns on the last page.  They also promised more material related to the pamphlet, “Additions to the above,” in the next issue.  The Robertsons and Trumbull made it possible for colonizers to engage with Common Sense along multiple trajectories. They could purchase the entire pamphlet and read it for themselves, peruse the extracts in the Norwich Packet, and discuss what they read with others who debated the merits of declaring independence.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 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.

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.

Boston-Gazette (March 11, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 11, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 11, 1776).

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

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

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

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

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 11, 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 Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 11, 1776).

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Norwich Packet (March 11, 1776).

March 10

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

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

Constitutional Gazette (March 9, 1776).

“The surest means to acquire a speedy sale … is to make them of full quality at a moderate charge.”

In March 1776, Richard Deane, a distiller in New York, took to the pages of the Constitutional Gazette to promote the spirits that he “has now ready for sale at his distillery between the College and the North Rover, in Murray Street, near Vaux-Hall.”  He listed a variety of products, including “Cherry Brandy,” “Shrub of the best quality,” “Royal Usquebaugh,” and “Cinamon water.”  Deane expressed confidence in the reputation his spirits earned in the early 1770s.  “The good quality of said DEANE’s liquors,” he proclaimed, “has for several years past been so well experienced, mostly throughout this continent, that they need no other recommendation.”  Consumers far beyond New York, he suggested, had enjoyed the spirits produced at his distillery.  Not content to rest on his laurels, however, Deane declared that “still he is determined, if possible, to make better.”  If customers liked the liquors he previously produced, then they would be even more satisfied with his current and future endeavors.

As part of this promotion, Deane shared his business philosophy, an aspect of his marketing that may have been familiar to readers who had encountered his advertisements in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and the New-York Journal over the years.  “Being fully convinced by long experience,” the distiller confided, “that the surest means to acquire a speedy sale of the above articles, is to make them of full quality at a moderate charge.”  Accordingly, he was “determined to sell on as reasonable terms as any one else” and give “good attendance” or customer service to “all his Friends and Customers.”  Such pledges became more powerful through repetition.  Deane built his brand by publishing his business philosophy often so consumers would associate the combination of experience, quality, and reasonable prices with him and his distillery.  He apparently considered it an effective marketing strategy since he published advertisements with the same content in multiple newspapers over the course of several years.

March 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (March 9, 1776).

“Just PUBLISHED … An APPENDIX to Common Sense.”

Advertisements for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense continued to proliferate in the March 9, 1776, edition of the Providence Gazette.  Three weeks earlier, John Carter, the printer, announced that he had a local edition of the pamphlet “Now in the PRESS” and expected that copies would be ready for sale within a week.  To stoke anticipation, he trumpeted, “This Pamphlet is in such very great Demand, that in the Course of a few Weeks three Editions of it have been printed in Philadelphia, and to in New-York, besides a German Edition.”  The following week, he updated the advertisement to alert the public that he “JUST PUBLISHED” the pamphlet and sold it for “One Shilling single, or Eight Shillings per Dozen.”

Rather than continuing to run that advertisement, he once again revised it for the March 1 edition of the Providence Gazette.  This version eliminated the comment about the “very great Demand” for the pamphlet.  Carter also described his edition as “A NEW EDITION OF Common Sense,” replicating how William Bradford and Thomas Bradford described the edition they produced in collaboration with Thomas Paine after the author parted ways with Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition of Common Sense.  Given that the Bradfords did not announce publication of that edition until February 14, the edition that Carter had “Now in the PRESS” on February 17 must have drawn from one of Bell’s editions or from John Anderson’s New York edition (drawn from one of Bell’s editions) published on February 8.  Why did Carter consider it necessary to revise his advertisement to describe his edition as “A NEW EDITION”?

He may have seen the dispute, first between Bell and Paine and later between Bell and the Bradfords, play out in advertisements in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers published in Philadelphia.  After all, printers exchanged newspapers so they could reprint news, letters, editorials, and other content.  During that dispute, the Bradfords emphasized that their edition included new material written by Paine, “An APPENDIX, and an Address to the People called QUAKERS.”  It did not take long for Bell to pirate those items and add them to “Large ADDITIONS to COMMON SENSE,” a collection of essays from newspapers, none of the written by Paine.

Carter acquired one of those pamphlets.  On March 9, he once again ran his advertisement promoting the “NEW EDITION.”  In a second advertisement, he announced publication of “An APPENDIX to Common Sense,” a separate item that sold for “Ninepence single, or Six Shillings per Dozen.”  Richard Gimbel indicates that this pamphlet included the “Address to the People called Quakers.”[1]  Perhaps Carter updated his advertisement in solidarity with the Bradfords.  He did not, after all, publish a local edition of “Large Additions.”  Carter did not explicitly wade into that controversy that gained so much attention in Philadelphia.  Instead, he kept the focus on distributing Common Sense and Paine’s supplementary materials.

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[1] Richard Gimbel, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an Account of Its Publication (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), 90.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 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.

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.

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 9, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 9, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 9, 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 (March 9, 1776).

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Constitutional Gazette (March 9, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (March 9, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (March 9, 1776).

March 8

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

GUEST CURATOR:  Massimo Sgambati

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

“I WILL give good wages for a journeyman SHOEMAKER.”

In this advertisement in the Virginia Gazette, Francis Moreland searched for a “journeyman SHOEMAKER.” The specificity of a journeyman implies that Moreland wanted to hire a shoemaker who was quite skilled rather than a young apprentice who still had much to learn. In eighteenth-century America, according to Patrick Grubbs, there was a difference in the levels of craftsmanship. The master oversaw production, owned the shops, and trained journeymen and apprentices. The journeyman was a skilled worker who had finished an apprenticeship, but did not have master status. An apprentice was a beginner learning the trade under a master.

“Cordonnier et cordonnier-bottier [Shoe and boot making]” (1765).  Courtesy Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project.

To help us better understand a shoemaker’s shop, Thomas Ford provides an image in The Leatherworker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg. In this image we see the inner workings of the customer-shoemaker relationship. Shoemaking as a craft grew across the colonies during the eighteenth century, not just in Virginia. In Philadelphia, Grubbs explains, the occupation grew from a handful in 1680 to over three hundred in 1774, due to a rise in demand and the colonists deciding it would be better to shop domestically for shoes. Craftsmanship was important in the eighteenth century, including in the market for shoes. Although some shoemakers made large quantities of shoes, colonists did not have access to mass produced shoes in the same way that modern consumers purchase Nike and Adidas, so they often relied on their local shoemakers to meet their needs.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

When I asked students in my senior capstone research seminar about advertising and consumer culture in early America to choose advertisements about consumer goods and services for the portfolios they created throughout the semester, I did not necessarily have employments advertisements in mind, but I allow for flexibility and creativity in selecting and interpreting newspaper notices for their portfolios and for publication via the Adverts 250 Project.  As I have written on other occasions, one of my favorite parts of enlisting my students as junior colleagues in the production of this digital humanities work is the opportunity to see sources that are so familiar to me through new eyes.  I likely would have passed over Moreland’s advertisement, but Massimo demonstrated its relevance to our readings and discussions about colonizers participating in consumer culture.  Consumption, after all, occurs in a reciprocal relationship with production and distribution of goods, as T.H. Breen highlights in The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, a book we read and discussed in our seminar.

Massimo chose one of three employment advertisements in the March 8, 1776, edition of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.  In another notice, Thomas Warren sought a “BRICKLAYER, who is a good workman,” for the next season. He limited his search to those “coming well recommended.”  Robert Anderson also wanted “well recommended” applicants to respond to his advertisement for a “GOOD HOSTLER” to care for horses.  The “journeyman SHOEMAKER” would have been the only one of the three who served an apprenticeship and may have worked more closely with customers than the bricklayer and the hostler.  On the other hand, Moreland may have had other plans for a new employee. In another advertisement in that issue, William Aylett informed the public that he “WANTED, for the army, a large number of SHOES.”  Moreland may have had his journeyman shoemaker craft shoes for individual clients or he may have tasked him with producing a quantity of shoes to supply the army, a precursor to modern mass production.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 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.

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.

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 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.

Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote (March 8, 1776).