March 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (March 26, 1776).

“All Watch and Clock Maker’s please to stop the above mentioned Watch.”

What happened to Alexander Shaw’s watch?  In an advertisement in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette, he reported that it had been “STOLEN out of the house of James Carson, in Gay-street” in Baltimore on March 12, 1776.  He did not give other details about the circumstances, instead focusing on a description of the “SILVER WATCH.”  It could be identified as “No. 178, the make’s name Daniel Hubert, White Frier’s, London,” though Shaw did not indicate whether those details had been engraved on the watch or appeared on a watch paper that protected the face of the watch when stored.  Other identifying characteristics included: “siler faced, with a pinchbeck chain, and a seal stamped King George’s head.”  Shaw offered a reward of forty shillings to anyone who returned the watch to him.

He also took an opportunity to enlist the aid of watchmakers and clockmakers in recovering his stolen watch.  In a nota bene, he requested that they “stop the above mentioned Watch, if given to be cleaned or offered for sale.”  Artisans and shopkeepers sometimes placed advertisements to alert readers that they “stopped” or confiscated items that they suspected had been stolen and presented to them for repairs, for sale, or to barter.  Thieves, burglars, and shoplifters participated in what Serena Zabin has called an “informal economy” that gave them access to consumer culture in early America, though not everyone who possessed stolen goods had taken them.  Instead, consumers active in the “informal economy” purchased items that had been fenced, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly.  Shaw seemed less concerned with capturing whoever had stolen his watch than with recovering it, perhaps realizing that anyone who took it to a watchmaker or clockmaker to have it cleaned or to sell it had not necessarily stolen it.  He hoped that the reward would encourage members of that trade to be vigilant in examining watches brought to their shops, increasing the chances of recovering his precious keepsake.  Many newspaper notices promoted goods to consumers, but Shaw used this advertisement to recover an item previously in his possession.

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 26, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Guest Contribution

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 Evening Post (March 26, 1776).

March 25

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

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

“Work in the jewellery way … all sorts of silver-smiths work.”

By the time that Charles Oliver Bruff, a goldsmith and jeweler, placed his advertisement in the March 25, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury he was a veteran advertiser with at least a decade of experience running notices in the public prints in New York.  While little direct evidence about the effectiveness of advertising in early America exists, the fact that Bruff repeatedly invested in marketing suggests that he believed that it worked and considered it worth the investment.  Indeed, his latest advertisement consisted of two advertisements.  The copy for the first one ran as its own notice in the Constitutional Gazette more than six months earlier.  As the first anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord approached, Bruff once again offered swords to “Those GENTLEMEN who are forming themselves into COMPANIES in defence of their LIBERTIES.”

Bruff may have considered advertising effective because he did more than merely announce that he had goods for sale.  Instead, he carefully crafted appeals to consumers, encouraging them to purchase his wares.  As he targeted prospective customers “forming themselves into COMPANIES,” for instance, he adorned them with likenesses of British politicians who advocated for the American colonies and corresponding mottoes, including “[William] Pitt’s head, Magna Charta and Freedom” and “[John]Wilkes’s head[,] Wilkes and Liberty.”  He also underscored that the words he stocked were “made in America, all manufactured by said BRUFF.”  When nonimportation agreements became one of the primary strategies for practicing politics, Bruff and other entrepreneurs marketed goods produced in the colonies.

The goldsmith and jeweler also deployed visual images to promote his business.  He advised readers that he kept shop “At the sign of the Tea Pot, Tankard, and Earring,” but they likely noticed the woodcut that adorned his advertisement before anything else.  It featured several of the items available at his shop, including a handheld looking glass with an ornate handle and frame, a ring, a buckle, and an earring.  The image also included an elaborate coat of arms.  A shield decorated with two silver balls, a chevron, and a fish was in the center.  A hand grasping a sheaf of wheat appeared above the shield.  Ribbons cascaded over the side, giving way to leaves and flowers.  The ornate woodcut corresponded to an appeal that Bruff made in the second of those advertisements combined into a single lengthy advertisement: “He engraves all sorts of arms, crests, cyphers, heads, and fancies in the neatest manner.”  For good measure, he reminded prospective customers that he also engraved “all emblems of liberty” on jewelry and other items.

In addition to his “work in the jewellery way” and “silver-smiths work,” Bruff provided other services to entice customers into his shop.  He cleaned watches, installed new glass, and made other repairs at reasonable prices and even “works hair in springs, birds, figures, cyphers, crests and cupid fancies” and “plaits hair in the neatest manner.”  Bruff made his advertisements worth the investment by developing a variety of appeals to consumers and promising an array of goods and services to encourage them to visit his shop.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 25, 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 25, 1776).

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Boston-Gazette (March 25, 1776).

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Connecticut Courant (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 25, 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.

Boston-Gazette (March 25, 1776).

March 24

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 22, 1776).

“He ought to stand in the same respectable point of view with all friends of America.”

As the imperial crisis intensified and became a war, some colonizers published newspaper advertisements intended to rehabilitate their reputations.  Many of the signers of an address to Thomas Hutchinson took to the pages of the newspapers published in New England to apologize and to explain the circumstances that led to their error.  In response to other incidents that called their support for American liberties into question, Asa Dunbar published “RECANTATIONS” in the New-England Chronicle, Lemuel Bower and Joseph Lyon both expressed regret for not showing support for nonimportation agreement in advertisements in the New-York Journal, and John Bergum promised to “conduct myself as a true friend to America” in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.

Samuel Kinkead got into similar trouble in Virginia in January 1776.  An advertisement in the March 22 edition of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette reported that Kinkead “stood suspected of being unfriendly to the American cause, on account of some expressions he dropped in company with some gentlemen” in West Augusta.  William Christian and George Gibson, and “several other officers, examined the witnesses who had heard his expressions.”  At the conclusion of their interviews, “the whole of us were satisfied that [Kinkead] meant that he ought to stand in the same respectable point of view with all friends of America as he formerly did.”  This advertisement delivered important news, at least from Kinkead’s perspective, so he may have been grateful that it ran first among the paid notices in that issue of the Virginia Gazette.  It thus served as a transition between news and editorials that kept readers informed about politics and the war and the advertisements placed for a variety of purposes.  This notice, like so many others, delivered local news to readers, bypassing the printer who made editorial decisions about what to include elsewhere in the newspaper.  Kinkead did not address readers himself as others had done, but he may have considered it more effective for Christian and Gibson to vouch for him.

March 23

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

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

Providence Gazette (March 23, 1776).

“No advantage is meant to be taken.”

As spring approached in 1776, James Green took to the pages of the Providence Gazette to advertise “GARDEN-SEEDS” that he sold “At his little Shop.”  He had done so in recent years, though the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement devised by the Second Continental Congress that went into effect on December 1, 1774, and the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, seemingly had an impact on his business.  He previously promoted a “Fresh Assortment of Garden Seed, just imported in the last Ships from London,” in the spring of 1773 and a “Fresh Assortment of Garden Seeds, imported from London …, warranted to be all of the last Year’s Produce,” in the spring of 1774.  In 1776, on the other hand, he stocked some seeds that he described as “English, the Growth of the Season before last,” meaning that they arrived before the Continental Association went into effect.  This time around he also had seeds for a variety of “American Produce,” adapting his business to the changing times.

As was often the case, Green took the opportunity to hawk other merchandise, including “a few articles of English goods,” presumably imported more than a year earlier, “a small assortment of glass, stone and earthen ware,” and “loaf and brown sugar, coffee, chocolate, indico, rice, [and] flour.”  Tea was conspicuously missing from the list of groceries that Green stocked.  The shopkeeper did not merely list his wares.  He also assured prospective customers his merchandise “will be sold at as cheap a rate as the times will afford.”  In other words, he set reasonable prices, yet he acknowledged that the nonimportation agreement and the war resulted in higher prices.  Still, he sought to avoid suspicion that he engaged in price gouging: “No advantage is meant to be taken.”  In making that statement, he echoed the ninth article of the Continental Association.  It dictated that “such as are Venders of Goods or Merchandise will not take Advantage of the Scarcity of Goods that may be occasioned” by this agreement.  Green wanted the entire community to know that he dealt fairly with his customers.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 23, 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 (March 23, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (March 23, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (March 23, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 23, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 23, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 23, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 23, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 23, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 23, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 23, 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.

Providence Gazette (March 23, 1776).

March 22

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (May 22, 1776).

“STOP THIEF.”

The advertisement had a bold headline: “STOP THIEF.”  Those two words likely attracted the attention of many readers of the March 22, 1776, edition of the Essex Gazette.  After all, the headlines for most other advertisements gave the name of the advertiser in a large font, such as “Nicholas Pike,” “Abel Morse,” and “John Sawyer,” or named a product being sold, such as “Garden-Seeds” and “Lemmons by the Box.”  This advertisement reported on a recent burglary: “STOLEN out of the House of the subscriber living in Seabrook last Sunday night the following Articles … A dark brown Coat, a brown Kersey Great Coat, a black velvet J[ac]ket, a striped cotton and linnen Gown with chintz cuffs; two quilted Petticoats, and one single d[itt]o. and a linnen Shift, with sundry other Articles.”

That was quite the haul.  Whoever stole the black velvet jacket and the striped cotton and linen gown was unlikely to wear both items.  They might have kept some of the stolen goods for personal use, but they likely sold or fenced most of them. Burglars, thieves, and shoplifters devised alternate means of participating in consumer culture during the era of the American Revolution.  Reports of their activities frequently appeared as newspaper advertisements alongside other notices that presented all sorts of clothing, textiles, and housewares imported and sold by merchants and shopkeepers.  Another advertisement in the same issue of the Essex Gazette had a headline that proclaimed, “Four Dollars Reward.”  In it, Israel Adams described the theft of “Four pair of men’s SHOES; two pair men’s Pumps; six pair women’s Pumps, and two pair boy’s Shoes.”  Both advertisements offered a reward for capturing the culprits and bringing them to justice … and both offered a reward for the return of the stolen goods.  The anonymous advertiser from Seabrook seemingly understood that the goods may have been fenced by the time anyone could “take up said Thief and confine him in any [Jail], so that he may be brought to Justice,” but just in case it was not too late “the subscriber” would double the reward for delivering “the Thief and Goods.”