September 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (September 14, 1776).

“A few Copies of the Second Edition of Strictures on Common Sense.”

Like many other printers in Philadelphia, James Humphreys, Jr., advertised and sold military manuals in the fall of 1776.  In the September 14 edition of his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Ledger, he announced, “A few Copies of the Military Guide FOR YOUNG OFFICERS, By THOMAS SIMES … May be had of the PRINTER hereof.”  Humphreys collaborated with fellow printers Robert Bell and Robert Aitken in publishing that “large and valuable Compilation from the most celebrated MILITARY WRITERS.”  In the same issue, he noted that “A few Copies of the Second Edition of Strictures on Common Sense, May be had of the Printer.”  He used a shortened title for The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, in Certain Strictures on a Pamphlet Intitled Common Sense, one of only two pamphlets that directly responded to Thomas Paine’s popular pamphlet.  Humphreys had published the first edition in late May and found a large enough market, even with the colonies declaring independence, that he undertook a second edition.

The advertisements for those two works – a military manual primarily intended for officers and soldiers fighting for the American cause and a political pamphlet arguing against independence – demonstrated the editorial perspective that Humphreys took in publishing the Pennsylvania Ledger.  In the colophon, he stated that “Essays, Articles of News, Advertisements, &c. are gratefully received and impartially inserted.”  That meant that he welcomed letters, editorials, and news updates that expressed an array of views about current events, unlike many other printers.  Rather than place the colophon at the bottom of the final page, where it appeared in most newspapers, Humphreys positioned it immediately below the masthead so it alerted readers before they perused any of the “Essays, Articles of News, [and] Advertisements” that they should expect to encounter items that took different positions and did not necessarily reflect their own views, whatever those happened to be.  More than most printers at the time, Humphreys did strive to “impartially” deliver news to readers, but that did not earn him the admiration of the public.  Concerned about his safety, he ceased publishing the Pennsylvania Ledger and left Philadelphia by the end of 1776.

September 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (September 14, 1776).

“THE ART OF WAR.”

The September 14, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post carried updates about British maneuvers since the Continental Army’s retreat from Long Island.  The enemy invaded and occupied New York.  In the same issue, the newspaper carried an advertisement for a military manual – yet another one – published by a printer in Philadelphia.  Such notices for an array of military manuals had been appearing in the Pennsylvania Evening Post and other newspapers for the past two years.  This time, Robert Bell announced that he “Just published … THE ART OF WAR … By Monsieur De Lamont, Town-Major of Toulon [and] By the CHEVALIER DE LA VALIERE.”  Despite the significance of the news from New York, Bell’s advertisement ran as the first item in the first column on the first page.

As was common in many advertisements for books, much of the copy merely replicated the extensive subtitle that doubled as a table of contents.  Readers learned that the book consisted of three parts, “I. The duties of all military officers in actual service; … II. The duties of soldiers in general; … [and] III. The rules and practice of the greatest Generals.”  Bell added a “MEMORANDUM” to give more detail, noting that De Lamont wrote the first section and La Valiere penned the other two.  De Lamont, he further explained, held “a post of great trust, and which requires much experience to recommend a man to it.”  He gained that experience “by serving in the army for twenty-three warm campaigns, and during that time was personally engaged in many of the most considerable sieges and battles.”  Once Bell established the Town-Major of Toulon’s credentials, he explained what readers could expect to get out of the first section of The Art of War.  “All his instructions are so regular, and so just, that they in a manner make a soldier of the man that never saw a camp, and leads him, that desires to follow that course of life, so fully into the art of war, that a young officer has nothing to do when he comes into the field but only to put in practice that theory, which he has already conceived, concerning all the operations, belonging to the several posts, in an active and courageous army.”  That may have offered some reassurance to men taking on responsibilities as military officers for the first time.  Even those with more experience may have found it worthwhile to read De Lamont’s “necessary instructions” to brush up on what they needed to know.

Bell did not devote the same attention to the “second and third parts of this work … composed by Gen. La Viliere,” though he noted that the general was “another French officer of great valour and experience.”  The contents already outlined that the “duties of soldiers” included “necessary instructions, in many capital matters, by remaining ignorant of which a man, who pretends to be a soldier, will be every day in danger of brining disgrace upon himself, and material injury to the cause of his country.”  In addition, the “rules and practice of the greatest Generals” described “manœuvres of encamping, marching, order of battle, fighting, attacking, and defending strong places, with the manner of surprising towns, quarters, and armies.”

Even with so many military manuals recently published in Philadelphia, many of them by Bell, the printer believed a market existed for another one.  Current events, especially news from New York, demonstrated that American officers and soldiers needed to learn and apply as much knowledge about military operations as they could.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 14, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

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

Freeman’s Journal (September 14, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Evening Post (September 14, 1776).

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Providence Gazette (September 14, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (September 14, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (September 14, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (September 14, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (September 14, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (September 14, 1776).

September 13

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

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

Connecticut Gazette (September 13, 1776).

“Send him the exact Measure round their naked Body on a Piece of Cartridge Paper.”

In September 1776, Stephen Johnson published an advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette to inform the public that he “Still continues the Business of making TRUSSES or Bandages to keep up the falling Parts of those who are troubled with the Burst.”  In other words, Johnson made hernia belts to relieve the discomfort of his clients.  Some readers may have previously been aware that Johnson made and sold trusses.  He had previously advertised in the Connecticut Gazette in April 1774.  That notice featured a testimonial signed by eight of Johnson’s former customers who addressed the printer and requested that he “insert the following in your next Paper.”  Given that they were so satisfied with their trusses that they took that step, they may have also promoted Johnson’s hernia belts via word of mouth.

In his new advertisement, Johnson declared that he “has made great numbers in the neatest Manner,” emphasizing both his experience and skill.  Furthermore, he “has the Satisfaction to find by those who have used them that they have never failed in one Instance of answering the Purpose.”  That may have been the most important appeal.  Johnson proclaimed that his trusses were effective, that they offered relief to his customers who purchased and wore them.  New customers could depend on wearing their trusses “without any kind of Inconvenience,” suggesting that they were not bulky or unnecessarily constrictive of movement.  Those who did would discover that the devices “afford abundant relief and satisfaction,” just as they had done for his customers in the past.

Johnson realized that not all prospective customers could visit him in Ashford for a fitting.  For those who wished to place orders from a distance, he offered these instructions: “send him the exact Measure round their naked Body on a Piece of Cartridge Paper, and on which Side the Breach is.”  He gave similar directions in his previous advertisement.  Such customers did not need to worry that they had not been precise in taking and recording their own measurements if they sent a length of paper that they had wrapped around their body and cut accordingly.  Johnson devised that means of increasing sales by filling order received from a distance, an eighteenth-century precursor to mail order medicine.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 13, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

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

Connecticut Gazette (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (September 13, 1776).

September 12

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (September 12, 1776).

“WAS STOLEN … A SILVER MILK URN.”

The woodcut depicting a crown suspended above a large cup likely drew attention to Thomas Shields’s advertisement.  After all, it was the only visual image that appeared in the September 12, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  Not even the masthead featured a woodcut.  In the advertisement, Shields lamented that “A SILVER MILK URN, of an oval form, with a lid and spout,” had been stolen from his shop on September 4.  He gave further details to help identify the stolen merchandise.  It “weighed about nine ounces,” was “engraved with a cypher MR,” and had been “made in England.”  Shields offered a reward to anyone who helped him recover the urn, whether intact (three pounds) or “cut to pieces” (four dollars).  At the very least, he wanted the silver back even if the thief had destroyed it in hopes of selling the silver.

What did that have to do with the image that accompanied Shields’s advertisement?  It did not correspond to his description of the stolen urn.  Including it increased the price of running the advertisement since it took up more space.  Some readers may have realized that Shields was a goldsmith who ran his shop “at the Golden Cup and Crown.”  He previously ran an advertisement giving that address in the Pennsylvania Gazette in the fall of 1771.  That advertisement happened to include the same woodcut of a cup and crown that appeared in his advertisement about the stolen milk urn five years later.  Shields had commissioned a woodcut for his exclusive use, one that corresponded to the sign that marked the location of his shop.  He apparently collected the woodcut from the printing office when he discontinued his advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette and tucked it away in case he wished to use it again in advertisements in that or any other newspapers.  Although Shields did not mention his shop sign in his notice about the stolen urn, he likely figured that a visual image of any sort (and especially one associated with his business) would draw attention to his advertisement and increase the chances that readers would assist in recovering the milk urn (or the silver).

September 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (September 11, 1776).

“THE LANCASTER ALMANACK, for the year 1777.”

It was one of the first advertisements for an almanac for 1777 that ran in American newspapers in the fall of 1776.  In the September 11 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, Francis Bailey advertised “THE LANCASTER ALMANACK, for the year 1777.”  In some years such notices began appearing as early as the middle of August, but shortages of paper and other disruptions caused by the Revolutionary War may have slowed the production of almanacs.  Still, Bailey and other printers knew from experience that the handy reference manuals did good business.  They sold well and generated revenue.

This almanac was the first that Bailey published since the Continental Congress declared independence.  During the imperial crisis, some almanacs featured items that advocated for the American cause.  Two years earlier, for instance, Bailey listed a poem, “On American liberty,” among the contents of his almanac for 1775.  Yet he did not make explicit reference to current events acknowledge independence in his marketing of his almanac for 1777.  As he had in the past, he highlighted “a number of useful and instructive essays, selected from good authors,” that supplemented “the usual astronomical calculations, and tables.”  Those included “A new method of making hogs grow quickly fat,” “Hints on good manners, by Dean Swift,” and “Verses on the entrance of the new-year.”  Among those items, Bailey inserted “A curious and exact account of the national debt of Great-Britain.”  That touched on politics, but it did not commemorate or celebrate the revolution that continued to unfold in the former colonies that united to form a new nation.  Two years later, Bailey’s almanac for 1779 would be among the first publications to name George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, as “Father of his country,” so the printer did not abandon integrating politics and patriotism in the almanacs he published.[1]  For some reason, he chose not to do so in marketing his almanac for 1777.

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[1] Carl Robert Keyes, “A Revolution in Advertising: ‘Buy American’ Campaigns in the Late Eighteenth Century,” in Creating Advertising Culture:  Beginnings to the 1930s, vol. 1, We Are What We Sell:  How Advertising Shapes American Life … And Always Has, eds. Danielle Coombs and Bob Batchelor (New York:  Praeger, 2013), 9.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 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.

Connecticut Journal (September 11, 1776).

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Maryland Journal (September 11, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (September 11, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (September 11, 1776).

September 10

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (September 10, 1776).

“The Second Edition of OBSERVATIONS ON THE Nature of CIVIL LIBERTY.”

When John Dunlap published a Philadelphia edition of Richard Price’s Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America, the book did well enough that he printed a second edition.  He gave an advertisement for the second edition a prime spot in the September 10, 1776, edition of his newspaper, Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, making it the first item in the first column of the first page.  Even if readers skipped over the rest of the advertisements on that page, they were more likely to notice that one.

Dunlap reworked an advertisement for the first edition that ran in his newspaper in July.  It appears he never broke down the type, perhaps anticipating that he would advertise the first edition again if it did not sell out.  Instead, he added a line, “The Second Edition of,” above the title of the book and eliminated the lengthy “EXTRACT from the WORK” that offered a preview in the previous advertisement.  A note about the reception that Price and his book received in London remained: “This learned, judicious and liberal author had the thanks of the Common Council, and the Freedom of the City of London presented to him in a gold box, for this much admired most excellent pamphlet on Civil Liberty.”  Dunlap added that Price “also deserves the united thanks of America.”

Dunlap and other printers certainly thought that “this much admired most excellent pamphlet” merited distribution in America.  Thomas Fleet and John Fleet published a Boston edition, Samuel Loudon published a New York edition, and David Bruce published a Charleston edition.  Like Dunlap, the Fleets used the pamphlet’s reception in London in marketing their edition.  In their advertisement, they declared, “This judicious and exceeding well wrote Pamphlet was published in London in March last and has had a very rapid Sale there.”  In turn, they considered it “well worthy the Perusal of every lover of Civil Liberty and good Government in America.”  Such appeals convinced enough consumers that Dunlap printed a second edition.  It even convinced retailers.  Matthew Anderson of Gloucester, Virginia, listed it as one of the few titles available at his store that primarily sold textiles, housewares, and hardware.

Slavery Advertisements Published September 10, 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 (September 10, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (September 10, 1776).

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Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (September 10, 1776).