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

“Broad cloths in|Best belladine sew-|Bellows’s Gimblets”

The format of Samuel Broome and Company’s advertisement in the Connecticut Journal suggested the work of an unskilled compositor, someone who had not sufficiently mastered the typographical arts to create an advertisement that was either visually appealing or easy to read. Yet Bernard Lintot’s advertisement that appeared immediately to the left in the November 25, 1768, edition hinted that the compositor of Broome and Company’s notice might not have been entirely at fault for its dense and cluttered appearance.

Both advertisements featured two vertical lines trisecting three columns of goods. Lintot’s advertisement listed only one item per line in each column, taking advantage of white space to make each legible for readers. Broome and Company’s advertisement, on the other hand, included multiple items per line and crushed the columns together without any space to separate them. Why adopt that approach when it was clear that those employed at the printing office were capable of doing better?

It may have been an issue of finances rather than a lack of aesthetics. The cramped advertisement already filled an entire column. If Broome and Company had insisted on a style that replicated Lintot’s advertisement, their notice would have extended into a second column. That may not have been a viable alternative considering that the partners ran their advertisement in the Connecticut Journal in alternating issues for five months, incurring significant advertising costs. Broome and Company may have intentionally avoided the additional expense associated with overflowing into a second column; given their frequent publication schedule, the printers also may have confined Broome and Company to a single column. Each time their notice appeared it accounted for one-eighth of the total content in a four-page newspaper with only two columns per page.

What kind of consultation took place among advertisers, printers, and compositors in the eighteenth century? On its own, Broome and Company’s advertisement suggests that the compositor did not execute his charge particularly well, but that might not have been the case. The variation in visual appeal among the advertisements in the Connecticut Journal indicates that other factors may have also been at play in determining the format of Broome and Company’s lengthy notice.