What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“STRAYED off the Common at Savannah, A SORREL HORSE.”
In the late 1760s the Georgia Gazette did not have a standard format for the placement of advertisements in relation to other content. The publication followed a general rule that filling the final page with paid notices, but any additional advertisements could appear just about anywhere else in a standard four-page issue.
Consider the May 10, 1769, edition of the Georgia Gazette. Each page had a different configuration of news and advertising. No paid notices ran on the front page, just the masthead, news, and editorials. As usual, advertisements filled the last page, except for the colophon running across the bottom. It also served as an advertisement of sorts, advising readers of the services available at the printing office: “Hand-Bills, Advertisements, &c. printed at the shortest Notice.” Advertising also filled most of the third page. The Georgia Gazette had two columns per page. An editorial extended for half of the first column on the third page; advertisements accounted for the remainder of the column as well as the entire second column. The second page featured a more even division, with news in the column on the left and advertisements in the column on the right, along with the shipping news positioned at the bottom of that column.
One additional advertisement stood out from the rest of the content on the second page. It ran in the margin across the bottom, spanning both columns. In it, James Read described a horse that had strayed “off the Common at Savannah” and pledged that anyone who found the horse and returned it to him “shall be handsomely rewarded.” The format and placement indicates that Read likely submitted his advertisement to the printing office too late to have it integrated among the other content. Anxious for the return of his horse, Read may have negotiated for it to appear in the issue in any way possible; alternately, the printer may have devised this means of inserting it as a service. Either way, Read’s advertisement further demonstrates the Georgia Gazette’s flexible approach to positioning advertisements within its pages. At a glance, eighteenth-century newspapers may appear to be dense amalgamations of text, but the variations in the placement of news, advertising, and other content suggests that printers and compositors exercised creativity as they significantly altered the layout from issue to issue.