December 31

December 31, 2020November 10, 2021 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Entertainment, Itinerant Performer, New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, Popular Culture, Sleight of Hand, William Patridge

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

*New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (December 31, 1770).

“Exhibiting his Art of Dexterity of Hand.”

As 1770 came to an end and 1771 began, William Patridge, an itinerant performer, took to the pages of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury to inform residents of the busy urban port that he provided entertainments for “every admirer of REAL CURIOSITIES.” Patridge rented “a large and commodious room … fitted up in a genteel Manner” for giving performances on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

His show consisted of several acts, including “Dexterity of Hand,” “Mr. Punch and his merry Family,” and an “Italian Shade.” Patridge included additional details about each in his efforts to entice audiences to attend his performances. He described his “Italian Shade,” mostly likely some sort of illumination, as “so much admired in Europe.” Audiences on the other side of the Atlantic had been impressed and delighted by this portion of his show, Patridge seemed to suggest, so residents of New York would not want to miss such an acclaimed exhibition. The portion of the evening devoted to “Mr. Punch and his merry Family” presumably involved a puppet show. Patridge incorporated “new Alterations every Evening,” making each performance different from any other. Members of the audience who attended more than one performance would experience something new each time. When it came to the “Art of Dexterity of Hand,” Patridge declared that he practiced “a new Method different from other Performers.” Even if readers had seen Hyman Saunders perform when he spent several weeks in New York in November, they supposedly had not seen anything like Patridge’s sleight of hand.

Patridge also saw to the comfort of his audience. In addition. To selecting a “commodious room … fitted up in a genteel Manner,” he also pledged that he had “taken proper Care to have the Room well aired” for those who saw his show. He offered “all Accommodations,” though he did not go into greater detail. He likely expected that residents of the city would already be familiar with “Mr. Mc. Dougall’s” establishment “at the sign of Lord John Murray, in Orange-street, Golden-Hill.” For those “Gentlemen and Ladies” who did not wish to mix with crowd at one of Patridge’s performances at that location, he also gave private performances in their homes, provided that they gave “timely Notice.” Patridge hinted at a higher level of refinement and status; rather than attending a performance, those “Gentlemen and Ladies” could have a performer attend on them.

Eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements reveal a variety of entertainments and amusements available to colonial consumers, a range of popular culture options available to them. Itinerant performers depended on those advertisements to make the public aware when they arrived in town and what kinds of diversions they offered. Although Patridge did not do so, many also declared that they would be in town for only a short time, attempting to incite greater demand by making their performances scarce commodities. Still, Patridge did not merely announce his presence in New York. Instead, he resorted to other kinds of appeals to attract audiences for his shows.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 31, 1770

December 31, 2020December 16, 2020 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 colonists 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. Colonists 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 colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

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*South-Carolina and American General Gazette* (December 31, 1770).

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December 30

December 30, 2020December 30, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Advertising Ephemera, Book Catalogs, Books, Law Books, Maryland Gazette, Thomas Brereton

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

“Catalogues may be had at Mr. Thomas Williams and Company’s Store in Annapolis.”

Newspaper advertisements were the most common form of marketing media in eighteenth-century America, but they were not the only means of advertising. Entrepreneurs also produced and distributed broadsides, handbills, trade cards, billheads, furniture labels, subscription papers, circular letters, and catalogs. Given the ephemeral quality of those genres, they have not survived in the same numbers as newspaper advertisements, but those that have been identified in research libraries, historical societies, and private collections suggest that various forms of advertising circulated widely.

Sometimes newspaper advertisements from the period made reference to other advertising materials that consumers discarded after the served their purpose, especially subscription papers for books and other publications, auction catalogs for an array of goods, and book catalogs that often also included stationery wares. Such was the case in an advertisement for “LAW BOOKS” in the December 27, 1770, edition of the Maryland Gazette. Thomas Brereton advertised that he sold law books in Baltimore. Seeking to serve prospective customers beyond that town, he advised readers that they could acquire catalogs “at Mr. Thomas Williams and Company’s Store in Annapolis.” Consumers could shop from the catalog and place orders via the post, the eighteenth-century version of mail order.

Brereton likely recognized benefits of simultaneously distributing two forms of marketing. The newspaper advertisements went into widespread circulation throughout the colony and beyond, enlarging his market beyond Baltimore. Yet the rates for publishing lengthy newspaper advertisements, such as a list of titles from a book catalog, may have been prohibitively expensive. Instead, resorting to job printing for a specified number of catalogs may have been the more economical choice. In addition, doing so created an item devoted exclusively to the sale of Brereton’s law books without extraneous materials. Interested parties who encountered Brereton’s advertisement in newspapers they read in coffeehouse or taverns or borrowed from friends or acquaintances could request their own copies of the catalog to carry with them, mark up, and otherwise treat as they pleased.

Compared to the frequency that newspapers advertisements promoted book catalogs as ancillary marketing materials, relatively few have survived. Some historians suspect that advertisers did not produce all of the catalogs they mentioned in their newspaper notices, especially those that advertisers promised would soon become available. Despite that possibility, it did not serve Brereton to direct prospective customers to a catalog that did not exist. In this instance, he noted that the catalogs were already available, increasing the likelihood that he did indeed produce and circulate them.

December 29

December 29, 2020December 29, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Cumberland Bridge Lottery, Lottery, Providence Gazette, Public Works, Whipple's Bridge

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

*Providence Gazette* (December 29, 1770).

“A LIST of the fortunate Numbers in the First Class of CUMBERLAND BRIDGE Lottery.”

In order to raise funds for “the Purpose of repairing and rebuilding the Bridge over Pawtucket River, called Whipple’s Bridge,” a committee composed of residents of Cumberland received permission from the Rhode Island assembly to conduct a series of lotteries in 1770. The committee began advertising in late November, advising the public that they would sponsor a series of four lotteries intended to yield one hundred dollars each. They published the “SCHEME of a LOTTERY” in the Providence Gazette, stating that they planned to “draw the First Class in a very short Time” and pledging to publish the winning tickets in the Providence Gazette.

That notice appeared in the December 29 edition. A heading informed readers that it was “A LIST of the fortunate Numbers in the First Class of CUMBERLAND BRIDGE Lottery.” The remainder of the advertisement consisted entirely of five pairs of columns that gave the winning ticket numbers and the dollar value of the corresponding prizes. According to the original notice that recruited participants, the winners had six months to claim their prizes. Any prize money not claimed in that interval “will be deemed generously given to the Public, for the future repairing of said Bridge.” The committee did not, however, remind winners of that stipulation when publishing the winning numbers in the newspaper. Still, the new notice apprised both participants and the general public that the enterprise moved forward.

It also buttressed another notice in the same edition. In that one, the “Managers of the Cumberland Bridge Lottery hereby give Notice, That the Third Class of said Lottery will be drawn on the 11th of January, at the House of the Widow Martha Whipple, in Cumberland aforesaid.” The announcement of prizes from the first class likely helped to advertise the later lotteries by demonstrating that some participants already enjoyed the benefits of their “fortunate Numbers” being drawn. Considered together, the two notices indicated that the committee made good progress on raising the necessary funds to repair the bridge.

December 28

December 28, 2020December 28, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Buy American, Domestic Manufactures, Flour of Mustard, New-Hampshire Gazette, W. and J. Whipple

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

*New-Hampshire Gazette* (December 28, 1770).

“Manufactured in AMERICA.”

Even before thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain and formed a new nation, advertisers deployed “Made in America” marketing strategies. Those efforts gained popularity in the 1760s and 1770s, the period of the imperial crisis that culminated in the American Revolution, as advertisers, producers, and consumers all recognized the political meanings inherent in the buying and selling of goods. They became especially pronounced whenever the crisis intensified, such as in response to the Stamp Act or the duties imposed on certain imported goods by the Townshend Acts. In a series of nonimportation agreements, colonists boycotted goods made from Britain with the intention of harnessing commerce to achieve political goals. They declared that they would resume importing and consuming those goods only once Parliament took the actions they desired, such as repealing the Stamp Act or repealing the Townshend duties. Simultaneously, colonists sought alternatives and encouraged “domestic manufactures,” the production and consumption of goods made in the colonies.

Newspaper advertisements published in the 1760s and 1770s did not need to be long and elaborate to draw on the discourse of politics and commerce. After all, news items and editorials rehearsed the disputes with Parliament and debated the appropriate remedies, so readers who encountered “Buy American” advertisements usually did so in the context of politics and current events covered elsewhere in the newspaper. As a result, advertisers like W. and J. Whipple of Portsmouth did not consider it necessary to explain all the reasons why consumers should purchase their “Choice FLOUR of MUSTARD” when they advertised in the December 28, 1770, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette. They simply informed prospective customers that their product was “Manufactured in AMERICA.” Either the Whipples or the compositor considered that an important enough recommendation for “AMERICA” to appear in all capital letters, like other key words in the advertisement. The Whipples expected that readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette would understand the significance of proclaiming that their flour of mustard was “Manufactured in AMERICA” without needing additional explanation or encouragement to buy it.

The short phrase “Manufactured in AMERICA” may seem like a minor component of a relatively short advertisement, but part of its power derived from the brevity of the notice. The Whipples communicated quite a bit about the intersection of politics and commerce in that short phrase. The repetition of that phrase and similar phrases was also powerful. The Whipples were not outliers or extraordinary in resorting to “Made in America” appeals to consumers. Instead, advertisers in New Hampshire and throughout the colonies regularly incorporated such sentiments into their newspaper notices in the 1760s and 1770s, doing their part to transform decisions about consumption into political acts.

December 27

December 27, 2020December 27, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Gifts, Holidays, James Rivington, New Years Gifts, New-York Journal

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

“NEW-YEARS PRESENTS.”

In the late colonial period, most advertisers did not prompt prospective customers to think of their merchandise in association with Christmas gifts. In the late 1760s, bookseller and stationer Garrat Noel of New York did place advertisements in which he listed books that he considered “proper for Christmas Presents and New-Year’s Gifts,” though he was usually alone in his efforts to establish a connection between those holidays and consumption in the public prints. The appropriately-named Noel addressed “those who are willing to be generous on the Occasion.” He encouraged that generosity by charging “extraordinary low Prices” for items he envisioned as gifts. He ran what has become familiar as a holiday sale long before other retailers adopted the custom. In the late 1760s, Noel was often the only advertiser from New England to Georgia who made an explicit connection between Christmas and giving gifts.

Although Noel placed newspaper advertisements in December 1770, he did not mention Christmas or encourage giving the books he sold as gifts. One of his competitors, however, seized the opportunity to market “NEW-YEARS PRESENTS” in the December 27 edition of the New-York Journal. James Rivington was best known as a bookseller, but, like many others in his occupation, he stocked a variety of other merchandise as well. He published an extensive list of items “which may be thought proper Presents to and from Ladies and Gentlemen at this Season, when the Heart is more peculiarly enlarged.” He offered everything from “NECKLACES, ear-rings, and hair pins” to “Beautiful polished leather snuff boxes” to “Siler plated tea urns” to “Dress swords and belts of all kinds.” For some items, Rivington made appeals to sentimentality, such as “Lockets for the custody of the dear creature’s hair.” He also advised prospective customers that he stocked items at various prices to fit their budgets. For instance, he charged “from six shillings to £10” for tooth pick cases and snuff boxes” and “from 7 shillings to seven dollars” for lockets. Rivington concluded his advertisement with a promise that he also carried “a myriad of other articles,” suggesting to consumers that they could find just the right “NEW-YEARS PRESENTS” when they visited his shop facing the Coffee-House Bridge.

The Christmas and New Year holidays did not animate a season of advertising associated with purchasing and exchanging gifts in the late colonial period. Such marketing strategies were largely absent, but not completely unknown. A small number of retailers experimented with making explicit connections between their merchandise and celebrating the holidays. In the process, they emphasized prices that facilitated generosity. They also encouraged sentimentality among consumers. Although subdued by today’s standards, their efforts to market the holidays could be seen as precursors to more extensive advertising campaigns in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 27, 1770

December 27, 2020December 16, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

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*Pennsylvania Gazette* (December 27, 1770).

December 26

December 26, 2020December 23, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Advertising Rates, Connecticut Courant, Ebenezer Watson, Green and Watson, Subscription Rates, Thomas Green

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

*Connecticut Courant* (December 25, 1770).

“ADVERTISEMENTS of not more than ten Lines, are taken in and inserted for THREE SHILLINGS three weeks.”

On November 13, 1770, Thomas Green and Ebenezer Watson, printers of the Connecticut Courant in Hartford, announced that they planned to enlarge the newspaper and make other improvements before the end of the year. The November 13 edition served as a specimen copy for current and prospective subscribers, though it did not feature a new colophon on the final page. Green and Watson inaugurated that aspect of the newspaper on December 25 when the new size became official. Compared to the previous colophon, “HARTFORD: Printed by GREEN & WATSON,” the new colophon was much more extensive, befitting a publication that sought to join the ranks of those from Boston and New York.

The new colophon included information about the costs of subscriptions and advertisements that not all printers made readily available to readers. If subscription fees or advertising rates did appear in print, they were usually part of a colophon. Some colophons incorporated one or the other, but usually not both. When they enlarged and enhanced the Connecticut Courant, Green and Watson provided both in the colophon. They set two prices for subscriptions, “NINE SHILLINGS, Lawful Money per Year, if sent by the special Post, or SEVEN SHILLINGS without Postage.” That provided important insight into Green and Watson’s business practices, especially their means of circulating the Connecticut Courant to distant subscribers. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, other printers who listed their subscription rates, most of them in busy and crowded urban ports, did not take the fees for post riders into consideration. Separate advertisements sometimes tended to those concerns, though they typically offered services without specifying prices. The colophon for the enlarged Connecticut Courant made the total costs for subscribing visible to customers.

In terms of advertising rates, Green and Watson charged three shillings to publish notices of ten lines or less for three weeks. Prices increased “in Proportion” for longer advertisements. As was typical, the initial fee included setting type, bookkeeping, and multiple insertions. Some printers allowed for four insertions, but most opted for three, then charged additional fees for subsequent insertions. Advertisers could continue running their notices in the Connecticut Courant for an additional six pence per week. That meant that half of the initial fee, three shillings or thirty-six pence, covered setting type and bookkeeping because three weeks of inserting a notice amounted to eighteen pence. Most newspaper printers derived greater revenues from advertising than subscriptions. In the case of the Connecticut Courant, three advertisements cost the same as an annual subscription that included “the special Post.”

Subscription rates and advertising fees were an aspect of early American printers’ business practices that did not regularly find their way into print in eighteenth-century newspapers. For many years Green and Watson did not incorporate this information into the Connecticut Courant, but when they enlarged the newspaper at the end of 1770, they added a new colophon as one of the improvements. In so doing, they provided important information about the production of their newspaper.

December 25

December 25, 2020December 23, 2020 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Anxiety, Essex Gazette, John Nelson, Samuel Hall, Subscription Notice

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

“The most judicious, sensible and learned Gentlemen … have already subscribed.”

Subscription notices were a common form of advertising in early American newspapers. Printers managed the risk and expense associated with publishing books by first distributing subscription notices to incite demand and gauge interest in particular titles. They announced their intention to print a book, but only if a sufficient number of subscribers indicated that they would purchase it. Printers often asked subscribers to confirm their commitment by making a deposit, often half of the final price. Those funds helped to defray expenses incurred in the production process. If a proposed title achieved a sufficient number of subscribers, the printer took it to press. If it did not, the printer abandoned the project before losing money on it.

Samuel Hall sought subscribers for “A Tract, wrote by the Rev’d Mr. JOHN NELSON, a Presbyterian Minister, late of Ballykelly in Ireland, in form of a Letter to his People” in 1770, aiming to reprint a book published in Belfast in 1766. As the year drew to a close, Hall believed that he had almost enough subscribers “to commit this Piece to the Press.” On December 25, he inserted an advertisement in the Essex Gazette to advise prospective subscribers that “[t]he greater Part of the most judicious, sensible and learned Gentlemen in Salem and Newbury-Port have already subscribed for reprinting this Book.” That being the case Hall requested “that those who are desirous of becoming Subscribers, and have not yet had an Opportunity, would not be speedy in sending in their Names.” He suspected that this would generate enough advance orders to justify printing the book during the first week of January 1771. Hall inserted the advertisement once again on January 1. He apparently attracted the necessary number of subscribers to publish his American edition in 1771.

In noting that “the most judicious, sensible and learned Gentleman” in Salem and nearby towns had already subscribed for a copy of the book, Hall hoped to play on prospective subscribers’ sense of community and anxieties about being excluded. Subscription notices often specified that books would include a list of subscribers, a roll call of supporters who made the work possible. Even if prospective subscribers had little or no interest in a book, they might have wanted to see their name listed among the ranks of prominent subscribers and other members of their community. In this case, Hall made it clear that those who did not subscribe might not be considered judicious or sensible or learned. He suggested that not subscribing could be harmful to one’s reputation. To keep in good standing or to improve their status in the community, those who had not yet subscribed need to remedy that oversight.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 25, 1770

December 25, 2020April 7, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Charles Zambito

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

Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 1 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 2 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 3 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 4 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 5 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 6 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 7 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 8 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 9 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 10 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 11 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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Dec 25 1770 - South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Slavery 12 — *South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (December 25, 1770).

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	March 22 \| The Adver… on March 18
	March 21 \| The Adver… on February 22
	March 19 \| The Adver… on March 6
	March 18 \| The Adver… on April 12
	March 16 \| The Adver… on May 26

The Adverts 250 Project

An Exploration of Advertising During the Era of the American Revolution, 250 Years Ago This Week

Year: 2020

Slavery Advertisements Published December 31, 1770

Slavery Advertisements Published December 27, 1770

Slavery Advertisements Published December 25, 1770