What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
“All of which were imported before the Non-Importation Agreement took Place.”
Colonial merchants and shopkeepers frequently incorporated details about how they came into possession of their imported goods into their efforts to convince consumers to purchase them. Many newspaper advertisements began with a recitation of which vessels had transported the wares across the Atlantic along with the names of the captains and the ports or origin. This formulaic introduction to advertisements for consumer goods often began with the phrase “just imported,” meant to signal to prospective customers that purveyors of goods did not expect them to purchase inventory that had been lingering on their shelves or in their storehouses for extended periods.
In the late 1760s and early 1770s, however, many advertisers abandoned that marketing strategy in favor of another. When the duties placed on imported paper, glass, lead, paint, and tea via the Townshend Acts motivated colonists to protest by boycotting a broad array of goods imported from Britain, the phrase “just imported” took on a different meaning, one with political overtones. Once nonimportation agreements were place for months, the newness of goods no longer had the same value. Items “just imported” from London and other English ports lost their cachet when they became symbols of both British oppression and the complicity of any who dared to violate community standards by continuing to import and sell such goods.
Many advertisers developed a new marketing appeal contingent on the politics of the period. They underscored that they did indeed sell goods that arrived in the colonies many months earlier, perhaps grateful that conspicuously adhering to nonimportation agreements presented an opportunity to sell surplus inventory that had indeed lingered on their shelves or in their storehouses longer than was healthy for balancing their own accounts. Whatever their motives, they harnessed politics in their attempts to drum up business, informing prospective customers that they acquired their wares in advance of the boycotts going into effect. Such was the case for William Bant who had “yet on Hand a few English Goods” in February 1770. He made sure that consumers knew that all those items “were imported before the Non-Importation Agreement took Place.” He did his patriotic duty … and prospective customers did not have to worry about shirking theirs when they visited his shop.
