Month: May 2021

May 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (May 31, 1771).

“A fine ASSORTMENT of ENGLISH GOODS … with a great Variety of other Articles, too tedious to mention.”

Colonial merchants and shopkeepers in towns small and large emphasized consumer choice in their newspaper advertisements.  Prospective customers, they suggested, did not have to settle for goods that did not satisfy their needs, tastes, or budgets.  Instead, they could choose among a broad array of merchandise, many items cataloged in advertisements of varying lengths.

Consider the advertisements for consumer goods in the May 31, 1771, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette.  Even the shortest ones incorporated the word “assortment” or “variety.”  George Frost, for instance, informed readers that he stocked “a fresh Assortment of English and West India Goods.”  Similarly, James King hawked “A Variety of Hatters Trimings,” Moses Frazier carried “A Large and compleat Assortment of ENGLISH and INDIA GOODS,” and John Sparhawk sold “a compleat Assortment of PAPER, London Parchment, and other Stationary.”  William Appleton worked “assortment” and “variety” into his brief advertisement, promoting “A great Variety of Books, Paper, Stationary, Jewellery, Plate, Silver Watches, together with a large Assortment of Shoe Buckles of every Kind.”

Other advertisers demonstrated the choices available at their shops and stores with extensive litanies of good that still did not manage to capture their entire inventory.  Hugh Henderson advertised “A fine ASSORTMENT of ENGLISH GOODS,” listed dozens of items from textiles to accessories to housewares, and promised “a great Variety of other Articles, too tedious to mention.”  Thomas Achincloss took the same approach with his “Neat Assortment of Goods,” enumerating dozens of textiles and accessories before declaring he had on hand “many other Articles, too tedious for an Advertisement.”  Joseph started and ended his advertisement with invocations of consumer choice.  He stocked “A large Assortment of 3-4 & Yard-wide Irish Linens” and other textiles and “a large Assortment of Cream color’d China and Glass Ware.”

Stephen Hardy did not suggest the same range of choices when it came to the textiles available at his shop, but he did state that he sold “a good assortment of buttons, bindings, and other trimmings for Taylors.”  Advertisers, however, did not universally deploy the words “assortment” and “variety.”  Thomas Martin placed the longest advertisement in the issue.  Extending three-quarters of a column, it listed many sorts of textiles, housewares, and hardware.  That list included “hinges and files of various sorts” among the hardware, but did not attach that description to any other merchandise.  Instead, he allowed the lengthy list of goods to speak for itself in terms of the choices available to consumers.

None of these advertisements merely announced goods for sale.  Each promised prospective customers choices among the inventory in any shop or store.  Collectively, they also suggested the option of comparing the goods offered in one shop to those at another, further enhancing the ability of consumers to make decisions for themselves about what to purchase.

May 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

“A Complete Assortment of GOODS (TEA excepted).”

John Edwards and Company moved quickly to place an advertisement for new merchandise in the South-Carolina Gazette.  According to the shipping news in the May 30, 1771, edition, the Heart-of-Oak arrived in port on May 27.  That gave Edwards and Company sufficient time to submit a brief advertisement to the printing office.  Their notice specified that they had “just imported” a variety of items “in the ship HEART-OF-OAK, Captain HENRY GUNN, from LONDON.”  The partners did not provide a list of their “Complete Assortment of GOODS” as a means of demonstrating the many choices available to consumers.  Perhaps they did not have enough time to unpack the merchandise before the weekly edition of the South-Carolina Gazette went to press so instead opted to entice prospective customers with promises of new inventory that just arrived in port.  Webb and Doughty took a similar approach in their advertisement on the same page as both the shipping news and Edwards and Company’s notice.

Rather than elaborating on their “Complete Assortment of GOODS,” Edwards and Company instead specified a particular item not part of their new inventory.  “TEA excepted,” they proclaimed.  They did not need to provide more detail for colonial consumers to understand their point.  Parliament had repealed most of the duties on imported goods imposed by the Townshend Acts, but the tax on tea remained.  Colonists protested the duties through a variety of means, including nonimportation agreements, but most relented and resumed trade with Britain when they achieved most of their goals.  Some continued to advocate for keeping the boycotts in place until Parliament repealed all of the offensive duties, but most merchants, shopkeepers, and consumers did not share that view.  Edwards and Company sought to have it both ways, importing and selling a variety of merchandise but underscoring that they did not carry the one item still taxed by Parliament.  This allowed them to compete with other merchants and shopkeepers to satisfy most of the needs and desires of prospective customers while still signaling that they refused to go back to business as usual without acknowledging the political significance of tea and the duty that remained in place.  Edwards and Company offered an alternative to consumers who wanted to support the American cause, at least to some extent, but also wanted to participate in the marketplace once so many options were available once again.  This strategy likely enhanced Edwards and Company’s reputation among supporters of the American cause (with the exception of the most adamant) while easing the consciences of their customers, even if it did not achieve complete ideological consistency.

It may not have mattered much to Edwards and Company that they did not publish a lengthy litany of goods that just arrived via the Heart-of-Oak in their advertisement.  Singling out tea as an item they intentionally excluded from their inventory, in an advertisement brief enough to make such a notation very visible, likely garnered far more attention and interest in their business.

Slavery Advertisements Published May 30, 1771

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.

Maryland Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Mercury (May 30, 1771).

**********

Pennsylvania Journal (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Rind] (May 30, 1771).

May 29

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

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

Boston-Gazette (May 27, 1771).

“Encouraged by several gentlemen of eminence in the different provinces, to undertake the publication of the following litterary works, in America.”

Robert Bell, one of the most influential booksellers and publishers in eighteenth-century America, cultivated a distinctly American market for the production and consumption of books, both before and after the American Revolution.  Although American printers produced some titles, they were relatively few compared to those imported from Britain.  Bell sought to change that, advertising widely rather than only in newspapers published in his own town.

For instance, in an advertisement in the May 27, 1771, edition of the Boston-Gazette, Bell listed “the late Union Library in Third-street, Philadelphia” as his location.  Yet prospective customers interested in any of the titles included in his advertisement did not need to contact him there.  Instead, they could deal with Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette.  Bell proclaimed that he supplied Edes and Gill with “printed proposals, with speciments annexed” for “HUME’s elegeant HISTORY of ENGLAND, … BLACKSTONE’s splendid COMMENTARIES on the LAWS of ENGLAND, … Also, FERGUSON’s celebrated ESSAY on the HISTORY of CIVIL SOCIETY.”  As local agents acting on behalf of Bell, Edes and Gill distributed the proposals, collected the “names & residence” of subscribers, and sent the lists to Bell.  The enterprising bookseller and publisher enlisted many other local agents, instructing prospective “purchasers, of any of the fore mentioned litterary works” to contact “any of the Booksellers and Printers on this continent.”  Advertisements in other newspapers from New England to South Carolina indicated that Bell established an extensive network of associates and local agents.

In another way, this was not Bell’s endeavor alone.  He claimed that many others supported his efforts to create an America market for books printed in America.  He proclaimed that he had been “encouraged by several gentlemen of eminence in the different provinces, to undertake the publication” of several notable works “in America.”  Others, he declared, shared his vision.  Bell extended an invitation to even more readers to join them, addressing “Gentlemen who wish prosperity to the means for the enlargement of the human understanding in America.”  Such explicit reference to the edification and refinement of readers did not, however, did not tell the entire story.  Subscribers also implicitly made political statements about American identity and expressed support for American commerce.  Americans did not need to think of themselves or the books they produced and consumed as inferior to those imported from Britain.  Bell promised that “BLACKSTONE’s famous COMMENTARIES” compared favorably “page for page with the London edition.”  Prospective subscribers could conform the quality of the books by examining the proposals and, especially, the specimens entrusted to Bell’s local agents.

Bell commenced his advertisement with an announcement that “THE THIRD VOLUME OF ROBERTSON’s splendid History of CHARLES the Fifth, with compleat Indexes, is now finished for the Subscribers.”  He previously advertised all three volumes widely, starting with subscription notices before taking the work to press and providing updates and seeking additional subscribers along the way.  Alerting readers that the project came to a successful conclusion served as a testimonial to the vision that Bell and “several gentlemen of eminence in the different provinces” shared.  Achieving that vision and moving forward with the publication of American editions of other significant works required continued support from readers who committed to becoming subscribers.  Their decisions about consumption, Bell suggested, had ramifications beyond acquiring books for their own reference.

May 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (May 28, 1771).

“Any that will favour him with their Custom my depend upon being used as well as they can be at any Store upon the Continent.”

In an advertisement that extended nearly an entire column in the May 28, 1771, edition of the Essex Gazette, Nathaniel Sparhawk, Jr., listed dozens of items available “at his Store next to the Rev. Doctor Whitaker’s Meeting-House.”  Other advertisers also provided lengthy lists of their merchandise, but none of them as long as the description of the “general Assortment of English and India GOODS” that Sparhawk carried.  To further underscore the multitude of choices, he concluded the list with “&c. &c. &c. &c. &c.”  Advertisers frequently inserted the eighteenth-century abbreviation for et cetera once, twice, or even three times to suggest that the amount of space in their advertisements was not sufficient for cataloging all of their wares.  Sparhawk was even more intent on making that point.

He also enhanced his notice with a nota bene directed to wholesalers.  Like many other advertisers, he sold his goods “by Wholesale or Retail.”  Most who did so did not make special overtures to customers who wished to buy in volume.  Sparhawk, on the other hand, advised “all those that deal in the Wholesale Way, that they may be assured that his Goods come from one of the best Houses in LONDON.”  The merchant sought to assure shopkeepers, tailors and milliners who purchased textiles and accessories, and other retailers that he carried goods of the highest quality and most current fashions.  Sparhawk’s customers did not need to fear that their own customers and clients would reject this merchandise.  Furthermore, the merchant aimed to cultivate good relationships with retailers.  He expressed a desire “to sell chiefly by Wholesale,” pledging that “any that will favour him with their Custom my depend upon being used as well as they can be at any Store upon the Continent.”  Sparhawk had many competitors, not only in Salem, but also in nearby Boston.  For the right prices, retailers might have even looked to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and beyond.  The merchant proclaimed that doing so was not necessary, that he provided service that equaled any in the colonies.  In return for their custom, “their Favours shall ever be gratefully acknowledged.”

Sparhawk deployed several strategies to attract customers, especially those who wished to make wholesale purchases with the intention of retailing those items.  He underscored the extensive choices available among his merchandise, both through a lengthy catalog of goods and a hyperbolic expression of just how many items did not fit in his advertisement.  He also made a point of describing his own supplier as “one of the best Houses in LONDON,” bestowing even greater cachet on his merchandise.  In addition to promoting his goods, Sparhawk also promised superior customer service in his efforts to attract retailers as customers.

Slavery Advertisements Published May 28, 1771

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.

Essex Gazette (May 28, 1771).

**********

Essex Gazette (May 28, 1771).

May 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (May 27, 1771).

“The above Goods were Chose by ourselves and on the Lowest Terms.”

Douglas Heron and Company advertised “An Assortment of Scotch and English GOODS” recently imported from Glasgow in the May 27, 1771, edition of the Boston Evening-Post.  Their inventory included a variety of textiles, including “Scotch & Manchester Linen, and Cotton Checks,” a “Variety of plain, flower’d and stript Lawns,” and a “large Assortment of printed” handkerchiefs.  In addition, they stocked accessories and adornments, such as “Ivory and Horn Combs,” “Mens and Womens leather Gloves,” and a “neat Assortment of coloured Ribbons of the newest Patterns.”  In their advertisement, Heron and Company provided an abbreviated catalog of their merchandise to demonstrate the choices available to consumers.  They concluded their litany of goods with “&c. &c.” (the eighteenth-century abbreviation for et cetera) to suggest to prospective customers that they would encounter an even greater array of goods when they shopped at Heron and Company’s store.

The partners also appended a brief nota bene to explain that “The above Goods were Chose by ourselves and on the Lowest Terms.”  The invocation of “Lowest Terms” was the second invocation of price in the advertisement.  Before listing their wares, Heron and Company first assured consumers of their “exceeding Reasonable” prices.  Those prices were so reasonable because they negotiated the “Lowest Terms” with their suppliers and then passed along the savings to their customers.  In stating that they selected the merchandise themselves, Heron and Company made implicit pledges about quality and fashion.  They played an active role in choosing the goods rather than accepting whatever leftovers merchants on the other side of the Atlantic decided to send to faraway associates to attempt to sell in their local markets. Heron and Company knew that colonial customers desired the latest fashions and would not purchase items they considered out of style.  At the same time, those consumers depended on both correspondents in Britain and local merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans to keep them apprised of the newest tastes.  In proclaiming that they chose the items listed in their advertisement, Heron and Company suggested that prospective customers could trust them in offering advice and guidance.  Heron and Company staked their own reputation for understanding the market and assisting customers in outfitting themselves fashionably when they implied that customers should have confidence in the decisions they made when placing orders with their suppliers.

Slavery Advertisements Published May 27, 1771

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.

Boston-Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 27, 1771).

**********

Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 27, 1771).

**********

Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 27, 1771).

**********

Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (May 27, 1771).

**********

Newport Mercury (May 27, 1771).

**********

Newport Mercury (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 27, 1771).

May 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (May 23, 1771).

“Frugality and Industry make Mankind rich, free, and happy.”

Politics certainly shaped accounts of current events that ran in colonial newspapers during the era of the imperial crisis that culminated in the American Revolution.  Even more explicitly, politics appeared in letters and editorials that printed selected for publication.  Yet news accounts, letters, and editorials were not the only places that readers encountered politics in newspapers.  Advertisements often commented on current events and sought to convince readers to adopt political positions.

Such was the case in an advertisement about “A GOLD MEDAL” that would be awarded to “the Person that produces the best piece of Woollen Cloth, sufficient for a Suit of Cloathes, of Wool raised in Lancaster County.”  The advertisement in the May 23, 1771, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal declared that “it must be a sincere pleasure to every lover of this Country, to see the attention that persons of all denominations give, not only to the Woolen, but to other Manufactures that we stand most in need of from Foreign Countries.”  Such sentiments corresponded with an emphasis on “domestic manufactures,” producing more goods for consumption in the colonies, that arose in tandem with nonimportation agreements adopted in defiance of duties Parliament imposed on imported goods.  Many colonists argued that boycotts had the greatest chance of succeeding if American consumers had access to more alternatives produced in the colonies.  Such efforts also stood to strengthen local economies and reduce the trade imbalance with Britain.  In the process, goods acquired political meaning.  Colonists consciously chose to wear garments made of homespun, the cloth that inspired the competition advertised in the Pennsylvania Journal, as a badge of honor and a means of communicating their political allegiances and support of nonimportation agreements.  Even after Parliament repealed most of the duties and the colonies resumed trade with Britain, many colonists continued to advocate for greater self-sufficiency through domestic manufactures, as was the case for the sponsors of the content in Lancaster County.

The description of the medal awarded for the competition the previous year reflected the ideology of the patriot cause.  One side featured “the Bust of the Pennsylvania Farmer” with the inscription “Take away the wicked from before the King, and his Throne shall be established in righteousness.”  The image celebrated farmers.  The inscription lauded the king, implicitly critiquing Parliament for overstepping its authority in attempts to regulate colonial commerce.  The other side depicted “a Woman spin[n]ing, on the big wheel” with the inscription “Frugality and Industry maker Mankind rich, free, and happy.”  Like homespun cloth, the spinning wheel became a symbol of the patriot cause.  Including it on the medal testified to the important role women played in both politics and commerce, their labor in production and their decisions about consumption necessary to the success of domestic manufactures.  The inscription underscored that supporting domestic manufactures led to prosperity, freedom, and, ultimately, happiness.

The arguments contained in the advertisement about the contest to produce “Woollen Cloth” in Lancaster County echoed those made in letters and editorials that appeared elsewhere in the Pennsylvania Journal and other newspapers.  When they purchased space in newspapers, advertisers acquired some extent of editorial authority to express their views about any range of subjects.  Publishing an advertisement, like promoting the contest, gave the sponsors an opportunity to comment on politics and the colonial economy while simultaneously enlisting the support of others.

May 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (May 25, 1771).

“A SERMON on the Death of the Rev. GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”

George Whitefield’s afterlife in American newspapers continued in an advertisement published in the May 25, 1771, edition of the Providence Gazette.  Whitefield, one of the most prominent ministers associated with the eighteenth-century religious revivals now known as the Great Awakening, died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on September 30, 1770.  The news appeared in several newspapers printed in Boston the following day.  It did not take long for printers in other towns to reprint accounts of the minister’s death.  Almost as quickly, printers, booksellers, and others advertised sermons preached in Whitefield’s memory and other commemorative items.  Half a year later, a second round of marketing Whitefield memorabilia commenced when ships from England arrived with word of how his death had been received there.  Those ships also carried items published in London, including Whitefield’s last will and testament and a sermon by John Wesley.  Colonial printers then produced and advertised American editions.

John Carter, printer of the Providence Gazette, participated in the commodification of George Whitefield.  Carter advertised several books as well as assorted stationery for sale at his printing office, deploying Whitefield’s name to draw attention to the notice he ran in his own newspaper.  John Wesley’s “SERMON on the Death of the Rev. GEORGE WHITEFIELD” appeared first in the advertisement, under the headline “JUST PUBLISHED (in Boston).”  Carter apparently stocked John Fleeming’s edition, first advertised in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter on April 19.  John Holt, printer of the New-York Journal, previously advertised the first American edition on March 21.  Both printers distributed copies to associates in other towns, expanding the prospective market for the sermon and increasing the number of advertisements in the colonial press.  John Dunlap advertised Holt’s edition of Wesley’s sermon in the Pennsylvania Chronicle on April 22.  On April 26, Daniel Fowle and Robert Fowle, printers of the New-Hampshire Gazette, advertised Fleeming’s edition of the sermon.  As advertisements for Wesley’s sermon appeared in newspapers in several colonies, advertisements for other items commemorating Whitefield, including a medal, continued to present consumers with opportunities to honor the minister by acquiring memorabilia.  Carter’s advertisement for Fleeming’s edition of Wesley’s sermon further intensified the commodification of Whitefield that took place in the colonies in 1770 and continued well into the following year.