Month: July 2021

July 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (July 29, 1771).

“Now Selling very Cheap.”

In the decades prior to the American Revolution, purveyors of goods and services regularly incorporated appeals to price into their advertisements.  They did so often enough, in fact, that many delivered appeals to price in standardized or formulaic language in their newspaper notices.  In the July 29, 1771, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, for instance, Joseph Gardener informed prospective customers that he sold a variety of textiles “at the very lowest Rates” and “upon the most reasonable Terms.”  Those phrases frequently appeared in the introductions and conclusions to advertisements, before and after lists of goods that demonstrated the choices available to consumers.

Some advertisers, on the other hand, experimented with other means of enticing customers with low prices.  The proprietors of the “Staffordshire and Liverpool Warehouse in King-Street” stocked a “General Assortment of Ironmongery, Braziery and Cutlery Ware.”  To attract attention, they made their appeal to price the headline for the entire advertisement: “Now Selling very Cheap.”  Near the end of the advertisement, the proprietors also stated that their inventory “will be Sold much lower than those Articles are usually Sold in this place.”

The headline appeared in the largest font and preceded everything else in the advertisement.  Other headlines tended to focus on the advertiser or the merchandise.  For instance, “Joshua Gardner” appeared in the largest font in that advertisement, as did “Richard Clarke & Son” in an advertisement for tea, spices, and other groceries.  Another advertisement bore a headline proclaiming “IRISH LINNENS” for sale at Bethune and Prince’s store.  On the same page, the headline for Joseph Mann’s advertisement drew attention to the “CHOCOLATE” he ground and sold.  Another advertisement for a stolen anchor demanded inspection with a headline that promised “Eight Dollars Reward.”

The proprietors of the Staffordshire and Liverpool Warehouse recognized an opportunity to deviate from the usual practices concerning headlines in newspaper advertisements.  They made low prices the focal point of their notice with a headline, attempting to hook readers with that appeal and encourage them to examine the rest of the advertisement in greater detail.  Even when advertisements consisted entirely of text without images, advertisers and printers experimented with graphic design to deliver messages to consumers.

July 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

“Carries on the BOOK-BINDING and STATIONARY BUSINESS, in all its Branches.”

The term “classified ads” accurately describes newspaper notices published in later periods, but it misrepresents advertising in eighteenth-century newspapers.  Printers did not “classify” advertisements in the sense of assigning them to categories and then grouping or organizing them to make it easier for readers to navigate their contents.  Instead, advertisements appeared as a hodgepodge fashion, requiring more careful reading to discern their purposes.

Consider, for example, advertisements about enslaved people.  Printers could have readily identified four categories or classifications:  enslaved people for sale, enslaved people wanted to purchase or to hire, “runaways” who liberated themselves, and captured fugitives seeking freedom held in workhouse and jails.  Printers did not cluster such advertisements together on the pages of their newspapers.  Consider the July 30, 1771, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  It included three advertisements offering rewards for the capture and return of enslaved people who liberated themselves.  One ran near the top of the third column on the third page, another at the top of the second column on the last page, and the final one at the bottom of that column.  Two “Brought to the WORK-HOUSE” advertisements describing Black men also appeared in that issue, one at the bottom of the third column on the third page and the other in the middle of the third column on the last page.  The printer made no effort to classify these advertisements and place them in close proximity.

In some cases, it would have been practically impossible to classify advertisements because advertisers often placed notices with multiple purposes in mind.  When Mary Gordon, “Administratrix to the Estate of Mr. James Gordon,” departed South Carolina “for the Benefit of her Health,” she appointed James Taylor to overseer the estate.  Taylor placed an advertisement to that effect, calling on anyone with outstanding accounts to settle them.  Taylor also used the opportunity to promote his own business, inserting a note that he “carries on the BOOK-BINDING and STATIONARY BUSINESS, in all its Branches, almost opposite the State-House.”  While this advertisement could have been considered an estate notice based on its primary purpose, it also aimed to attract customers for a business unrelated to the estate.  In that regard, it defied classification.

Although it may seem reasonable to describe advertisements in eighteenth-century newspapers as “classified ads,” at least initially, further examination reveals that doing so amounts to a mischaracterization of the contents and organization of those newspapers.  It also writes the history of newspaper advertising backwards, grafting later developments onto the early American press.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 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.

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (July 30, 1771).

July 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Boston-Gazette (July 29, 1771).

“The Particulars in our next.”

In late July 1771, Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette, ran short on space for advertising.  In the July 22 edition, they included a note that “ADVERTISEMENTS omitted will be in our next.”  A week later they apparently had sufficient space to insert notices from all advertisers that submitted them to the printing office and even had room for a note of their own to remind “All Persons indebted for this Paper, whose Accounts have been above Twelve Months standing, are requested to make immediate Payment.”  Not every advertisement, however, appeared in its entirety.  Samuel Parkman’s advertisement for a “neat & fresh Assortment of English and India Goods” concluded with a note advising, “The Particulars in our next.”

Boston-Gazette (August 5, 1771).

Parkman’s complete advertisement did indeed appear in the next issue of the Boston-Gazette.  Perhaps to make amends for truncating its earlier appearance, the printers gave it a privileged place at the top of the third column on the first page.  The first two columns consisted of news, making Parkman’s advertisement the first commercial notice that readers encountered when perusing the August 5 edition.  The copy for the complete advertisement suggests that the printers consulted with Parkman about how to abbreviate his initial advertisement.  In most cases, the compositor would have set the type for the first portion of the advertisement and later added additional material, in this case a list of goods available at Parkman’s shop, without making revisions to the introductory section.  In this case, however, it appears that the compositor started afresh in setting type for the second iteration of the advertisement.  Notice, for instance, the spacing for “the Diana” in the first and “theDiana” in the second as well as the changing line breaks for “Union-Street” and “Assortment of English and India Goods.”  More significantly, the first advertisement stated that Parkman “will sell be Wholesale or Retail, as low as can be bought at any Store or Shop in Town.”  In the second advertisement, this shifted to “will sell on the best Terms by Wholesale or Retail.”  That version did not make explicit comparisons to other stores and shops.  In general, advertisers were responsible for copy and compositors responsible for design, so it seems likely that Parkman at least approved the revisions incorporated into the second advertisement.

As with many aspects of the business of advertising in eighteenth-century newspapers, this conclusion rests on reasonable conjecture based on close examination of advertising in the Boston-Gazette and many other newspapers.  The advertisements offer clues about what might have happened or what likely happened, but often no definitive answers about the relationship between advertisers and printers.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 29, 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 Evening-Post (July 29, 1771).

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Boston-Gazette (July 29, 1771).

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Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 29, 1771).

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Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 29, 1771).

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Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 29, 1771).

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Pennsylvania Chronicle (July 29, 1771).

July 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (July 25, 1771).

“JAPANED WARE … now made and sold by TIMOTHY BERRET, and COMPANY.”

Advertisements for domestic manufactures, goods produced in the colonies, appeared in colonial newspapers with greater frequency when nonimportation agreements remained in effect in response to the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, and the Coercive Acts in the 1760s and 1770s.  They tapered off, but did not disappear altogether, when colonists resumed regular trade with merchants in Britain.  Some advertisers continued to encourage consumers to acquire domestic manufactures, even if doing so did not have the same political valence when tensions between colonists and Parliament eased.

In the summer of 1771, for instance, Timothy Berret and Company advertised “JAPANED WARE” made in Pennsylvania.  The partners recognized the popularity and demand for fashionable housewares with patterns carved into thick black varnish, following styles and techniques that originated in Japan.  Such items testified to commercial networks that extended far beyond the Atlantic as well as to the cosmopolitanism of consumers who acquired and displayed “JAPANED WARE,” no matter whether made in Britain, the colonies, or elsewhere.  Berret and Company adamantly proclaimed their merchandise “Equal in quality to any that can be imported from Great-Britain.”  They underscored the point, declaring their wares “no way inferior, either in neatness of workmanship, japaning, painting, or polishing, to any that is made in England.”  For those consumers skeptical that Berret and Company achieved the same quality as imported items, the partners had on hand “very neat bread-baskets, tea-boards, and waiters” for sale and inspection.

In an effort to gain more orders for their “new Manufactory,” Berret and Company sought buyers among retailers as well as end-use consumers.  They offered discounts, a “great allowance,” to shopkeepers and others “who buy to sell again.”  In addition to quality that matched imported goods, they passed along bargains to their customers with prices “as cheap as in England.”  Purchasers did not have to pay a premium when acquiring domestic manufactures from Berret and Company instead of imported goods produced in greater quantities.

The “young beginners” in Philadelphia refrained from inserting political commentary into their advertisement, instead choosing to reassure hesitant buyers that the quality and price of their “JAPANED WARE” rivaled anything imported.  For many advertisers and consumers, politics did not matter as much in 1771 as they did in 1766 or 1769 or would again in 1774.  Several times in the 1760s and 1770s, the marketing appeals in newspaper advertisements, the arguments in favor of purchasing domestic manufactures, shifted depending on current events and the relationship between Parliament and the colonies.

July 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (July 27, 1771).

“Warwick Bridge Lottery.”

When readers perused the pages of the July 27, 1771, edition of the Providence Gazette, they encountered a variety of news gathered from various sources.  The first page featured editorials in the form of letters “To the PRINTER of the PROVIDENCE GAZETTE” and “To the Inhabitants of the Town of Providence” as well as news from London delivered “By the Brig Diana, Captain Perkins, arrived at Boston.”  News from London continued on the second page, eventually giving way to items from Jamaica and North Carolina.  The third page consisted of items with datelines from Quebec, New York, Cambridge, and Boston along with brief updates about Providence.  On the final page, the printer devoted most of the first column to additional news from Boston, but reserved the remainder for a list of “PRICES CURRENT inPROVIDENCE” and advertisements.  Many of those advertisements delivered news that did not appear elsewhere in the newspaper.

For instance, the “Managers of the Warwick Bridge Lottery” provided a brief update on their public works project.  They encouraged readers to fund their endeavor by purchasing tickets for a drawing slated to take place “in a very short Time.”  In a much lengthier advertisement that ran week after week for several months, Joseph Clarke, General Treasurer, reported on actions taken by the colony’s General Assembly concerning “Old Tenor Bills.”  Clarke called on “all Persons possessed of said Bills, to bring them in, and have them exchanged, agreeable to said Act of Assembly.”  Clarke supplemented that notice, dated December 31, 1770, with a shorter notice dated June 20, 1771.  In another advertisement that ran  for several months, this one in multiple newspapers, Alexander Colden informed colonists that “HIS Majesty’s Post-Master General … has been pleased to add a fifth Packet Boat to the Station between Falmouth and New-York” for the purpose of “better facilitating … Correspondence between Great Britain and America.”

Some of the advertisements promoted a variety of consumer goods and services or described real estate for sale, but a significant number of them delivered news.  In order to stay informed, readers could not dismiss advertisements out of hand but instead needed to skim them for important updates that might not appear among the articles and editorials printed on the other pages of the newspaper.

July 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (July 26, 1771).

“Hatts of all kinds.”

John Beck, a hatter, placed advertisements in the New-Hampshire Gazette on multiple occasions during the summer of 1771.  Although the copy remained consistent, the format varied, an unusual situation when it came to early American advertising.  Printers and compositors usually conserved time and effort by setting type for advertisements just once and then running them in that format for as long as advertisers wished for them to continue to appear.  For some reason, however, that was not the case with Beck’s advertisement.

When the advertisement appeared in the July 5 edition, it occupied only three lines.  In its entirety, it informed readers of “HATTS of all Kinds, made and Sold by JOHN BECK, as usual, at the Sign of the HATT and BEVER, in Queen Street, Portsmouth.”  The advertisement did not run again until July 26.  It did not appear in the same format.  The copy remained the same, including the variations in spelling, but the new version made use of larger fonts, distributed the copy across five lines that occupied twice as much space as the previous iteration, and discontinued the use of italics.  The revised version then ran several times in August.

New-Hampshire Gazette (July 5, 1771).

Who made decisions about changing the format of the advertisement, someone in the printing office or the advertiser?  Unfortunately, that question is impossible to answer from the sources available.  Certain aspects of the advertisements allow for reasonable conjectures about a portion of the process, but not all the details.  The identical copy, for instance, testifies to an attribute seen in other advertisements placed in multiple newspapers.  Advertisers usually exercised control over the copy.  Advertisements with identical copy placed in multiple newspapers also demonstrate that compositors usually made decisions about format, including font size and the use of capitals and italics.  This instance, however, concerns an advertisement placed multiple times in one newspaper, not an advertisement placed in multiple newspapers.  It presents the possibility that Beck, dissatisfied with the original advertisement, negotiated for a different format.  Yet that may not have been the case at all.  Alternately, the compositor may have inadvertently broken down the type after Beck’s advertisement ran the first time and then someone had to set it again, making new choices in the process.  Or something else altogether may have occurred.  Something unusual happened, deviating from the standard practices for producing newspaper advertisements in the eighteenth century.  This raises questions about the roles of the advertiser and the compositor, the influence of each, but no definitive answers that might better illuminate the evolution of business practices associated with advertising in early America.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 26, 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.

Connecticut Journal (July 26, 1771).

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New-London Gazette (July 26, 1771).

July 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (July 25, 1771).

“Sundry Books, on Painting, and a Number Prints being sent him.”

Colonists placed newspaper advertisements for a variety of purposes.  Some aimed to incite demand for consumer goods and services.  Others published legal notices or called on customers to settle accounts.  Enslavers offered Africans and African Americans for sale or offered rewards for the capture and return of Black people who liberated themselves by running away.  Aggrieved husbands warned against extending credit to recalcitrant wives.  Clubs informed members of upcoming meetings.  A good number of advertisements concerned lost or stray livestock.  Colonists also inserted other sorts of lost-and-found notices.

When a shipment of “sundry Books, on Painting, and a Number of Prints” from England got misdirected in the summer of 1771, Charles Willson Peale ran an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette, hoping that “Any Gentleman” among the readers who had come into possession of his books and prints would forward them to him or inform him so he could make arrangements to collect them.  He promised that anyone who helped him acquire the missing items “shall be well rewarded for his Trouble.”  Peale had “received Letters” alerting him about the books and prints “being sent him, but by what Ship, or to what Part of Virginia or Maryland they were sent, he is totally at a Loss to find out.”  When he placed the advertisement, Peale was simultaneously frustrated and hopeful.

At the time, Peale had already gained some renown as a painter having studied under John Singleton Copley in the colonies and, for three years, under Benjamin West in England.  He eventually became one of the most influential American painters of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, known especially for his portraits of prominent leaders now remembered as founders of the nation.  A naturalist and inventor in addition to an artist, Peale established one of the first American museums.  He often harnessed these endeavors to promoting the new nation.  Today, historians and other scholars recognize and continue to examine his contributions to early American politics and culture.

That distinguishes Peale from most of the other colonists who placed advertisements or who were the subjects of advertisements in the Maryland Gazette.  For good reason, the name “CHARLES W. PEALE” at the end of his advertisement draws the attention of modern readers familiar with the era of the American Revolution.  Yet that advertisement by a notable historical figure tells only one story among the many significant narratives contained within advertisements that ran in the same issue, a story in many ways less important than others despite the famous name attached to it.  William Rooke’s advertisement for “a great Variety of GOODS,” for instance, testifies to the consumer revolution that played an important role in colonists participating in politics through their decisions in the marketplace.  Thomas Gassaway Howard’s advertisement offering a reward for the capture and return of “a Negro Man named Harry” demonstrates the tension between liberty and enslavement present at the founding of the nation.  Colonists of all sorts, elites and the lower sorts, enslaved and free, made history in the eighteenth century.  In the twenty-first century, we have a duty to examine their many different stories and incorporate their diverse experiences and perspectives into a more complete narrative of the past.