Month: February 2022

Slavery Advertisements Published February 18, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Dillon Escandon

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 colonizers 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. Colonizers 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 (February 18, 1772).

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Essex Gazette (February 18, 1772).

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Addition to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Addition to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 18, 1772).

February 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Packet (February 17, 1772).

“The only true and genuine sort … is sealed with my seal and coat of arms.”

Beware of counterfeiters!  So warned Thomas Anderton in his advertisement for “TURLINGTON’s BALSAM OF LIFE; OR THE TRUE AMERICAN BALSAM.”  Anderton proclaimed that this patent medicine was recognized among Europeans, Americans, and “West-Indians” for its “true merit, of universal experience, utility and reputation,” superior to “all the other known Balsams.”  Continuing with the superlatives, Anderton trumpeted that Turlington’s Balsam of Life was “the best adapted in all cases, in every climate, to relieve the various ailments and diseases of the human body … that pharmacy, since the creation of the world, has produced.”  Tending to the quality of the product he marketed, Anderton asserted that he “faithfully prepared” the balsam “from a true copy of the original receipt, taken out of the Chancery-office, in London, where it is recorded on oath, when the patent was granted.”

Anderton claimed an exclusive right to produce and sell this extraordinary medicine in the colonies, yet that did not prevent others from distributing counterfeits.  He explained how consumers could distinguish the authentic balsam from imposters “which are to be met with every where.”  Those produced by Anderton were “sealed with my seal and coat of arms, and the direction bill given with each bottle is signed with my name in my own hand writing.”  Armed with that information, discerning customers could avoid being fooled by unscrupulous vendors who passed off inferior medicines as authentic Turlington’s Balsam of Life.  Some “very modest counterfeiters,” like Martha Wray and Mary Sopp, provided “direction bills” with the medicines they sold, but, according to Anderton, they “conscientiously avoid forging the proprietors names.”  Others, however, were more sophisticated in their efforts to hoodwink consumers.  They engaged in “forgery in a gross degree,” aided by “Printers and Engravers that have been employed to counterfeit the direction and seals.”  Anderton pledged to expose everyone involved, including “venders of such counterfeit rubbish,” at a later time, but for the moment warned consumers to be wary of products purported to be authentic Turlington’s Balsam of Life.  In exercising caution, consumers could safeguard their own purchases to their own benefit as well as prevent further injustices to the producer of the “TRUE AMERICAN BALSAM.”

Slavery Advertisements Published February 17, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Dillon Escandon

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 colonizers 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. Colonizers 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 (February 17, 1772).

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Boston-Gazette (February 17, 1772).

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Boston-Gazette (February 17, 1772).

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Boston-Gazette (February 17, 1772).

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Boston-Gazette (February 17, 1772).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 17, 1772).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 17, 1772).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 17, 1772).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 17, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Chronicle (February 17, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Packet (February 17, 1772).

February 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (February 13, 1772).

“Subscribers in the distant Provinces will be supplied as soon as possible.”

Robert Bell invested a lot of effort in promoting an “American Edition of BLACKSTONE’s COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND” in the early 1770s.  He inserted subscription notices in newspapers from New England to South Carolina, encouraging colonizers to support the development of a distinctly American market for literature.  He inserted an update in the February 13, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal, alerting the public that the second volume “will be ready for Delivery to the Subscribers of Philadelphia and New-York, on the 28th of February.”  In addition, “Subscribers in the distant Provinces shall be supplied as soon as possible.”

Bell’s notice in the February 13 edition of the New-York Journal ran on a Thursday, the only day that John Holt, the printer, distributed that newspaper.  Most American newspapers published prior to the American Revolution were weeklies, though a few printers did experiment with producing and disseminating two or three issues per week.  Daily newspapers did not emerge until after the Revolution.  That meant that printers strategically chose which days to publish their newspapers.  Most selected Mondays and Thursdays.  Holt’s competitor, Hugh Gaine, published the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury on Mondays, thus allowing readers in New York two opportunities to peruse “the freshest ADVICES, both FOREIGN and DOMESTIC” throughout the week.  Some newspapers published in smaller towns in New England appeared on Tuesdays or Fridays or Wednesdays or Saturdays, one or two days after newspapers in Boston and New York.  That allowed printers to acquire the newest editions and reprint items of interest.

Sundays were the only day that printers did not distribute their latest issues anywhere in the colonies.  In the twentieth century, the Sunday newspaper became the most coveted edition, the one that contained the most sections of specialized content as well as advertising supplements.  Today, the Sunday edition remains a distinct entity, the only issue that many readers acquire and read.  That represents an evolution in publication and reading habits.  Once a week, the Adverts 250 Project examines a newspaper advertisement published 250 years ago that week instead of 250 years ago that day because printers did not produce Sunday editions in the eighteenth century.  That remained the case even for the dailies published in the largest cities after the Revolution.

February 15

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

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

Providence Gazette (February 15, 1772).

“Choice Bohea Tea, which for Smell and Flavour exceeds almost any ever imported.”

Joseph Russell and William Russell were among the most prominent merchants in Providence in the era of the American Revolution.  The brothers were so successful that in 1772 they built what is now the “earliest extant and most impressive of the cubical, three-story houses that symbolized wealth and social standing in Providence for several generation beginning at the eve of the Revolution,” according to the Providence Preservation Society’s Guide to Providence Architecture.  The building stands at 118 North Main Street (formerly King Street), though its original interiors were removed and installed in several museums a century ago.  In addition, the building “was raised to insert a storefront” in the middle of the nineteenth century, resulting in the original entrance, “taken from the English architectural pattern book Builder’s Compleat Assistant (1750) by Battey Langley,” appearing to adorn the second floor rather than opening onto the street.

The Russells frequently advertised in the Providence Gazette in the 1760s and 1770s.  Perhaps their marketing efforts contributed, at least in part, to their mercantile success.  As they embarked on building their new house in 1772, the brothers advertised a variety of commodities on February 15.  They focused primarily on grocery items in that notice, though in others they promoted a vast array of textile, housewares, hardware, and other goods imported from England.  Among the groceries they offered to consumers, the Russells listed “Nutmegs, Cinnamon, Mace, and Cloves” as well as “Pepper by the Bag” and “Chocolate by the Box.”  They concluded their advertisement with “Choice Bohea Tea.”  Most advertisers did not offer much commentary about that popular commodity, but in this instance the Russells elaborated on what made their tea “Choice” for consumers.  They proclaimed that the “Smell and Flavour exceeds almost any ever imported.”  In conjuring such associations with their tea at the conclusion of their advertisement, the Russells may have incited greater interest in all of the groceries they sold.  Sales of “Choice Bohea Tea” and so many other goods helped finance the house they built in 1772.  The Russells almost certainly enjoyed “Choice Bohea Tea” in the parlor of their new home, partaking in popular social rituals with family and guests.

February 14

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

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

New-London Gazette (February 14, 1772).

“SUBSCRIPTIONS … will be received by T. & J. Fleet, in Boston, T. Green in New-London, and by the other Printers in Connecticut.”

When a “Gentleman in England, of Distinguished character for many munificent deeds to the Publick,” supposedly wished to sponsor publication of “a second Volume of Collection of Papers relative to the History of Massachusetts Bay” in 1772, Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, printers of the first volume, set about promoting the project.  Advertisements initially appeared in newspapers published in Boston, but eventually ran in other newspapers as well.

An advertisement nearly identical to one in the January 23, 1772, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter appeared in the New-London Gazette on February 14.  It featured the same introduction that gave the story of the “Gentleman in England” and cautioned that “None will be printed for Sale” except those reserved by subscribers in advance.  It also included the primary justification intended to persuade colonizers to support the project: “As most of these Papers will, probably, be irrecoverably lost in a few Years, unless preserved by Printing, it is hoped that a sufficient Number of Subscribers will soon appear, from a regard to the Public.”  Readers had a duty “for the Benefit of Posterity,” the advertisement underscored, to participate in the preservation of important documents through printing them so widely that they would always remain accessible.

The version of the advertisement that ran in the New-London Gazette did have some variations.  Timothy Green, the printer of that newspaper, reserved space for other content by significantly reducing the list of local agents who worked with the Fleets.  “SUBSCRIPTIONS to encourage the Printing of this Collection,” the advertisement instructed, “will be received by T. & J. Fleet, in Boston, T. Green in New-London, and by the other Printers in Connecticut.”  The original version listed local agents in nearly a dozen cities and towns in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.  It also concluded with a note that “A few of the first Volumes of Collection of Papers, may be had at the Heart and Crown.”  Compared to readers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, readers of the New-London Gazettewere less likely to know that a sign depicting a heart and crown marked the location of the Fleets’ printing office.  Green edited that final note to advise readers of his newspaper that “A few of the first Volume of Collection of Papers may be had of T. & J. Fleet, in Boston.”

Green participated in an extensive network of local agents, comprised primarily of printers, who accepted subscriptions for the proposed “second Volume of Collection of Papers relative to the History of Massachusetts Bay.”  His responsibilities included marketing as well as collecting names of colonizers who wished to reserve copies.  He published advertisements consistent with those distributed by the printers in charge of the project, but edited them to suit his own purposes and to provide clarifications for readers of his newspaper.  That resulted in an advertising largely consistent from newspapers in one town to another, but with minor variations.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 14, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Dillon Escandon

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 colonizers 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. Colonizers 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.

New-Hampshire Gazette (February 14, 1772).

February 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Dillon Escandon

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (February 13, 1772).

“BOOKS … which have just been received in the Paoli, Capt, Cazneau.”

This advertisement struck me particularly because I have always been curious about what kinds of books people read during the era of the American Revolution. Henry Knox listed books of divinity, surgery, sea books, and bibles. The source of the books also caught my attention. Many of the books were recently shipped in the Paoli by Captain Cazneau.

I wanted to learn more about the people mentioned in this advertisement, Henry Knox and Captain Cazneau. I learned that Henry Knox lived in Boston and worked as a bookseller before joining the Continental Army and participating in the siege of Boston. He ultimately became a member of George Washington’s cabinet as the first Secretary of War for the United States.  I did not locate as much information about Captain Cazneau.  In my research, I found a letter from June 8, 1780, written by Thomas Digges to John Adams that mentioned a “Capt. Cazneau” and a voyage to Ireland during the American Revolution.  Cazneau delivered “four Louis D’ors” to Digges to pay one of Adams’s debts.  I did not find out as much about his role in the American Revolution as I did about Henry Knox.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

I often tell my students that being an historian is similar to being a detective.  Reconstructing the past requires searching for clues in a variety of places, both primary sources and secondary sources.  Especially when consulting primary sources, historians sift through many, many items to determine which provide helpful clues and which do not.  It is a laborious and time-consuming process.  In the end, we do not always uncover all the clues that we want or need to offer a complete explanation of what happened.

Dillon had that experience in his effort to learn more about the people mentioned in the advertisement he selected.  When he embarked on his research, he consulted both primary sources and secondary sources, distinguishing his approach from the work undertaken by most students in my Revolutionary America class working on their own contributions to the Adverts 250 Project.  Working with eighteenth-century newspapers gave them an opportunity to consult primary sources from the era of the American Revolution.  After selecting their advertisements, each student needed to identify at least one additional source that helped them provide historical context as they explained what we might learn about the past from newspaper advertisements.  In most instances, students chose secondary sources to aid in analyzing their advertisements.  That presented many opportunities for discussing what constituted authoritative and reliable sources.

When Dillon went in search of primary sources, his research prompted a different conversation about the challenges of “doing” history.  He found a reference in a letter to John Adams to a “Capt. Cazneau” that might have been the same “Captain Cazneau” in Henry Knox’s advertisement published nearly a decade earlier.  Dillon identified a tantalizing clue, but one that requires much more research and consulting many more documents than the scope of the project assigned to him for my Revolutionary America class.  In this instance, I did not expect him to tell a complete story about Cazneau’s life and career.  Instead, I considered it valuable for him to have the experience of doing some of that detective work required of historians in order to gain greater appreciation for the research, writing, and revising that goes into crafting the narratives in secondary sources we read and discussed throughout the semester.

Welcome, Guest Curator Dillon Escandon

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , ,

Dillon Escandon is a junior majoring in History at Anna Maria College in Paxton, Massachusetts. He was born in California but spent the majority of his life in Leominster, Massachusetts. His interest include history, art, architecture, and permaculture. He is particularly intrigued by changes in thought, the personal expressions in the form of art and ideas from history that can be brought into the modern world. Currently he is working on a personal project that combines the utility of geodesic structures and agriculture to create affordable and clean, self-sustainable communities. Dillon made his contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project when enrolled in HIS 359 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Fall 2021.

Welcome, guest curator Dillon Escandon!

Slavery Advertisements Published February 13, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Dillon Escandon

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 colonizers 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. Colonizers 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 (February 13, 1772).

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Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (February 13, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (February 13, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (February 13, 1772).