Turner Pomeroy is a junior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is majoring in Political Science with a minor in History. He is a member of the lacrosse team. He is also a big Syracuse University basketball fan. Turner made his contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 359 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2021.
Welcome, guest curator Turner Pomeroy!
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“‘Tis our sole Wish, that the Gent who advertises in Astronomy will favour us with a Specimen.”
John Simnet, “WATCH-FINISHER, and Manufacturer, of London,” seemed to relish nothing more than sparring with an adversary in the public prints. For eighteenth months in 1769 and 1770, he participated in a feud with rival watchmaker Nathaniel Sheaff Griffith in the pages of the New-Hampshire Gazette. After relocating to New York, he initially published advertisements that did not denigrate his competitors, but eventually found himself embroiled in a war of words with James Yeoman.
As part of that altercation, Simnet updated an advertisement that first ran in the March 19, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal. On April 23, he removed a lengthy paragraph that cast aspersion on Yeoman in favor of a shorter paragraph meant to do the same. In both, he addressed insults that Yeoman delivered in his advertisements, insults that the rival watchmaker was so committed to circulating that he resubmitted the copy to run for additional weeks. (The April 9 edition of the New-York Journal included a new version of Yeoman’s advertisement, the type reset with new line breaks and the addition of the issue number in which that iteration first appeared.) Yeoman listed his credentials for repairing “CLOCKS, ASTRONOMICAL, Musical or Plain” before concluding his advertisement with an assertion that “it is the sole Wish of the said James Yeoman, to obtain Favours only proportioned to the Knowledge he has, and the Satisfaction he affords in his Business.”
In the updated version of his advertisement, Simnet mocked Yeoman by paraphrasing his rival’s words. “‘Tis our sole Wish,” he declared, “that the Gent who advertises in Astronomy will favour us with a Specimen of his Qualifications in that Science, for if he can cause the Planets, Eclipses, Comets, &c. to move on the Table, ‘twill save the Charge of Telescopes.” Simnet questioned Yeoman’s ability to repair astronomical clocks, challenging him to provide examples of his work for others to examine. Earlier in the advertisement, he mentioned the harm done to clocks and watches by “Persons not qualified to practice in this Business.” The new paragraph more explicitly leveled that accusation at Yeoman. Simnet seemed to hit his stride in his advertisements when he treated competitors with condescension, a tactic rarely adopted in eighteenth-century advertising.
GUEST CURATOR: Elizabeth Peterson
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.
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What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
“Infants Morocco Shoes, and / Pumps, Womens / Lynn made / Ditto.”
Duncan Ingraham, Jr., hoped that the format of his advertisement would help to draw attention to the goods that he imported from London and sold at his shop on Union Street in Boston in the spring of 1772. Most merchants and shopkeepers who advertised in the newspapers published in the bustling port city adopted one of two methods of listing their merchandise. They either included everything in a single dense paragraph or they divided their advertisement into columns with one item per line. Ingraham rejected both in favor of arranging his list of goods in the shape of a diamond. Such an unusual format almost certainly caught the eyes of readers as they perused the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.
A variation of Ingraham’s advertisement appeared in both newspapers. The notices contained nearly identical copy, but the compositors made different decisions about line breaks for both the introduction that gave directions to Ingraham’s shop and the diamond that listed the goods. When he wrote out the advertisement by hand, Ingraham may have experimented with creating a diamond. Alternately, he may have submitted instructions about his preferences and left it to the compositors to figure out the particulars. Either way, Ingraham likely provided some sort of guidance for the compositors. They did not independently decide to introduce the same innovation into his advertisement in two newspapers.
In most cases, eighteenth-century advertisers played little role in designing their advertisements beyond writing the copy, but Ingraham more actively assumed responsibility for some of the visual aspects of his notice. He apparently did not consider his advertisement a mere announcement that he carried certain goods. Instead, he sought to shape his advertisement in a manner likely to increase the chances that prospective customers would take note of it and the various appeals to low prices and good customer service he included in the introduction.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“It would be expensive to the Advertiser, and troublesome to the Reader, to mention every Article.”
In the spring of 1772, John Appleton took to the pages of the Essex Gazette to advertise a “full Assortment of English and India GOODS” in stock at his store in Salem. Like many other advertisers who promoted their wares in newspapers throughout the colonies, Appleton sought to demonstrate to prospective customers that he offered them many choices by listing dozens of items. His inventory included many varieties of textiles as well as “ivory and horn Combs,” “a fine assortment of blonde and bone Laces,” “Knee-Garters,” “white and cloth colour’d silk Mitts,” and “linen, silk and cotton Handkerchiefs of all sorts.” He even concluded the catalog of his merchandise with “&c. &c.” In repeating the eighteenth-century abbreviation for et cetera, he suggested that consumers encountered an even greater array of choices at his shop.
Nathaniel Sparhawk, Jr., apparently intended to publish a similar list in his advertisement in the April 21 edition of the Essex Gazette, but something prevented him from going into detail about the “great Variety and elegant Assortment of English and India GOODS” he “IMPORTED in the last Ships from LONDON.” A note at the end of his advertisement stated that “Particular must be deferred till next Week.” Sparhawk may have acquired his good so recently that he did not have an opportunity to make a full accounting in time for his advertisement to appear in the Essex Gazette that week. Alternately, the printers ran out of space. A week later, his advertisement filled the first half of the first column on the first page, perhaps a consolation from the printers for not including it in its entirety on April 21.
In contrast to Appleton and Sparhawk, George Deblois chose not to incorporate a catalog of his “English & Hard-ware GOODS” into his advertisement. Even attempting to provide such a list, he asserted, would not do justice to the choices he made available to consumers. “As his Assortment consists of a great Variety of Articles,” Deblois declared, “it would be too tedious to enumerate them in an Advertisement.” John Cabot and Andrew Cabot were even more blunt and probably more honest about their decision to forego a list of merchandise in their advertisement. They carried a “compleat and elegant Assortment of English and India GOODS … consisting of almost every Article that is necessary for the Consumption of the Country.” However, they believed it “would be expensive to the Advertiser” as well as “troublesome to the Reader, to mention every Article.” Instead, they promised that shoppers would not be disappointed at their store. “Let is suffice to say,” the Cabots confided, “that there is a little of every Thing.”
Merchants and shopkeepers frequently made appeals to consumer choice in their newspaper advertisements, but they adopted different strategies for doing so. Many resorted to lengthy lists of goods, but others considered such methods “too tedious” and “troublesome” for readers. In even more rare instances, some even confessed that cataloging their wares in the public prints “would be expensive.” They found other means of suggesting that they offered plenty of choices for consumers.
GUEST CURATOR: Elizabeth Peterson
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.
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GUEST CURATOR: Victoria Ostrowski
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“Ladies SILKS of the newest Fashion.”
In this advertisement, Thomas Lee sold a variety of goods imported from England. The ones that stood out the most to me were the “Ladies SILKS of the newest Fashion.” I was interested in finding more about silks because I wanted to know more about women’s fashion in the colonial era. I discovered that the materials used to make women’s clothing changed during the eighteenth century. According to the “Fashion History Timeline” from the Fashion Institute of Technology, “The heavy, brocaded, lushly floral silks of the mid-century were superseded by silks that were both lighter in weight and simpler in design, heralding ‘the advent of Neo-Classicism.’ In the first half of the 1770s, motifs shrank significantly and ‘the vertical element of the of the late 1760s proliferated in the early 1770s into clusters of broad and narrow stripes.’ By the middle of the decade, ‘the clustered stripes had all but disappeared and, instead … [they were absolutely regular in width.” Fashions for women seemed to enter a new age of design every couple of years! Thomas Lee advertised “a most elegant Assortment” of “Ladies SILKS,” allowing for colonial women to dress in “the newest Fashions.”
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes
Along with price and quality, eighteenth-century advertisers frequently made appeals to fashion as they attempted to incite demand for the goods they sold. Merchants and shopkeepers, tailors and milliners all tried to convince prospective customers that they could outfit them in current styles. As Tori notes, Thomas Lee promoted his “Supply of Ladies SILKS of the newest Fashions” in an advertisement that ran in the April 20, 1772, edition of Boston Evening-Post. Elsewhere in the same issue, Cyrus Baldwin advertised a “large and neat Assortment of English and India Goods” that included “LADIES newest-fashioned bonnets” and other items. The proprietors of the Irish Linen Warehouse on King Street informed readers that they stocked a “Variety of the most elegant Copper-Plate printed Muslins for Ladies Summer Wear, much esteemed at present among the most fashionable People in England.” John Barrett and Sons published an extensive catalog of goods available at their shop, underscoring fashion in the first two entries: “New fashion brown, purple, green & blue English Damasks” and “Very fashionable & genteel brocaded & striped, changeable cloth color’d, white, grey and black Mantuas & Lutestrings.”
As these examples make clear, purveyors of textiles, garments, and all sorts of accessories knew that prospective customers did not measure fashion solely in terms of the styles they saw others wearing in the colonies. Instead, consumers looked across the Atlantic for cues, seeking to demonstrate that they shared the sophisticated tastes of genteel men and women who shopped in London and pursued cosmopolitan lifestyles in town and country. Those tastes evolved quickly, as Tori discovered in her research. How quickly they evolved was one of the defining features of the consumer revolution of the eighteenth century. On both sides of the Atlantic, consumers updated their wardrobes much more frequently than they did a century earlier, fueled by a preoccupation with fashion and a desire to display their own status and good taste. That gave Lee and other advertisers greater leverage in their interactions with prospective customers, enticing them with “the newest Fashions” to get consumers into their shops.
Victoria Ostrowski is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is majoring in History and Elementary Education. She has studied abroad in Rome, Italy, where she was able to immerse herself in the history and culture of Italy. She wants to continue to travel and learn about the history of Europe. She also likes to work out, hang out with friends, and paint. She has two German Shepherds who love to go on trips to the park. At Assumption, she is part of the Education Club as well as the Alumni Club. She previously served as guest curator for the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project when she enrolled in HIS 400 Research Methods: Vast Early America in Spring 2021. She made her current contributions to these projects when enrolled in HIS 359 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2021.
Welcome back, guest curator Victoria Ostrowski!
GUEST CURATOR: Elizabeth Peterson
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.
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What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
“Joseph Peirce HAS receiv’d by Capt. Scott, who is just arriv’d from London, a genteel Assortment of English and India Goods.”
Joseph Peirce’s advertisement occupied half a column in the April 16, 1772, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, listing dozens of items for sale and fulfilling a promise made the previous week. In the previous issue, an abbreviated version of the advertisement informed readers that “Joseph Peirce HAS receiv’d by Capt. Scott, who is just arriv’d from London, a genteel Assortment of English and India Goods, which he will sell, at his Shop at the North Side of the Town House, Boston, at such Rates as shall give full Satisfaction to the Purchaser.” A short note also clarified that “The Particulars must be deferred till our next.”
The shipping news from the customs house confirmed that several vessels from London, including one commanded by Capt. Scott, recently arrived “Enter’d in” the bustling port. In some instances, advertisers placed preliminary notices to alert prospective customers that they had new merchandise before they had time to unpack it or include all the “Particulars.” In a competitive commercial landscape, they considered it imperative to advertise as quickly as other merchants and shopkeepers. That does not seem to have been the case with Peirce’s advertisement, however. Richard Draper, the printer, inserted a note at the bottom of the page, stating that “A Number of New and Old Advertisements, we are obliged to omit for want of Room.” The decision to delay some of the content of Peirce’s advertisement therefore seems to have been made by the printer rather than by the advertiser. Even the half sheet that accompanied the standard issue did not provide sufficient space for the remaining advertisements. Draper declared that “The LONDON NEWS by the last Vessels are in the Gazette Extraordinary.” That the masthead of the additional half sheet named it the Massachusetts-Gazette Extraordinary rather than the usual Supplement to the Massachusetts-Gazette distributed by Draper signaled that it contained news that readers would not want “deferred till our next.” He prioritized news for subscribers over paid notices by advertisers, carefully balancing his obligations as printer. After all, the newspaper depended on the patronage of both kinds of customers.
Peirce’s complete advertisement appeared in the next issue, the original notice serving as an introduction to an extensive catalog of imported goods. The delay might not have mattered for some readers and prospective customers. A note from the printer in the April 16 edition indicated that delivery had been postponed because “no Post went last Week” along “the Western Road” so those subscribers received the April 9 and the April 16 editions (and the abbreviated version and the full version of Peirce’s advertisement) at the same time. Both the advertiser and the printer experienced delays in circulating Peirce’s notice to colonizers in and beyond Boston.