Month: June 2022

June 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (June 13, 1772).

“BOOKS … for Sale at the PRINTING OFFICE.”

John Carter exercised his prerogative as printer of the Providence Gazette in placing an advertisement for “BOOKS … for Sale at the PRINTING OFFICE” immediately below the governor Joseph Wanton’s proclamation about the Gaspee Affair.  The Gaspee, a British schooner that enforced the Navigation Acts in Rhode Island, ran aground near Warwick while pursuing another vessel on June 9, 1772.  Colonizers boarded and burned the ship.  For several years, colonizers in Rhode Island and other colonies protested against increased British regulation of trade and Parliament’s attempts to impose taxes via the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts.  The Boston Massacre in March 1770 intensified tensions.  Although colonizers had not yet determined to declare independence, the Gaspee Affair became significant for deploying violence in resistance to the crown’s authority.  The Boston Tea Party, more famous today, occurred more than a year after the burning of the Gaspee.

Just four days after that event, the Providence Gazette carried Wanton’s proclamation.  Many colonizers likely already heard what happened, but the weekly newspaper offered an opportunity to examine the governor’s account and his response.  Wanton stated that “a Number of People, unknown, boarded his Majesty’s armed Schooner the Gaspee[,] … dangerously wounded Lieutenant William Dudingston, the Commander, and by Force took him, with all his People, put them into Boats, … and afterwards set Fire to the said Schooner, whereby she was entirely destroyed.”  Wanton called on “His Majesty’s Officers” in Rhode Island, “both Civil and Military, to exert themselves, with the utmost Vigilance, to discover and apprehend the Persons guilty of the aforesaid atrocious Crime.”  He also offered a reward to anyone “who shall discover the Perpetrators of the said Villainy.”  Finally, Wanton commanded “the several Sheriffs in the said colony” to post the proclamation “in the most public Places in each of their Towns in their respective Counties.”

Readers of the Providence Gazette likely encountered the proclamation there before it appeared on broadsides posted in their towns.  As breaking news, it may have attracted more attention than many other items that appeared elsewhere in the issue.  Anticipating that would be the case, Carter made a savvy decision to place his own advertisement immediately after the proclamation, increasing the likelihood that prospective customers would take note of it.

June 12

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

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (June 12, 1772).

“Those Accomplishments which are so necessary for entring the World with Advantage.”

Many colonizers sought to demonstrate that they belonged to genteel society through their fashions, possessions, and comportment.  They participated in the consumer revolution, purchasing textiles, garments, accessories, and housewares according to the latest tastes in English cities, especially London.  They also concentrated on their comportment, putting into practice good manners and learning a variety of genteel skills, including dancing, fencing, speaking French, and playing musical instruments.  Merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and tutors aided colonizers in acquiring both the things and the knowledge necessary for displaying their gentility.

This was not solely an urban phenomenon.  Far beyond the major port cities of Boston, Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, purveyors of goods advertised their wares and consumers acquired them.  Similarly, colonizers in smaller towns had opportunities to take lessons in dancing, fencing, and other genteel pursuits.  As summer arrived in 1772, Monsieur Viart placed an advertisement in the New-Hampshire Gazette to inform the public, especially parents, that he taught “DANCING, FENCING, the FRENCH LANGUAGE, and the VIOLIN … in the most perfect and polite manner.”  He cautioned parents against overlooking the benefits of enrolling their children in his classes, arguing that his curriculum yielded “those Accomplishments which are so necessary for entring the World with Advantage.”  Even colonizers in Portsmouth, Viart declared, needed these skills.

Viart listed the tuition for each kind of lesson, both an initial entrance fee and additional payment for each quarter.  He also offered a discount if “a Scholar learns in two Branches,” encouraging pupils and their parents to sign up for more than one subject.  He anticipated the most interest in dancing and French, holding “School” for each at set times on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.  He may have also provided private tutoring, but he did not mention those lessons in his advertisement.  He gave fencing and violin lessons “at such times as may be convenient for his Scholars.”

Tutors like Viart attempted to entice colonizers to become even more immersed in the consumer revolution and the culture of gentility and cosmopolitanism often associated with it.  He expected that his pronouncement that learning to dance or speak French was “so necessary” in preparing children to successfully make their way in the world that it would resonate with parents and other readers in Portsmouth and nearby towns.  Such skills, he suggested, were not reserved for the gentry in New York and Philadelphia.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 12, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Joseph Vanacore

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 (June 12, 1772).

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New-Hampshire Gazette (June 12, 1772).

June 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Spy (June 11, 1772).

“The Particulars too numerous for an Advertisement.”

Thanks to a signature design element, a border comprised of decorative type, readers easily spotted Jolley Allen’s advertisements in several newspapers published in Boston in late spring in 1772.  The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, for instance, carried his advertisement with its distinctive border on June 11.  Three days earlier, the Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy featured Allen’s advertisement, complete with the border.  On June 1, the Boston Evening-Post did so as well.

On the same day that the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter carried Allen’s advertisement, it also ran in the Massachusetts Spy.  That completed Allen’s efforts to disseminate his notice as widely as possible by inserting it in all five newspapers printed in Boston at the time.  Yet the version in the Massachusetts Spy differed in format, though not in copy, from Allen’s advertisements in the other four newspapers.  No border enclosed the shopkeeper’s pronouncement that he “determined on an entire New Plan” for selling “His WHOLE Stock in Trade … at very little more than the Sterling cost and charges.”

Other design elements replicated Allen’s advertisements in the other newspapers.  For instance, the compositor centered the copy of the first portion, creating distinctive white space that helped draw attention to the notice, before resorting to a dense block of text that went to the left and right margins for the final portion.  Allen most likely requested a border when he submitted the copy to the printing office.  After all, he made an effort to make a consistent visual presentation throughout the other newspapers that carried his advertisement.  The compositor for the Massachusetts Spy allowed for some distinctiveness in the format of the notice, but apparently considered incorporating a border too much of a deviation.

The Massachusetts Spy already included borders comprised of thin lines around all advertisements, the only newspaper printed in Boston at the time to do so.  Perhaps the compositor exercised judgment in determining that a border within a border would appear too crowded, overruling instructions or preferences expressed by the advertiser.  This example hints at the conversations about graphic design that may have taken place between advertisers and those who worked in printing offices in early America.  How extensively did printers, compositors, and advertisers consult each other about the format of newspaper notices that customers paid to insert?

Slavery Advertisements Published June 11, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Molly Torres

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 (June 11, 1772).

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Maryland Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Maryland Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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New-York Journal (June 11, 1772).

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New-York Journal (June 11, 1772).

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New-York Journal (June 11, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Journal (June 11, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Journal (June 11, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

June 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 8, 1772).

“The Post of Mr. SIMNETT’s Dial is white, to distinguish it.”

John Simnet, a watchmaker, ran several advertisements in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and the New-York Journal in the spring of 1772.  In several of them, he pursued a feud with another watchmaker, James Yeoman, but he did not make any new insinuations about his competitor in a notice that appeared in the Gazette on June 8.  In the most aggressive portion of the advertisement, Simnet declared that it was “beneath the Character of a qualified Workman, to extract an Annuity by repairing Watches over and over again.”  Such commentary did not apply exclusively to Yeoman or any other rival.  Simnet had a long history of accusing most watchmakers of creating work for themselves by making repairs intended to last for only a short time.

Simnet devoted most of this advertisement to promoting various aspects of his own business rather than denigrating Yeoman or other watchmakers.  He boasted about his credentials, noting that “during the Term of Apprenticeship” he served as “Finisher to Mr. Webster, Exchange Alley, London.”  He also underscored his availability to greet customers “from Five in the Morning till Six in the Evening.”  In addition, he listed prices for several common services, such as “Joining a broken Spring or Chain Two Shillings” and a “new Main Spring either Six or Eight Shillings,” so prospective customers could assess the bargains for themselves.  To guide them in doing so, Simnet asserted that he set rates “at HALF the Price charg’d by any other” and explained that his customers did not have to worry about “future Expence,” those annual repairs.

The watchmaker did insert one clarification that did not previously appear in other variations of his advertisement that spring.  Apparently, another watchmaker set up shop in the vicinity, prompting Simnet to give more explicit directions to his own location.  “As there is now another of the Trade adjoining,” he explained, “please with Care to observe the Place; the Post of Mr. SIMNETT’s Dial is white, to distinguish it, and his Shop is low, aside the Coffee-House Bridge, but not the Corner.”  In a previous advertisement, he described the device that marked his shop as “the Black Dial, with a White Post.”  A competitor may have marked his own shop with a similar device, causing Simnet to focus on the color of the post.  Readers familiar with the usual tone in Simnet’s advertisements may have wondered how much time would elapse before he published more colorful commentary about “another of the Trade” with a shop so close to his own.

June 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (June 9, 1772).

“He is determined to be undersold by none.”

Philip Godfrid Kast, an apothecary in Salem, regularly placed advertisements in the Essex Gazette in the early 1770s.  He also distributed an engraved trade card that included a depiction of the “Sign of the Lyon & Mortar” that marked his location.  Kast resorted to a variety of marketing appeals in his efforts to convince consumers to give him their business rather than acquire medicines from his competitors.

In an advertisement that ran on June 9, 1772, Kast declared that he “is determined to be undersold by none.”  Purveyors of all sorts of goods frequently promised low prices for their wares, some making similar claims that prospective customers would not find better bargains than they offered.  Kast explained why he was so confident that he could match and beat the prices charged by other apothecaries as well as merchants and shopkeepers who imported and sold various patent medicines.  He stated that he “has a Brother who resides in London, and purchases his Drugs at the cheapest Rate for Cash.”  His competitors may have acquired their medicines through middlemen and marked up their prices accordingly, but Kast had a direct connection that allowed him to set the best rates.  The apothecary presented this as a benefit to all of his customers, but he made a special appeal to “Gentlemen Practitioners in Physick” who were most likely to buy in volume.  That meant greater savings for them as well as greater revenues for Kast.

Yet he did not expect low prices alone would bring customers to his shop.  He also testified to the quality of his medicines and provided a guarantee, proclaiming that they were “warranted to be genuine, and the best of their Kinds.” Furthermore, his new inventory was “fresh,” having been imported from London” via a vessel that “arrived at Boston last Week.”  Kast assured prospective customers that he did not peddle remedies that had lingered on the shelves for months.  He anticipated that a combination of low prices and promises about quality would convince consumers to visit the Lion and Mortar when they needed medicines.

Slavery Advertisements Published June 9, 1772

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

GUEST CURATOR: Molly Torres

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.

Connecticut Courant (June 9, 1772).

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Connecticut Courant (June 9, 1772).

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Essex Gazette (June 9, 1772).

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Essex Gazette (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (June 9, 1772).

June 8

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

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

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (June 8, 1772).

“JOSEPH STANSBURY, Hath just imported … GLASS AND EARTHEN WARES.”

Molly Torres, a student in my Revolutionary America class in Fall 2021, selected this advertisement that Joseph Stansbury placed in the June 8, 1772, edition of the Pennsylvania Packet.  It prompted a conversation about the many trajectories for learning about the past presented by each advertisement.  In most instances, I encouraged students to focus on a particular item, such as tea, and how it helped us understand commerce, politics, or daily life in the era of the American Revolution.  I cautioned that examining individual advertisers would usually be more difficult, especially for students with limited experience undertaking research that integrated primary and secondary sources.  Many advertisers left behind few traces beyond their newspaper notices.  Some advertisers, however were so famous … or infamous … that more information about them was readily available to novice researchers.

Such was the case with Joseph Stansbury, infamous as the “main intercessory between Benedict Arnold and John André.”  According to an online exhibit about “Spy Letters of the American Revolution” sponsored by the William L. Clements Library, Stansbury held a variety of positions, including commissioner of the city watch, during the British occupation of Philadelphia.  He remained in the city when the British withdrew, though Stansbury traveled to New York “specifically to meet with André about Arnold.”  He did not stay in the city long, not wanting to raise suspicions about his loyalties upon returning to Philadelphia.  Upon his return, he received a letter with instructions from the British officer and then became “the mediator between the communications of Arnold and André.”  They corresponded in cipher, using identical copies of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England as keys for decoding their letters.

Researching this advertisement about a “LARGE AND CAPITAL ASSORTMENT OF GLASS AND EARTHEN WARES of the most approved kinds” took Molly in unexpected directions.  Neither of us anticipated that working on this project would lead to learning more about espionage during the American Revolution or the nation’s most infamous traitor and his accomplices.  Examining the Clements Library’s online exhibition also gave us an opportunity to discuss archives, special collections, and the process of conducting more sustained research.  As I’ve previously written, one of my favorite parts of inviting students to serve as guest curators of the Adverts 250 Project is discovering where their research will take us once they select which advertisements to feature.  That is so much more interesting than if I unilaterally set the syllabus at the beginning of the semester and we did not deviate from it.

Welcome, Guest Curator Molly Torres

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized ,

Molly Torres is a junior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is a Psychology major with a minor in Women’s Studies. Molly takes pride in advocating for women’s rights and the rights of others. She hopes to pursue a career in social work, specializing in women’s mental health and wellbeing. Molly is on academic scholarship for singing. She is a member of the university’s chorus, the university’s honor ensemble VOCE, and Worcester’s Salisbury Singers. She is currently studying opera and classical performance privately, and performed at the Providence Preforming Arts Center and Symphony Hall in Boston with the Massachusetts All State Choir in 2019.  Molly made her contributions to the Adverts 250 Project when enrolled in Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2021.

Welcome, guest curator Molly Torres!