July 15

July 15, 2022March 27, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Day of Publication, Pennsylvania Journal, Thomas Bradford, William and Thomas Bradford, William Bradford

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

“The publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public.”

In the summer of 1772, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, altered their publication schedule, moving their weekly issues from Thursdays to Wednesdays. They placed an announcement on the first page on July 15, explaining that a “Great number of our friends” convinced them to make the change because “the publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public.” They did not name the Pennsylvania Gazette, but residents of Philadelphia knew that new issues of both newspapers became available on Thursdays as well as new issues of the Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Packet on Mondays. Heeding the advice of their friends, the Bradfords decided to publish the Pennsylvania Journal “regularly every Wednesday,” but assured readers that all other aspects of the newspaper remained the same. They pledged that they “shall still make it our constant endeavour, to keep up the well-known spirit and impartiality of the paper” to serve subscribers and those who “chuse to have advertisements inserted in this extensive paper.”

Whether or not the publication of two newspapers on the same day was “inconvenient” for readers or advertisers, that remained the schedule for the Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Journal as well as the newspapers published in Boston. In that city, all five newspapers clustered publication on just two days, the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on Mondays and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy on Thursdays. In New York, the printers of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and the New-York Journal distributed new issues on different days in 1772, but other newspapers previously competed with them. In Charleston, the printers of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette, the South-Carolina Gazette, and the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal usually managed to publish new issues on different days of the week, but their schedules had significantly more variability than newspapers in other cities and towns.

The Bradfords may or may not have been counseled by a “Great number” of friends and patrons to publish the Pennsylvania Journal on a different day than their competitors published the Pennsylvania Gazette, but they certainly recognized an opportunity to promote the change to prospective subscribers and advertisers. That change will have an impact on the advertisements featured on the Adverts 250 Project. No other eighteenth-century newspapers that have been digitized were published on Wednesdays, making it necessary to necessary to select advertisements from newspapers published earlier in the week. The change in the Pennsylvania Journal’s publication schedule means that the Adverts 250 Project will feature one of its advertisements once a week. That has the benefit of giving readers access to an advertisement published 250 years ago that day, but the shortcoming of disproportionately representing content from the Pennsylvania Journal … at least “until” another eighteenth-century printer commences (commenced) publication of a newspaper on Wednesdays.

July 14

July 14, 2022July 5, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Blurb about Patent Medicine, Charles Crouch, Descriptions of Patent Medicines, Patent Medicines, South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal

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

*South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (July 14, 1772).

“Dr. KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS.”

Like other colonial printers, Charles Crouch cultivated multiple revenue streams simultaneously. Most printers produced and sold blanks or printed forms for common legal and commercial transactions. They also did job printing, completing orders for broadsides, handbills, circular letters, and a variety of other items according to the specifications of their customers. Many sold books, most of them imported from London, as well as stationery and writing supplies, and some printed newspapers. For Crouch, advertising revenues may have exceeded subscription fees for the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, especially since he often distributed a supplement comprised solely of advertisements.

In addition to blanks, books, and stationery, printers frequently stocked and advertised patent medicines popular among consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. They did not need to possess any particular expertise to sell those patent medicines, especially since many came with “FULL DIRECTIONS for their Use in all CASES.” On July 14, 1772, Crouch advertised that he carried an array of patent medicines at his printing office, including “Dr. KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS,” “Dr. NELSON’s ANTISCORBUTIC DROPS,” “Dr. HILL’s genuine TINCTURE of VALERIAN,” “Dr. BOERHAAVE’s GRAND BALSAM of HEALTH,” JOYCE’s GREAT AMERICAN BALSAM,” “THE AGUE TINCTURE,” and “The GOLDEN TINCTURE.” Crouch gave these remedies a privileged place in his newspaper. His advertisement filled the first column on the first page and overflowed into the second. Only after promoting an array of elixirs and nostrums did he insert European news received via ships from London.

Crouch’s advertisement included blurbs of various lengths about each of the medicines, most likely reprinted from directions, advertisements, or other materials sent by his suppliers. The structure of the advertisement suggested that he received some of the most familiar items from London, but acquired Joyce’s Great American Balsam, the Ague Tincture, and the Golden Tincture separately. The blurbs for those three items included directions, suggesting that they may not have been as familiar to consumers as the patent medicines from London. Crouch may have hoped that putting less-familiar medicines in an advertisement with trusted remedies would enhance their appeal and convince prospective customers to trust in their efficacy.

In the colophon at the bottom of the final column on the last page, Crouch reminded readers that “all Manner of Printing Work is performed with Care and Expedition” at his printing office, yet he did not confine himself to the printing trade or even the book trade in creating revenue streams for his business. Like many other colonial printers, he also hawked patent medicines to supplement his other ventures.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 14, 1772

July 14, 2022January 31, 2022 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 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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*Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (July 14, 1772).

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July 13

July 13, 2022July 22, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Cutlers, Imitation, Lucas and Shephard, New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, Whitesmiths, Woodcut

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

*New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (July 13, 1772).

“All sorts of knives and forks, pocket and penknives.”

Lucas and Shephard, “WHITESMITHS and CUTLERS, From BIRMINGHAM and SHEFFIELD,” enhanced their advertisement in the July 13, 1772, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury with a woodcut that depicted many of the items they made and sold at their new location in “the shop lately occupied by Messrs. Bailey and Youle.” Lucas and Shephard provided an extensive list of their wares, making the combination of words and image an eighteenth-century precursor to the illustrated catalogs that so significantly shaped consumer culture in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Lucas and Shephard followed the lead of other cutlers in New York. Previously, Bailey and Youle adorned their own advertisements with a woodcut that depicted more than a dozen items they produced in the shop. When the partnership dissolved, James Youle retained the woodcut, modified it to remove his former partner’s name, and inserted it in advertisements in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in June and July 1772. Lucas and Shepard began running their advertisement two weeks after Youle’s notice ran on June 29. It was not the first time that the woodcut that accompanied one of Youle’s advertisements may have inspired imitation. In April 1771, Richard Sause ran advertisements with a woodcut that showed all sorts of cutlery items that he made at his shop just a few weeks after Bailey and Youle’s notice appeared in the public prints. A sword and a table knife even bore his name, suggesting that he marked his work in some manner.

Like those cutlers who placed advertisements before them, Lucas and Shephard deployed a variety of appeals to entice prospective customers. They emphasized their skill, promising “great accuracy” in their work, and a “reasonable price.” They also made a nod to customer services, pledging to “carry on their business with dispatch” in order “to give satisfaction to all who may please to employ them. The image increased the likelihood that readers would take note of their advertisement, especially considering Youle continued running his own advertisements with depictions of his cutlery ware. Lucas and Shephard may have considered their own woodcut imperative for competing with Youle, a necessary investment when they chose to advertise in a newspaper in which he already established visibility for his shop.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 13, 1772

July 13, 2022January 31, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

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*Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (July 13, 1772).

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*Pennsylvania Chronicle* (July 13, 1772).

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July 12

July 12, 2022July 5, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Mineral Waters, New-York Journal, Perth Amboy Bath, Spa, Tourism

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

“A NEW and CONVENIENT BATH.”

Readers of the New-York Journal encountered an advertisement for “DOCTOR HILL’s GENUINE AMERICAN BALSAM” in the June 9, 1772, edition. Michael Hoffman informed them that he received a “fresh Supply” of the “truly excellent medicine” responsible for “great numbers of cures” of all sorts of maladies. In another advertisement, however, readers learned of an alternative to the patent medicines hawked by so many apothecaries, merchants, and shopkeepers. That notice announced that a “NEW and CONVENIENT BATH” had been “LATELY ERECTED, And now opened” in nearby Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

The advertisement described what visitors could expect to experience if they visited the bath. They had access to a “Room properly constructed to undress and dress in, with a Stair-Case leading into the Bathing Room, where Persons of wither Sex may bathe in Salt-Water, in the Salt-Water, in the greatest Privacy.” In addition, “a Door is so placed in the Bath” that “those that choose to swim off into deeper Water … can conveniently go out and return.” The notice suggested that visitors also take advantage of a “Mineral Water, similar to the German Spaw” about two miles from the bath, declaring that “its proper Distance procuring moderate Exercise after bathing, has proved in many Instances very assistant to the Medicinal Quality of the Waters.” Furthermore, “bathing in Sea Water” enhanced the efficacy of the mineral waters at the spa. In case that description did not entice prospective visitors, the advertisement also reported that “several Physicians of Ability” examined the “Qualities of this Spaw” and “frequently recommended” partaking in the experience. A nota bene indicated that visitors from New York and other places could procure “Genteel Lodgings” from any of “several private Families” in Perth Amboy.”

A nascent tourism industry emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century, sometimes connected to the medicinal benefits of visiting baths and spas. In the decade before the American Revolution, the proprietors of “JACKSON’S Mineral-Well in Boston,” the “Bath and House” at Chalybeat Springs in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and the “BATH” near the “Mineral Water, similar to the German Spaw” in Perth Amboy all placed newspapers advertisements to encourage colonizers to visit their facilities and partake in the amenities they provided.

July 11

July 11, 2022July 2, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Education, James Manning, Latin School, Morals, Providence Gazette

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

“Attention will be paid to their Learning and Morals.”

James Manning took to the pages of the Providence Gazette to promote his “Latin School” in the summer of 1772. He pursued that venture, he claimed, upon the request of “several Gentlemen … to take and educate their Sons.” His advertisement served as a mechanism to inform those gentlemen “and others disposed to put their Children under my Care” that he offered lessons “in the College Edifice,” the building constructed for Rhode Island College (now Brown University) two years earlier.

Presumably the “several Gentlemen” who encouraged Manning to establish a Latin school already had some familiarity with his qualifications and methods. For others, he offered assurances that he was “a Master duly qualified” and familiar with “the most effectual Methods to obtain a competent Knowledge of Grammar.” He supplemented the Latin curriculum with “spelling, reading, and speaking English with Propriety,” attending to the comportment of his pupils.

Such concerns extended to their morals as well. Manning trumpeted, “I flatter myself, that such Attention will be paid to their Learning and Morals, as will entirely satisfy all who may send their Children.” Throughout the colonies, schoolmasters and -mistresses, especially those who boarded students, posted newspaper advertisements that inextricably linked “Learning and Morals.” In this case, reading Latin and “speaking English with Propriety” accounted for only a portion of the education that Manning’s students received. As markers of gentility, they mattered little if the words and deeds of his charges belied upright morals.

Manning concluded his notice with a brief note that he sold “All Books for the School” in addition to providing instruction and lodging for his scholars. He also had copies of “the classical Authors read in College” for sale “at the Lowest Rate.” In so doing, he likely sought to leverage his location and affiliation with Rhode Island College as an additional reason for gentlemen to send their sons to his Latin school.

July 10

July 10, 2022July 2, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Edward Emerson, Largest Selection, Lowest Price, New-Hampshire Gazette, Parker Emerson

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

*New-Hampshire Gazette* (July 10, 1772).

“His Assortment as full and as cheap, as in the County.”

Many shopkeepers in smaller towns sought to convince prospective customers that they provided shopping experiences that matched what they would find elsewhere. Such was the case with Edward Emerson when he placed an advertisement in the July 10, 1772, edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette. He informed the public that he carried a “general Assortment of Hard Ware and English Piece GOODS” at his shop in York (then part of Massachusetts, now Maine). He suggested that he made available as many choices as consumers would encounter in any other shop, but “to mention the Particulars would take too much room in the Paper” (and cost much more for Emerson to publish). Instead, he assured “his good Customers and others (in Town or out,)” that when they visited his shop they would “find his Assortment as full and as cheap, as in the County.” The shopkeeper expanded on his appeal emphasizing choice to incorporate price. Elsewhere in his advertisement he pledged to sell goods “At a very low Rate.” Customers would not find more choices or better bargains elsewhere.

Parker Emerson made similar claims about his store in Litchfield, New Hampshire, in the same issue of the New-Hampshire Gazette. He stated that he imported a “large Assortment of English and West India Goods” as well as “NAILS, Window Glass of all sorts; a variety of Glass, Stone, and Delph Ware, and a compleat assortment of London Pewter.” Repeating words and phrases like “variety,” “of all sorts,” and “compleat assortment” underscored that Emerson provided a range of choices even if he opted not to catalog his merchandise in a newspaper advertisement. He also informed prospective customers that “he is determined to sell as cheap as any Store or Shopkeeper in the Country.” In other words, Emerson would not be undersold. Consumers in Litchfield, York, and other towns had the option of visiting shops in Portsmouth in search of more choices and lower prices, but advertisers like Edward Emerson and Parker Emerson aimed to persuade them that they did not need to do so. They positioned their merchandise and prices as rivaling those consumers would encounter elsewhere, suggesting that colonizers in the countryside had equal access to the consumer revolution.

July 9

July 9, 2022July 2, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Domestic Manufactures, John Keating, Linen Rags, New-York Journal, Paper Manufactory

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

“Promote the interest of America.”

John Keating operated “PAPER MANUFACTORIES, At and near New-York” in the late 1760s and early 1770s. He regularly advertised “ALL sorts of paper and paste board,” usually enhancing his newspaper notices with commentary intended to convince consumers to purchase goods produced in the colonies. In an advertisement in the July 9, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal, for instance, he asserted that his paper “and other articles manufactured here, make a clear saving to this country of all the money that would have been sent out to purchase them from abroad.” A greater number of advertisers promoted domestic manufactures when nonimportation agreements remained in effect, providing alternatives for consumers who wished for their shopping habits to match their politics, but such appeals tapered off when trade resumed. Keating, on the other hand, remained adamant in calling on “all those who really wish to promote the interest of America” to “contribute their aid to the success of this undertaking.”

Keating imagined readers as more than consumers who would purchase his paper. He also envisioned them as partners in producing it. He needed resources, especially linen rags, “which are generally destroyed or thrown away as useless, tho’ they are absolutely necessary to a paper manufactory, which cannot be carried on without them.” Colonizers played a vital role in supporting the production of paper in New York, “with which their own interest is closely connected.” Some colonizers discarded rags that could have been transformed into paper at one of Keating’s “MANUFACTORIES.” Others sent “considerable quantities … to other colonies,” prompting Keating to lament that the “the legislature have not yet thought proper to prohibit the exportation” of rags. Even though the colonial assembly refused to act on that matter, colonizers in New York could choose to collect and send rags to Keating on their own. He expressed his desire that “a due regard to their own interest will incline the inhabitants of this country to supply a manufactory among themselves.”

Keating invited colonizers to participate in both the production and consumption of paper made at his “MANUFACTORIES” in and near New York. He reiterated that in doing so they not only supported a local business but also attended to “their own interest” in making goods produced in the colonies more widely available at lower prices than imported alternatives. Doing so corrected trade imbalance that resulted from the colonies exporting resources and importing finished goods. Keating advocated for the colonies producing more of the goods they consumed, but doing so required widespread cooperation.

Slavery Advertisements Published July 9, 1772

July 9, 2022January 28, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

These advertisements appeared in colonial American newspapers 250 years ago today.

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*Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter* (July 9, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (July 9, 1772).

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*South-Carolina Gazette* (July 9, 1772).

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*Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette* (July 9, 1772).

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*Virginia Gazette* [Purdie and Dixon] (July 9, 1772).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (July 9, 1772).

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	July 22 \| The Advert… on June 17
	July 21 \| The Advert… on December 2
	July 20 \| The Advert… on July 11
	July 19 \| The Advert… on July 14
	July 18 \| The Advert… on July 8

The Adverts 250 Project

An Exploration of Advertising During the Era of the American Revolution, 250 Years Ago This Week

Month: July 2022

Slavery Advertisements Published July 14, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published July 13, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published July 9, 1772