August 13

August 13, 2022August 4, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Advertisement in Multiple Newspapers, Cutler, J. Bailey, New-York Journal, Sign of the Cross Swords

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

“J. BAILEY, Cutler. from Sheffield.”

Several cutlers in New York competed for customers by inserting advertisements with elaborate woodcuts depicting an array of items available at their shops in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in the summer of 1772. James Youle, “CUTLER FROM SHEFFIELD,” adapted an image that he and former partner J. Bailey previously ran in that newspaper a year earlier. Lucas and Shephard, “WHITESMITHS and CUTLERS, From BIRMINGHAM and SHEFFIELD,” ran their own advertisement adorned with an image of many items included among their merchandise.

Bailey apparently determined that his competitors had an advantage, so he commissioned his own woodcut that featured both text, “J. BAILEY, Cutler. from Sheffield,” and an image that included two swords among a variety of cutlery. The advertisement stated that Bailey was located “At the Sign of the CROSS SWORDS,” indicating that he sought to increase the effectiveness of the image beyond the efforts of his competitors with their woodcuts by closely associating it with the sign that marked his shop in addition to the goods he made and sold. He also enhanced his advertisement by incorporating another image, that one depicting shears, below a note that he “has now for sale fullers shears.”

Those did not constitute Bailey’s only innovations relative to the advertising campaigns of his competitors. Those advertisements all ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury. On August 13, Bailey expanded the number of colonizers who saw his advertisement by inserting it in the New-York Journal. That advertisement featured the same two woodcuts and the same copy that appeared in the other newspaper, giving Bailey an advantage over his former partner and other competitors who invested in woodcuts for their advertisements. Some or all of these cutlers may have also advertised in another newspaper, the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy. Unfortunately, issues of that newspaper from 1771 through 1773 have not been digitized, so I have not been able to consult them as readily as the other two newspapers published in New York City in 1772. Whether or not any of these cutlers advertised in the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy, Bailey was the first to seek customers among the readers of the New-York Journal. That meant arranging to have his woodcuts transferred from one printing office to another. The available evidence suggests that Bailey put even more thought into his advertising campaign than his competitors who already made efforts to distinguish their notices from others in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 13, 1772

August 13, 2022June 17, 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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*Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter* (August 13, 1772).

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*South-Carolina Gazette* (August 13, 1772).

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*Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette* (August 13, 1772).

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

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August 12

August 12, 2022August 4, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Dutch Fans, Experience, John Sellers, Name Stamped on Prodcut, Pennsylvania Gazette, Quality, Rolling Screens, Warranty, Woodcut

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

*Pennsylvania Gazette* (August 12, 1772).

“He proposes to affix his Name on the Heads of all his Bolts, rolling Screens, and Fans.”

In the summer of 1772, John Sellers of Darby placed advertisements promoting “VARIOUS Kinds of Wire Work” in the Pennsylvania Gazette. He made and sold “rolling Screens for cleaning Wheat,” “rolling Screens for cleaning Flaxseed from the yellow or wild Seed,” “small Bolts for separating the Cockle from the Flaxseed,” and “common Dutch Fans” for separating wheat from chaff.

Sellers presented a variety of reasons that readers in need of any of those devices should purchase them from him. He promised that customers who “favour him with their Orders, may depend on their Work being done with Care,” reiterating a description of his products as “made in the neatest and best Manner.” He also offered a guarantee, stating that “the Work [is] Warranted. Furthermore, Sellers drew on long experience as an artisan who met the expectations of his clients. He was “not pretending to perform that which he has not, in a great Number of Instance, given the utmost Satisfaction.” Over time, he made “upwards of 50 rolling Screens for Wheat, and upwards of 70 for Flaxseed,” establishing his reputation.

Sellers did not expect prospective customers to visit his workshop in Darby, six miles away from Philadelphia, to examine his products or purchase them. Instead, “for the Conveniency of his Customers,” he arranged to have them on display “in Plumsted’s Stores, in Philadelphia.” Sellers instructed to customers to ask for John Brown to handle sales. For those who wished to confer with the artisan directly, he advised that he “attends generally twice a Week, in Philadelphia.” Anyone interested in contacting him directly could do so by “leaving a Line at the Conestogoe Waggon, in Market-street, or sending by the Post.”

To attract notice to the various appeals he deployed in the copy of his advertisement, Sellers adorned it with a woodcut depicting one of the rolling screens he constructed. He commissioned that image at least five years earlier, having included it in an advertisement that ran in the Pennsylvania Gazette in September 1767. Just as sellers aimed to make his newspaper notice distinctive, he also marked the items he made in his workshop. He informed his customers that he “affix[ed] his Name on the Heads of all his Bolts, rolling Screens, and Fans.” That demonstrated pride in his craft while also marketing his products every time someone encountered his name on this equipment after it left his workshop. Sellers did not limit his marketing strategy to describing his products. Instead, he used distinctive marks to draw attention, both an image in his newspaper advertisement and his name branding his bolts, screens, and fans.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 12, 1772

August 12, 2022June 17, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (August 12, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (August 12, 1772).

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*Pennsylvania Journal* (August 12, 1772).

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Pennsylvania Journal (August 12, 1772).

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August 11

August 11, 2022August 4, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Ancrums and Chiffelle, Negro Cloth, Provisions for Enslavers, Slavery and Colonial Commerce, South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal

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

*South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (August 11, 1772).

“White and coloured NEGRO CLOTH.”

The partnership of Ancrums and Chiffelle took to the pages of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal to advise “their Friends” that they stocked “White and coloured NEGRO CLOTH, Together with a Variety of other GOODS, fromLONDON and BRISTOL” in the summer of 1772. They placed an advertisement in the August 11 edition, as did Atkins and Weston. They informed readers that they imported “NEGRO CLOTH, DUFFIL, BLANKETS, and SAIL CLOTH” from Bristol. Atkins and Weston assured “their Friends and Customers” that they set low prices. Elsewhere in the same issue, Thomas Eveleigh advertised “A FEW BALES of NEGRO CLOTH, and some good LONDON PORTER, just imported, and to be sold reasonably.”

Those advertisements accompanied seven others that offered enslaved men, women, and children for sale, one seeking “TWO or Three NEGRO BOYS, as Apprentices to the Wheel-Wright’s Business,” five announcing rewards for the capture and return of enslaved people who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers, and a lengthy notice describing eighteen Black men and women “Brought to the WORK-HOUSE” and imprisoned there on suspicion of attempting to liberate themselves. The printer did not arrange advertisements according to purpose or category, so readers encountered notices about enslaved people interspersed with advertisements promoting consumer goods and services, real estate notices, legal notices, and other kinds of advertisements.

Ancrums and Chiffelle and their competitors who hawked “NEGRO CLOTH” may or may not have participated in the slave trade directly, yet they certainly aimed to profit from maintaining that institution. In their advertisements, those merchants made supplying enslavers with an inexpensive textile to clothe the men, women, and children held in bondage central to their operations at the stores and warehouses they operated in Charleston. Furthermore, they demonstrated that commerce enmeshed in the transatlantic slave trade extended beyond any sort of streamlined triangular trade that connected Africa, England, and colonies on the other side of the Atlantic. Even as ships departing from London, Bristol, and other English ports carried goods to Africa to purchase captives held in outposts along the coast, other ships from those ports delivered finished goods, including “NEGRO CLOTH,” directly to South Carolina and other colonies. Many merchants, including Ancrums and Chiffelle, sought opportunities to profit from selling supplies to enslavers, embracing the transatlantic slave trade in their business models even if they did not transport or sell Black men, women, and children themselves.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 11, 1772

August 11, 2022July 29, 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 South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (August 11, 1772).

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August 10

August 10, 2022August 2, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Advertisements Omitted, Business of Advertising, Powell Hughes and Company, South-Carolina Gazette, Supplement, T. Powell and Company

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

*South-Carolina Gazette Extraordinary* (August 10, 1772).

“ADVERTISEMENTS of some Consequence to the Parties, are brought in so late, that the immediate Insertion of them in the GAZETTE, would delay the Publication thereof.”

Thomas Powell and Company aimed to provide the best possible service for advertisers who chose the South-Carolina Gazette, such as disseminating their notices to the public as quickly as possible. That included publishing supplements when necessary. With a few exceptions, most American newspapers published before the Revolution consisted of a single weekly issue. Powell, Hughes, and Company circulated a new edition of the South-Carolina Gazette on Thursdays in 1772. Less than two weeks after the death of Edward Hughes, Powell and Company distributed a South-Carolina Gazette Extraordinary on Monday, August 10.

A notice at the top of the first column on the first page explained the purpose of the supplement. “[I]t frequently happens,” Powell and Company declared, “that ADVERTISEMENTS of some Consequence to the Parties, are brought in so late, that the immediate Insertion of them in the GAZETTE would delay the Publication thereof beyond the stated Day.” In addition, “others are omitted to make Room for fresh Intelligence” or news just arrived in the printing office. Powell and Company recognized that they had a duty to both subscribers and advertisers, prompting them to “NOW assure the Public, that in EITHER of the above Cases … they will issue a GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY, as soon after their stated Day as possible.” Publishing supplements minimized delays for both news and paid notices, allowing Powell and Company to fulfill “their Duty, to contribute … to the ENTERTAINMENT, as well as EMOLUMENT, of that Public which so generously supports them.”

The four-page supplement contained both advertising and news, divided nearly evenly between the two. The advertisements included five that offered rewards for the capture and return of enslaved men and women who liberated themselves as well as several others promoting consumer goods and services. Powell and Company inserted a heading for “New Advertisements” on all three pages that carried paid notices, though not all advertisements in the supplement appeared for the first time. Despite these efforts, Powell and Company suggested that more advertising and news flooded into their printing office than would fit in the supplement. That may have been a strategy to underscore the viability of the newspaper following the death of one of the partners. A brief notice at the bottom of final column on the third page, the last item the compositor would have locked into place for the entire supplement, advised that “Several NEW ADVERTISEMENTS, &c. now omitted, shall be inserted in Thursday’s Gazette.” According to their notice on the first page, Powell and Company hoped “to merit a CONTINUANCE” of the support they already received. Hughes no longer participated in publishing the newspaper, yet, the notice suggested, subscribers, advertisers, and the general public could depend on the South-Carolina Gazette being in good hands with Powell.

Slavery Advertisements Published August 10, 1772

August 10, 2022June 17, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

*Boston Evening-Post* (August 10, 1772).

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Newport Mercury (August 10, 1772).

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Newport Mercury (August 10, 1772).

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Newport Mercury (August 10, 1772).

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*New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (August 10, 1772).

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*Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (August 10, 1772).

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*Pennsylvania Packet* (August 10, 1772).

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*South-Carolina and American General Gazette* (August 10, 1772).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (August 10, 1772).

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August 9

August 9, 2022August 2, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Charles Crouch, Dr. Keyser's Pills, Genuine, Patent Medicines, South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal

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

*Addition to the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (August 7, 1772).

“Dr. KEYSER’S GENUINE PILLS.”

Like many colonial printers, Charles Crouch and Powell, Hughes, and Company advertised and sold patent medicines, including Dr. Keyser’s pills for venereal disease, at their printing offices in Charleston. In the summer of 1772, that prompted a feud between those printers. It began when Powell, Hughes, and Company ran a lengthy advertisement in their newspaper, the South-Carolina Gazette, providing a history of the medicine and its effectiveness. In the next issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, Crouch ran his own advertisement, but considered it “needless to trouble the public with more Encomiums on the Effects of this Remedy” in the public prints. Instead, he offered “A NARRATIVE of the Effects of Dr. KEYSER’s MEDICINE, with an Account of its ANALYSIS, by the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences,” that colonizers could examine at his printing office. Powell, Hughes, and Company made clear in a new advertisement in the next issue of the South-Carolina Gazette that they took issue with Crouch seeming to critique their marketing efforts. That led to a series of advertisements that descended into the printers accusing each other of carrying counterfeit medicines and making attacks on each other’s character. Powell, Hughes, and Company even reprinted one of Crouch’s advertisements, for the purposes of insinuating that their rival suffered from venereal disease himself, in the July 30 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette.

Crouch chose not to escalate the war of words at that point. In his most recent advertisement, he proclaimed that “as to my good or bad Qualities, they are submitted to Candour and Impartiality of the respectable Public, whose Favours I shall always make my chief Study to merit.” That did not stop him from placing another advertisement for the patent medicine at the center of the controversy. In the August 4 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, he inserted a short advertisement that alerted prospective customers that “A Fresh Parcel of Dr. KEYSER’s real famous PILLS, are to be had, with full Directions for their Use in all Cases, at CHARLES CROUCH’S Printing Office in Elliott-street.” He also reminded readers that they could peruse “a Narrative of the Effects of KEYSER’S Medicine, with an Account of its Analysis, by the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences.” Crouch suggested the pills he sold were authentic when he described them as “real.” Edward Hughes died on July 30, so the newly-constituted Thomas Powell and Company may have been too occupied with other matters to take notice. Two days later, they ran a two-line advertisement that simply stated, “Keyser’s PILLS and Maredant’s DROPS, may be had at the Printing-Office near the exchange.” Crouch opted to advertise once again, inserting a variation of his most recent notice as one of only six that appeared in a supplement published on August 7. He revised the description from “A Fresh Parcel of Dr. KEYSER’s real famous PILLS” to “A Fresh Parcel of Dr. KEYSER’S GENUINE PILLS,” perhaps intending to defend his own merchandise and cast doubt on the pills stocked by a competitor without calling enough attention to his efforts to incite a response from Powell, Hughes, and Company. Of all the advertisements he could have chosen to include in the limited space in the midweek supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette, Crouch consciously chose to promote the patent medicines available at his printing office, likely hoping to build on any attention generated by the recent dispute.

August 8

August 8, 2022August 1, 2022 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Business of Advertising, Hannah Frederick, Payment for Advertising, Pennsylvania Chronicle, Runaway Wife

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

*Pennsylvania Chronicle* (August 8, 1772).

“My wife, HANNAH FREDERICK, did … elope from my bed and board.”

In the eighteenth century, aggrieved husbands often took to the pages of newspapers to warn others not to extend credit to misbehaving wives who “eloped” from them. Readers regularly encountered “runaway wife” advertisements in newspapers published throughout the colonies. Those notices continued to appear during the era of the American Revolution and, as Mary Beth Sievens demonstrates, well into the nineteenth century.[1]

Although most notices followed a pattern, each provided details specific to a particular household. Wives usually “eloped” from their husbands on their own, but in an advertisement in the August 8, 1772, edition of the Pennsylvania Chronicle one husband reported that his wife, Hannah Frederick, “did … elope from my bed and board … with a certain Abraham Hudson.” The husband believed that the two of them traveled “from Fish-Kills, in Duchess County, in New-York government … to Elizabeth-Town” in New Jersey “and from thence to Philadelphia.” To aid readers in identifying his wife, the advertiser reported that her “maiden name was Hannah Coleman” and she “served her time,” likely as an indentured servant, “with John Taylor, at Tinicum-Island.” He concluded with a formulaic statement cutting his wife off from his credit: “these are therefore to forewarn all persons from trusting her on my account, as I shall pay no debts of her contracting after the date hereof.”

Printers published such advertisements without offering commentary of their own, but, in this instance, William Goddard did insert a clarification. “In the copy of the foregoing Advertisement, which was sent to the Printer,” he explained, “the Advertiser’s name was omitted.” As a result, the husband’s name appeared as “———- FREDERICK.” That being the case, how did Goddard handle payment for the advertisement? Some printers required advertisers to pay in advance, even though they extended credit to subscribers. After all, advertising comprised a lucrative revenue stream. Occasional notices in eighteenth-century newspapers, however, make clear that some printers did allow credit for advertisements as well as subscriptions. This husband may have submitted payment, but not his name, to the printing office … or Goddard may have taken a chance that he would settle up in a timely manner. Even if that was the case, the printer’s trust only went so far. The advertisement ran just twice (August 8 and 15), though most newspapers initially published advertisements for three or four weeks for a set fee before charging a lower fee for each insertion. Goddard may have been carefully managing how much credit he extended to “———- FREDERICK” even as that husband attempted to exert control over his credit when it became clear his wife was beyond his influence.

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[1] Mary Beth Sievens, “Female Consumerism and Household Authority in Early National New England,” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 4, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 353-371.

	September 1 \| The Ad… on June 26
	August 31 \| The Adve… on August 11
	August 26 \| The Adve… on May 5
	Loyalist Trails 2026… on August 26
	August 30 \| The Adve… on June 29

The Adverts 250 Project

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

Month: August 2022

Slavery Advertisements Published August 13, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published August 12, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published August 11, 1772

Slavery Advertisements Published August 10, 1772