Year: 2022

October 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (October 27, 1772).

“A fine Assortment of ENGLISH & INDIA GOODS and HARD-WARE.”

When John Appleton advertised the merchandise available at his shop in Salem in the fall of 1772, he resorted to two of the most common appeals deployed by merchants and shopkeepers.  He emphasized price and selection.  In his advertisement in the October 27 edition of the Essex Gazette, he asserted that he was “determined to sell” his wares “at such very low Rates … as cannot fail to give full Satisfaction to every reasonable Purchaser.”  He offered those low prices “by WHOLESALE or RETAIL,” extending the benefit to both consumers and retailers looking to expand their own inventory.  Low wholesale prices meant that shopkeepers who acquired goods from Appleton could pass along the bargains to their own customers.

Appleton devoted significantly more space to developing his appeal about selection.  He announced that he carried a “fine Assortment of ENGLISH & INDIA GOODS and HARD-WARE” and then provided a lengthy list of goods to demonstrate the range of choices his customers enjoyed.  Although he enumerated scores of items, everything from “black & white, plain and flower’d Sattins” to “children’s red Morocco Shoes,” he did not have space in a newspaper advertisement to include everything.  The clarification “Some of which are as follows” preceded Appleton’s list of goods.  In addition, Appleton mentioned categories of goods, such as “linen, silk and cotton Handkerchiefs of all sorts” and “Door Locks, Hinges and Latches of all sorts,” to further suggest ample choices.  He also inserted “&c.” (an abbreviation for et cetera) several times to indicate that he sold even more of certain types of items.  The length of the dense advertisement, the longest notice in that issue of the Essex Gazette, also testified to the selection at Appleton’s shop.

Appleton was not alone in making an appeal about consumer.  In the same issue, Samuel Flagg promoted a “General Assortment of English and India GOODS,” Stephen Higginson hawked a “Large and general Assortment of English and India GOODS,” and Campbell and Duncan marketed a “compleat Assortment of GOODS.”  Five other merchants and shopkeepers used similar phrases to describe their inventory, some of them also mentioning low prices.  Appleton distinguished his advertisement from others with a brief elaboration on his low prices and a lengthy catalog of his merchandise.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 27, 1772

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.

Essex Gazette (October 27, 1772)

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 27, 1772)

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 27, 1772)

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 27, 1772)

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 27, 1772)

October 26

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

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

Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 26, 1772).

“JAMES RIVINGTON Takes Leave to exhibit a second Advertisement of Articles just imported in the Rose.”

Bookseller and shopkeeper James Rivington placed two advertisements in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercuryafter receiving new inventory via the Rose in the fall of 1772.  In the first, he listed dozens of titles, including “Grotius on War and Peace,” “a new Edition of Salmon’s Geographical Grammar,” and “the whole Works of the inimitable Painter Hogarth, in one Volume, with all the Plates he published.”  In addition, he stocked “a fine Assortment of venerable Law Books,” “a fine Assortment of Classicks,” and magazines published in London.  Like so many other newspaper notices placed by booksellers, Rivington’s advertisement served as a book catalog adapted to a different format.

Rivington devoted his second advertisement to other merchandise, stating that he “Takes Leave to exhibit” an additional entry in the public prints to advise prospective customers about “Articles just imported in the Rose, Capt. Miller, different from his literary Exhibition of this Day.”  That advertisement featured a variety of items and marketing strategies.  In a single paragraph, it had sections for musical instruments, patent medicines, clothing, and swords for “Those Gentlemen who propose to take the Field.”

Rather than merely list the patent medicines, Rivington inserted testimonials to assure consumers they were authentic: “Turlington’s Balsam: We certify that the Balsam advertised and sold by Mr. James Rivington, is the genuine sort purchased from us, made from the Receipt left by Mr. Turlington, to us, MARY WRAY, MARY TAPP.”  Similarly, prospective customers interested in “Anderson’s Scots Pills” did not need to worry about counterfeits.  Another testimonial stated, “I do certify that the Scot’s Pills sold by Mr. Rivington of New-York, are genuine, INGLIS.”  The layout of the advertisement did not call particular attention to these testimonials, but readers expecting a list of merchandise likely noted that Rivington departed from the usual format.

Rivington also devised a section about “elegant small Swords of all kinds.”  He listed several varieties, including “Cutteaus De Chase, Seymaters, Light Infantry, Cut and Thrust, &c.”  He concluded with the common abbreviation for et cetera to suggest that he carried even more swords.  To entice customers to examine the swords, he proclaimed that they were “the most beautiful … that ever were offered to Sale in this City.”  Rivington anticipated that customers interested in “superfine ribb’d Worsted Stockings for the wear of Gentlemen, of the best and newest Fashions” in another section of the advertisement would desire attractive swords that enhanced their attire.

A newspaper advertisement did not provide sufficient space for Rivington to tout all of his wares.  He concluded with a note that he “has many more Articles, of which a Catalogue is printing.”  Did that catalog provide commentary about any of those goods, whether blurbs about the clothing, swords, and musical instruments or additional testimonials about the patent medicines?  In a third advertisement in the supplement that accompanied the October 26, 1772, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, Rivington included a testimonial about the “PATENT SHOT” he sold.  With more space available in a catalog, he may have elaborated on some of his merchandise in greater detail.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 26, 1772

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.

Boston Evening-Post (October 26, 1772).

**********

Boston Evening-Post (October 26, 1772).

**********

Supplement to the Boston-Gazette (October 26, 1772).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 26, 1772).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 26, 1772).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 26, 1772).

**********

Pennsylvania Packet (October 26, 1772).

October 25

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

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

Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (October 22, 1772).

“PROPOSALS For Re-Printing by Subscription … Baron de MONTESQUIEU’s celebrated Spirit of Laws”

On October 22, 1772, Richard Draper distributed a two-page supplement to accompany the standard issue of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  That supplement consisted almost entirely of advertising, though it did include brief news items from London and Quebec.  A subscription proposal for an “American Edition of … Baron de MONTESQUIEU’s celebrated Spirit of Laws” filled most of the second page of the supplement.  That subscription proposal would have looked familiar to colonizers who also read the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy since it appeared in that newspaper three days earlier.  It may have also looked familiar to those who had not perused the other publication.  As I argued when examining the first appearance of the subscription proposal in Boston’s newspapers, it likely circulated separately as a handbill or broadside.

Draper adopted the same method of making the subscription proposal fit on the page that John Green and Joseph Russell used in their newspaper.  Since it was wider than two standard columns, he created a narrower third column by rotating the type to run perpendicular to the rest of the page.  Draper also added a colophon, centered at the bottom of the subscription proposal.  This method of making the broadside fit on a newspaper page was not the only similarity between its appearance in two newspapers.  It looks as though the printing offices shared the type.  If that was the case, who produced the broadside?  Draper or Green and Russell?  Even if the subscription proposal did not circulate separately as a broadside or handbill, the printers almost certainly shared type between their offices.  That was not the first time in 1772 that Draper collaborated with other printers in that manner.  In May, Jolley Allen’s advertisements in the Boston-Gazette and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter had identical copy and format.  At the same time, Andrew Dexter’s advertisements in the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter also featured identical copy and format.  At various times, Draper apparently shared type already set with three other printing offices.  Yet he was not always involved in instances of sharing type.  Advertisements for a “Variety of Goods” that ran in the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette on October 12, for instance, appear identical, with the exception of the last two lines either added to the notice in the Boston-Gazette or removed from the one in the Boston Evening-Post to make it fit the page.  Examining advertisements reveals several other examples of printers in Boston seemingly sharing type in the early 1770s.

As I have noted on other occasions that I have identified what appears to be type transferred from one printing office to another, these observations are drawn from digitized copies of eighteenth-century newspapers.  Examining the original editions, including taking measurements, may yield additional details that either demonstrate that Boston’s printers did not share type for newspaper advertisements or that further suggest that they did indeed do so.  This question merits further investigation to learn more about business practices in printing offices that competed for both newspaper subscribers and advertisers.

Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (October 22, 1772).

October 24

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

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

Providence Gazette (October 24, 1772).

“WEST’s ALMANACK … is now in the Press.”

Where advertisements appeared in colonial newspapers varied from publication.  Some printers reserved advertising for the final pages, placing news items on the front and interior pages.  Others placed advertisements on the first and last pages since those were the first pages printed when producing a standard four-page edition.  Advertisements, which often repeated for multiple weeks, could be set in type and printed first, saving the second and third pages for the latest news that arrived in the printing office.  In some instances, printers distributed advertising throughout the newspaper, placing paid notices in the rightmost column on each page.

John Carter, printer of the Providence Gazette, consistently placed advertising at the end of the newspaper.  Paid notices usually filled the final page, though sometimes news items ran in the upper left corner.  The third page often had advertising that appeared to the right of the news.  In general, Carter printed news and editorials in the first two pages.

That made the placement of an announcement about “WEST’s ALMANACK, for the Year of our Lord 1773, with some valuable Improvements and Additions” all the more noteworthy for its placement in the October 24, 1772, edition of the Providence Gazette.  Rather than appearing among the advertisements or even as the first of the advertisements, the notice ran on the third page, immediately below local news from Providence and above shipping news from the customs house, a regular news feature.  The first advertisements in the issue appeared lower in the column.  The notice about the almanac, authored by Benjamin West in an annual collaboration with the printer of the Providence Gazette, declared that it was “now in the Press, and will be speedily published by the Printer hereof.”  The notice appeared in larger type than the news above and below it, helping to draw attention to it.

Given his interest in the success of the almanac, Carter treated the notice about its publication as a news item.  In so doing, he exercised his prerogative as the printer of the newspaper to give the notice a privileged place, separate from other advertisements.  The following week, Carter inserted an advertisement to inform prospective customers that he “Just PUBLISHED” the almanac, placing it first among the advertisement in that issue.  In both his initial effort to incite interest and his subsequent attempt to market the almanac, Carter took advantage of his access to the press to increase the likelihood that consumers saw his notices.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 24, 1772

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.

Pennsylvania Chronicle (October 24, 1772).

**********

Pennsylvania Chronicle (October 24, 1772).

October 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (October 23, 1772).

“He has been oblig’d to take away the upper Gallery intirely.”

As audiences in Philadelphia enjoyed “FEATS in HORSEMANSHIP” performed by Mr. Bates and illusions performed by Hyman Saunders and Abraham Benjamin in the fall of 1772, patrons in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, attended performances “at the ACADEMY ROOM in Pitt-Street.”  A brief advertisement in the October 16 edition of the New-Hampshire Gazette reminded prospective members of the audience that the “Exhibitions will be perform’d as usual” that evening, though with some alterations or variation in the program.  A week later, a new advertisement provided a list of acts for an upcoming performance, demonstrating even to those who had recently attended that the theater offered something new for their amusement and entertainment.  The acts included “THE DEVIL and the DOCTOR, … A DRAMATIC SATIRE,” “A PANTOMINICAL ENTERTINMENT in Grotesque Characters, call’d WIN HER, and WEAR HER; or, HARLOQUIN SKELETON,” and an “Interlude of SINGING & DANCING, call’d NAVAL GLORY; or, the BRITISH TARS TRIUMPH.”

The advertisement advised that the doors would open at five o’clock and the performance would begin “Punctually” at six o’clock.  Patrons might wish to arrive early to claim their spots for viewing the various acts, especially following a reconfiguration of the Academy Room.  The notice acknowledged complaints “that the first Gallery was very In-commodious.”  To make the experience more comfortable and, in turn, more enjoyable for the audience, “Mr. MORGAN takes this opportunity of informing the TOWN, that has alter’d [the Academy Room}as much for the better as the House will allow.”  In order to do so, “he has been oblig’d to take away the upper Gallery intirely.”  That may explain why the advertisement gave the prices for tickets at “3, & 2 Pistereens each” compared to the “3, 2, and 1 Pistereen” in the previous notice.  Admission to the upper gallery, no longer available, had apparently cost one pistareen.  That portion of the advertisement demonstrates that performers promoted more than just the spectacles on the stage when they marketed their shows.  In this advertisement, the space in which the performances took place was just as important as the program of satires, pantomimes, and songs.  Those acts could have been performed in any tavern, but utilizing a space specifically adapted for the comfort and convenience of audiences enhanced the experience of attending the shows.

Slavery Advertisements Published October 23, 1772

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.

Connecticut Journal (October 23, 1772).

October 22

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (October 22, 1772).

“CHEAP GOODS.”

In the fall of 1772, David Sears joined other advertisers in Boston who used borders composed of decorative type to enclose either the headline or their entire newspaper notice.  Sears proclaimed that he sold “CHEAP GOODS,” that headline surrounded by printing ornaments that called attention to his advertisement and prompted subscribers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter to read more about the “fresh Assortment of Gall and Winter Goods” he recently imported from London.  His advertisement in the October 26 edition of the Boston-Gazette included the same headline within a decorative border.  In with instances, the headline and its border directed prospective customers to his bold claim that he set “such Prices that is not possible to be conceived of without Trial.”  In other words, it would take some effort to even imagine such low prices.

Sears certainly was not the first advertiser in Boston to incorporate a border into a newspaper advertisement.  As early as 1766, Jolley Allen made borders around his entire notices a signature element of his marketing.  Occasionally other advertisers deployed borders as well, but greater numbers did so simultaneously in the summer and fall of 1772.  Jolley Allen and Andrew Dexter both published advertisements with borders in May, though the Massachusetts Spy seemingly rejected any requests or instructions to include a border around Allen’s advertisement.  Martin Bicker ran an advertisement surrounded by a border in August.  Jonathan Williams, Jr., also did so in September.  Other merchants and shopkeepers opted for borders around just the headlines.  The week before Sears ran his advertisement on October 22, William Jackson introduced his notice with a border around the headline, “Variety Store.”  A few days later, Herman Brimmer and Andrew Brimmer had a border enclosing “Variety of Goods” at the top of their advertisement in Supplement to the Boston-Gazette.  The printers of that newspaper had recently used a decorative border for their own notice calling on subscribers with overdue accounts “to make immediate Payment.”

These examples may seem scattered, but considering how infrequently borders adorned advertisements in Boston’s newspapers (or newspapers printed elsewhere in the colonies) they suggest a trend among advertisers in 1772.  Sears may have observed that others included borders in their notices and determined that he desired the same for his advertisement, combining a pithy headline and graphic design to demand the attention of readers.