March 31

March 31, 2023February 22, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Gunsmith, Pennsylvania Gazette, Quality, Thomas Palmer, Visual Image, Visual Images with Names, Woodcut

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

*Pennsylvania Gazette* (March 31, 1773).

“A Quantity of well made RIFLES.”

Thomas Palmer, a gunsmith, made several appeals to prospective customers in Philadelphia in the advertisement he placed in the March 31, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette. He declared that his inventory included a wide selection, a “Quantity of well made RIFLES, of different Lengths and Sizes of Bores.” Palmer was so confident of the quality of those guns that he proclaimed that he “will insure to the Purchasers” that they were “as good and as handsomely fitted up as any made in America.” Consumers would not find better in Philadelphia or anywhere else in the colonies. In addition, the gunsmith “makes Fowling Pieces, of different Sizes, such as have been approved of by Gentlemen of this City.” Short of publishing testimonials from his clients, Palmer suggested that men with good reputations endorsed the guns produced in his workshop. In addition to making rifles and fowling pieces, he also “repairs old Guns in the most careful Manner.”

Palmer did not rely on advertising copy alone to market his services. Instead, he incorporated a visual image into his notice. A woodcut that may have replicated a sign that marked the gunsmith’s location adorned the advertisement, though the copy did not make reference to any sign at Palmer’s shop on “the North Side of Market-street, between Fourth and Fifth-streets.” On the other hand, Palmer may have considered it unnecessary to mention a sign in copy that appeared immediately below an image of a rifle and the words “THO: PALMER Gun Smith” enclosed within a double border. Residents of Philadelphia may have already been familiar with the sign and readers from beyond the city would have easily recognized it if they decided to visit Palmer’s shop. Whether or not Palmer displayed a sign at his shop on Market Street, the woodcut helped distinguish his advertisement from other content in the Pennsylvania Gazette, likely making it worth the investment. With the exception of the seal in the masthead, only one other image appeared in that issue. A stock image of a house ran with a real estate notice, but that lacked the same level of customization as the woodcut in Palmer’s advertisement. The gunsmith deployed text and image simultaneously in his efforts to engage prospective customers.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 31, 1773

March 31, 2023January 10, 2023 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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*Pennsylvania Journal* (March 31, 1773).

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March 30

March 30, 2023February 22, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Annual Ball, Dancing, Dancing Master, Farewell Ball, Mr. Pike, South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal

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

*South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal* (March 30, 1773).

“It is the last Ball he proposes to make in Charles-Town.”

Mr. Pike, a dancing master who enhanced his image and authority by never including his first name in his advertisements, offered lessons in Charleston for many years. (His earliest advertisement examined by the Adverts 250 Project appeared in the September 2, 1766, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.) In addition to advertising lessons, he also promoted the balls that he hosted, opportunities for his students to demonstrate the skills they developed and refined under his guidance. Pike encouraged prospective students and their parents to consider those gatherings rites of passage within polite company, provided that they comported themselves well. Accordingly, his marketing efforts sometimes leveraged a sense of anxiety. For instance, when he announced a ball scheduled for December 1772, he advised parents to send their children for lessons “as soon as possible, that he may be enabled to complete his Figures in a proper Manner.” In other words, if they did grant Pike sufficient time for instruction then they risked their children embarrassing themselves at the ball.

Pike did not take that approach when he announced that his “BALL, for the young Ladies and Gentlemen under his Tuition” would take place on the first Friday in April 1773. That may have been because the dancing master had plans to depart the city. (He began placing newspaper advertisements for dancing and fencing lessons in Philadelphia the following year.) Pike proclaimed that this one was “the last Ball he proposes to make in Charles-Town.” That being the case, he no longer needed to resort to the same tactics for attracting pupils. Instead, he attempted to incite demand for tickets by presenting his final ball as a reunion for his students and a farewell fête. Pike invited “former Scholars who chuse to dance at this Ball … to come and practise every Day” to prepare for it. That allowed them to brush up on their skills and perhaps receive some pointers, free of charge, from their former instructor as a gift prior to his departure. Anticipating both “the young Ladies and Gentlemen under his Tuition” and “former Scholars” in attendance, Pike arranged for a retrospective of his instruction and influence in cultivating a genteel pastime in one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in the colonies. He hoped that would sell tickets. After all, it was not merely the “ANNUAL BALL” for current students that he sometimes promoted in the public prints but instead his “last Ball” and final chance to partake in one of the gatherings he hosted.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 30, 1773

March 30, 2023January 10, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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

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March 29

March 29, 2023February 22, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Faneuil Hall Lottery, Green and Russell, Lottery, Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, Printing Office

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

*Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy* (March 29, 1773).

“A LIST OF Blanks & Prizes in Faneuil-Hall Lottery.”

A notice in the March 29, 1773, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy informed the public that “A LIST OF Blanks & Prizes in Faneuil-Hall Lottery, THE LAST, as they are Drawn from Day to Day, may be seen at the Printing-Office in Queen-street.” A decorative border enclosed the advertisement, lending it greater visibility among the news and several advertisements on the same page.

Throughout the colonies, lotteries funded all sorts of public works projects, including roads, bridges, market houses, and iron works, in the eighteenth century. Following the destruction of the original Faneuil Hall in 1761, residents of Boston set about rebuilding the marketplace and paid for the project with a series of lotteries that took place over a decade. Newspapers in Boston often carried advertisements that encouraged colonizers to purchase tickets for the current “class” or drawing. One class featured “F” tickets, with subsequent drawings having tickets for the other letters in “Faneuil” for the drawing held from 1767 through 1771. The “LIST OF Blanks & Prizes” for 1773 came from another drawing, “THE LAST” of the series of Faneuil Hall lotteries.

Sponsors and managers of other lotteries usually pledged that they would publish a roster of winning tickets and prizes in the public prints. Doing so simultaneously kept participants informed and held the managers accountable. Lengthy lists filled entire columns and sometimes entire pages of colonial newspapers. For the Faneuil Hall Lottery, however, the sponsors opted to avoid the expense of inserting the winning tickets in the newspapers and instead posted the results at the printing office operated by John Green and Joseph Russell, the printers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.

That contributed to the printing office’s status as a hub for disseminating information, though not always in print. Green and Russell, like other printers, served as brokers of all kinds of information that never made it into their newspapers. They regularly published advertisements that advised the public to “Enquire of the Printers hereof” to learn more. In the same issue that carried the announcement about the “LIST of Blanks & Prizes,” an employment advertisement placed by a young woman seeking “to go into a small Family” as a cook and housekeeper and another inserted by a colonizer in need of “A MAID … that can be recommended for her … Activity in Household Affairs” both directed readers to contact the printers rather than the advertisers. Anonymous notices offering enslaved people for sale in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy and other newspapers published in the city also concluded with instructions to “enquire of the printers.” The arrival of visitors and messages in response to such advertisements, as well as though interested in the results of the Faneuil Hall Lottery, made the printing office a bustling center of information exchange, in print, in handwritten notes, and in conversation.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 29, 1773

March 29, 2023February 21, 2023 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 Boston-Gazette* (March 29, 1773).

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*New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (March 29, 1773).

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*Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury* (March 29, 1773).

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*Pennsylvania Chronicle* (March 29, 1773).

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*Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet* (March 29, 1773).

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*South-Carolina Gazette* (March 29, 1773).

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*Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette* (March 29, 1773).

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March 28

March 28, 2023February 21, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Buy American, Domestic Manufactures, Maxwell and Williams, New-York Journal, Tobacconist

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

“The Public will find upon trial, the SNUFF manufactured by them to be equal in Quality, and Flavour, to any imported from Great-Britain.”

In the spring of 1773, the firm of Maxwell and Williams announced that they processed and sold tobacco and snuff to customers in New York. According to their advertisement in the March 25, 1773, edition of the New-York Journal, the partners formerly “carried on a large and extensive trade in the SNUFF and TOBACCO Manufactories” in Bristol. Upon relocating their business in the colonies, they supplied the public with “all sorts of best Scotch and Rappee SNUFF, [and] Pugtail, Rag, and fine mild smoaking TOBACCO.”

Although relative newcomers to New York, Maxwell and Williams enthusiastically joined calls to encourage “domestic manufactures” through purchasing goods produced in the colonies rather than imported from England. Like other artisans who made such appeals, the tobacconists declared that consumers did not have to sacrifice quality when they chose to acquire local goods rather than imported alternatives. “The Public will find upon trial,” Maxwell and Williams confidently asserted, “the SNUFF manufactured by them to be equal in Quality, and Flavour, to any imported from Great-Britain.” They invited consumers to make that determination for themselves.

Maxwell and Williams also sought to distinguish their product from any others produced in New York or other colonies. They not only wished for consumers to support domestic manufactures; they also wanted consumers to support their domestic manufactures in particular. To that end, Maxwell and Williams stated that they “erected … a complete apparatus for carrying on the said business in all its branches.” In addition, their snuff was “made of the best materials, and in a manner superior to any thing of the kind yet attempted in this country.” Only after making all of those pitches did the partners most explicitly call on consumers to purchase goods produced in the colonies rather than imported alternatives, offering competitive prices to make doing so even more attractive. “[A]s an encouragement to those who are inclined to countenance Manufactories set on foot in AMERICA,” Maxwell and Williams trumpeted, they would sell “their SNUFF on lower terms than any can be imported.”

Many entrepreneurs, including tobacconists, launched “Buy American” campaigns prior to the Revolutionary War. Some sought to address a trade imbalance between the colonies and Britain. Others recognized the political dimensions of both production and consumption, leveraging commerce and industry as a means of participating in politics. All of them wished to create new opportunities for the success of their own endeavors by adding support for domestic manufactures to the array of marketing strategies commonly deployed by advertisers.

March 27

March 27, 2023February 21, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update English Liberties, John Carter, List of Subscribers, Providence Gazette, Subscription Notice

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

“Very few will be printed that are not subscribed for.”

For several months John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, disseminated subscription proposals for “reprinting ENGLISH LIBERTIES, or THE FREE-BORN SUBJECT’S INHERITANCE” in his own newspaper and in other newspapers published in New England. He recruited local agents in Providence and other towns to collect the names of subscribers who reserved copies in advance, a rudimentary form of market research that allowed him to assess demand and the number of copies he needed to print. In an advertisement that ran in the New-Hampshire Gazette in December 1772, for instance, he indicated that “Subscriptions are received by JOHN CARTER, the Publisher, and by T. and J. FLEET, at the Heart and Crown, in Boston” as well as “by a Number of Gentlemen in the neighbouring Towns and Governments, to whom Subscription Papers are sent.”

On March 27, 1773, Carter inserted a new notice in the Providence Gazette, one that called on “[t]hose Gentlemen who have favoured the Printer in promoting Subscriptions” to return their subscription papers, those broadsides, handbills, or pamphlets that described the proposed volume and had space for subscribers to add their names and the number of copies they wished to reserve. He also issued another call for those who had not yet subscribed to do so quickly, noting that they would have their “Names prefixed, as Patrons of a Work that contains … a full and compleat View of our Rights as Freemen and British Subjects.” Books published by subscription often included a list of subscribers, a means of giving credit to those who supported the project and made publication possible. Such lists also testified to membership in a community that shared common ideals, in this instance a desire to understand and to protect their “Rights as Freemen and British Subjects.” Carter anticipated that political sympathies and current events might convince some prospective customers that they did indeed want their names among the subscribers to the project, visible to the rest of the subscribers and anyone else who read the book. The copy in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society includes a six-page list of subscribers at the end. The placement may have been a decision made by the purchaser or the bookbinder rather than the order intended by the publisher.

Carter made other pitches as he prepared to take the book to press. He cautioned, “Very few will be printed that are not subscribed for,” so anyone interested needed to reserve their copies in advance or risk the publisher running out. In addition, the limited number of surplus copies “will be sold at an advanced Price.” In other words, Carter planned to charge more for those books than the “One Dollar” subscribers paid. Finally, the printer offered bonus content, declaring that he planned to insert “some valuable Remarks and Additions … by a Gentleman learned in the Law.” That, Carter confidently stated, would “render the Work still more worthy of the public Attention.” In his efforts to market an American edition of English Liberties, Carter incorporated several strategies commonly deployed by printers, publishers, and booksellers in eighteenth-century America.

March 26

March 26, 2023April 19, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Benjamin Hart, Hart and Davis, New-Hampshire Gazette, Stagecoach, Theodore Davis, Transportation

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

*New-Hampshire Gazette* (March 26, 1773).

“Hart and Davis Inform their Friends and Customers; that their Stage for Passengers setts out for Boston every Friday Morning.”

Theodore Davis began offering stagecoach service between Portsmouth and Boston during the final days of 1772 and continued in 1773. In advertisements that ran in the New-Hampshire Gazette in late December and early January, he advised prospective clients that his stage “will set off, on Mondays, from here, and return on Fridays.” That provoked a response from John Stavers, who had operated similar service for more than a decade. He objected to Davis attempted to siphon off customers from his weekly trip to Boston that departed on Tuesdays, stating that he “has always been ready to serve [passengers] on Monday, as well as Tuesdays, if their Business required it.” He also presented an appeal that he advanced on previous occasions when he faced competition. Stavers believed that his long experience as “the first Promoter of a Stage Coach in this Province” entitled him to “the Preference” of prospective clients.

Perhaps passengers found Stavers’s argument convincing. Within a couple of months, Davis took a partner, Benjamin Hart, and revised his schedule. Less than a year earlier, Hart had been a junior partner in the firm of Stavers and Hart. Now, he received first billing in the new partnership of Hart and Davis. In addition, the stage departed “from Mr. HART’s House, near the Ferry in Portsmouth; where all Baggage, Bundles, &c. will be received and delivered as directed.” Davis previously did not offer information about the terminus in Boston, but the new partners promoted the accommodations at the other end of the line, advising that their stage “Puts up at Mrs. Beans, Lower End of King-Street, Boston.”

For the convenience of passengers, the stage “setts out for Boston every Friday Morning,” rather than Monday mornings, thus putting it on a half-week interval with Stavers’s stage. Some customers may have found that the Tuesday and Friday options suited their needs better than clustering departures at the beginning of the week. That Hart and Davis adopted a new schedule suggests that they believed sufficient demand existed for two stages to operate simultaneously, provided that they stagger their trips to Boston. They may have also believed that they could cultivate additional demand through expanding the options available to prospective passengers, thus benefitting both Stavers and themselves. Such competition had the potential to yield more business for both stagecoach services as their operators participated in improving the transportation infrastructure in New England in the early 1770s.

March 25

March 25, 2023February 20, 2023 Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update Andrew Newman, Apprenticeship, Credentials, Massachusetts Spy, References, Whitesmiths

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

“By enquiring of Mr. Blake, the Town-Sealer the public may be informed of the quality of his scale beams and steel yards.”

Andrew Newman offered his services as a whitesmith in an advertisement in the March 25, 1773, edition of the Massachusetts Spy. In addition to the usual sort of work undertaken by that trade, such as filing, lathing, burnishing, and polishing iron and steel, Newman declared that he “makes and repair[s] all kinds of scale beams, steel years and lock[s].” Furthermore, he confidently stated that customers would find the quality and prices for such work “as reasonable as can be done in Boston.”

Many artisans included some sort of reference to their credentials, whether formal training or long experience, in their newspaper notices. Newman did so in a nota bene. He advised the public that he “served his apprenticeship to Mr. John McClench late of Boston, White-Smith.” Newman likely hoped that colonizers who previously patronized McClench or were familiar with his reputation would consider hiring McClench’s former apprentice. Even for those who did not know of McClench, Newman figured that giving information about completing an apprenticeship in the city recommended him to prospective customers.

He also encouraged them to consult “Mr. Blake, the Town-Sealer,” for an endorsement. According to Newman, “the public may be informed of the quality of his scale beams and steel yards” when speaking with that local official. Prospective customers did not have to rely on Newman’s word alone; instead, they could learn more and ask questions of a third party that they might consider neutral and thus more trustworthy when it came to assessing the materials that Newman produced and sold. Short of a testimonial inserted in his advertisement, Newman likely considered such referrals the next best option.

Throughout the colonies, artisans often highlighted their credentials in their advertisements. In his efforts to bolster his business, Newman did so, incorporating two strategies. First, he gave details about his apprenticeship, hoping that his training with McClench would resonate with prospective customers familiar with his former master’s work. Then, he directed the public to a local official who could provide an endorsement of Newman’s own skill and the quality of the items he made in his workshop. Invoking both McClench and Black enhanced Newman’s assertions about the quality of his work.

	March 22 \| The Adver… on March 18
	March 21 \| The Adver… on February 22
	March 19 \| The Adver… on March 6
	March 18 \| The Adver… on April 12
	March 16 \| The Adver… on May 26

The Adverts 250 Project

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

Month: March 2023

Slavery Advertisements Published March 31, 1773

Slavery Advertisements Published March 30, 1773

Slavery Advertisements Published March 29, 1773