Month: May 2023

May 2

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (April 29, 1773).

“WATCHES Repair’d VERY cheap, and VERY well.”

John Simnet, a watchmaker, was among the advertisers who placed notices in the first issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer in the spring of 1773.  Simnet had long experience advertising in American newspapers, first in the New-Hampshire Gazette when he arrived in Portsmouth in 1769 and then in the various newspapers published in New York when he relocated in the summer of 1770.  Not long before taking advantage of the circulation of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer or Connecticut, New-Jersey, Hudson’s-River, and Quebec Weekly Advertiser, he also placed notices in Hartford’s Connecticut Courant.  Simnet always boasted about his own skill and experience, but readers may have found another aspect of his advertisements more memorable.  The cantankerous watchmaker often denigrated the skill of his competitors.  That led to feuds that played out among the notices in the public prints, first in New Hampshire and then in New York.

New-York Journal (April 29, 1773).

By comparison, Simnet submitted an uncharacteristically subdued advertisement for the inaugural issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  A headline, “WATCHES,” in a larger font than anything else in the newspaper, dominated the advertisement.  Simnet did not go into his usual detail; instead, he limited the remainder of his notice to just three lines: “Repair’d VERY cheap, and VERY well.  By I. SIMNET, at the Low-Shop, aside the Coffee-House Bridge, New-York.”  The watchmaker ran the same advertisement the following week, even though he crafted a new advertisement for the April 29 edition of the New-York Journal and the May 3 edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  That new advertisement featured the same headline, but Simnet went into greater detail about the services he offered.  He proclaimed that he did “CLEANING, Repairing, Glasses, Springs, Chains, &c. fitted at HALF the usual Price.”  He performed those tasks so well that his clients were “defended from future Expence.”  Simnet offered a warranty of sorts, stating that he would “keep his Work in Order without Charge” if clients did encounter any sort of problems with his repairs.  He concluded by noting that he moved to a new location “next to the Sign of the Castle on Murray’s Wharf.”

Why did Simnet opt to run a different advertisement in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer than the one he placed in the other newspapers published in the city?  Perhaps he took the cost into consideration, not yet prepared to invest in a longer advertisement in a new publication that had not yet proved its viability or its circulation.  Simnet was familiar with advertising in the New-York Journal and the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Given that he frequently submitted new notices to both printing offices, he apparently believed that he derived a good return on that investment.  Still, the watchmaker may have wished to hedge his bets when a new newspaper appeared, making sure his business was visible to readers in New York and beyond even if he was not yet prepared to pay for a longer advertisement.

May 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (May 1, 1773).

“He proposes to sell for Cash, cheaper than he has ever yet done.”

Several merchants and shopkeepers advertised “English and India GOODS” in the May 1, 1773, edition of the Providence Gazette, noting that they recently received new inventory via ships from London and other English ports.  In addition to that headline, John Brown provided an extensive list of his merchandise.  Most others, however, inserted much shorter advertisements that emphasized consumer choice without cataloging their wares.  Caleb Greene and Welcome Arnold, for instance, promoted a “new and compleat ASSORTMENT of English and India GOODS.”  Similarly, Jabez Bowen hawked a “very neat Assortment of Summer GOODS,” while Ebenezer Thompson advertised a “fresh ASSORTMENT of all Kinds of English and India GOODS.”  If prospective customers wanted to know more about the particulars, they needed to visit those shops and stores.

That was also the case for the “fine ASSORTMENT of Spring and Summer GOODS” that Samuel Young “has just received by the last Vessels from England.”  In his efforts to convince prospective customers to browse his merchandise and make purchases from him rather than his competitors, Young declared that he set prices “cheaper than he has ever yet done.”  He had been in business at the same location “opposite the Baptist Meeting-House” for several years, so many local consumers presumably had some sense of his prices relative to those of Brown, Greene and Arnold, Bowen, Thompson, and other merchants and shopkeepers in the city.  Even if some considered Young’s prices higher than those of his competitors, he gave an incentive to consider shopping in his store when he asserted that he offered his best bargains ever.  He challenged the curious to discover the extent that he slashed prices for themselves.

Although Young lowered his prices, another aspect of his business remained the same.  He advised readers of the Providence Gazette that the “Sign of the Black Boy” marked the location of his shop.  Young received his “fine ASSORTMENT of Spring and Summer GOODS” from England, but consumers knew that route was only one part of transatlantic networks of trade and exchange that connected Europe, Africa, and the Americas.  Other routes, some of them plied by vessels owned by wealthy merchants in Providence, carried involuntary migrants, enslaved men, women, and children, from Africa to the Americas.  Some of those who survived the Middle Passage labored on plantations in the Caribbean, where they harvested sugar and other “West-India Goods” that Young also advertised.  The “Sign of the Black Boy” testified to the extent that consumer culture in Providence relied on slavery and the slave trade throughout the early modern Atlantic World.  Young offered bargain prices to his customers, but enslaved men, women, and children paid much higher costs in making available the imported goods sold at shops and stores in Providence and other colonial towns and cities.