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

“Numb. III. is now in the press.”

Isaiah Thomas continued marketing the new Royal American Magazine in March 1774.  The Adverts 250 Project has traced his efforts to promote and launch the magazine in 1773 and 1774, starting with his initial announcement, published in May 1773, that he intended to circulate subscription proposals and his advertising campaign undertaken from New Hampshire to Maryland in throughout June, July, August, September, October, November, and December 1773 and January and February 1774 .  Newspaper announcements beyond Massachusetts tapered off once Thomas took the first issue to press.

March 1774 opened with the third and final insertion of an advertisement that Thomas had “Lately PUBLISHED … NUMBER I” of the magazine in the Essex Journal, the newspaper that his partner, Henry-Walter Tinges, printed in Newburyport.  On Thursday, March 3, Thomas placed a new notice in the newspaper he printed in Boston, the Massachusetts Spy, alerting the public that “Monday next will be published, NUMBER II. of THE ROYAL American Magazine … For FEBRUARY, 1774.”  He remained behind schedule following the late arrival of new types for the magazine, but he did indeed release the second issue of the magazine the following Monday.  An advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on March 7 proclaimed, “THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER II. of THE ROYAL American Magazine.”  It asserted that “the Printers and Booksellers in America” sold the magazine, though few advertised it in March 1774.  The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy carried that advertisement for three consecutive weeks, the only newspaper printed in Boston (with the exception of Thomas’s own Massachusetts Spy) to run more than one notice about the Royal American Magazine in March 1774.

Beyond Boston and beyond Massachusetts, the Newport Mercury featured an advertisement about the first issue of the magazine on the same day that the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy ran Thomas’s notice that the second issue was published.  “THE first number of the ROYAL AMERICAN MAGAZINE is come to hand,” it stated, also providing instructions that “all those persons who subscribed with the printer hereof for it, and have not had theirs, are desired to send for the same.”  That advertisement ran for two weeks.  A few days later, on March 11, the New-Hampshire Gazette circulated an advertisement about the magazine “FOR JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1774,” informing subscribers in Portsmouth, York, Berwick, New Castle, Dover, Windham, and Kittery to apply to Isaac Williams in Portsmouth for their copies.  That notice also ran for two weeks.

The remaining advertisements for the Royal American Magazine published in March 1774 all ran in newspapers printed in Boston.  On March 10, Thomas inserted his own “This day published” notice in the Massachusetts Spy, supplementing the copy with a list of the contents and a note that the second edition was “Embellished with elegant engravings of Sir Wilbraham Wentworth; and a Night Scene.”  He inserted the same advertisement once again on March 24 and may have done so on March 17 (a missing page in the digitized edition causing the confusion).  The Boston Evening-Post carried the same advertisement on March 14, while the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter carried it on March 17.  It appeared in both newspapers only once, compared to two insertions of a similar advertisement about the first issue of the magazine in each newspaper the previous month.  The Boston-Gazette did not carry any notices about the Royal American Magazine in March 1774.  Perhaps Thomas did not consider it imperative to advertise as aggressively once the magazine began circulating in Boston.

Thomas took to the pages of the Massachusetts Spy once again on March 17, that time with a brief notice that “Numb. III. is now in the press.”  He called on “Those Gentlemen who have original pieces, useful extracts, &c. prepared for said number” to submit them for publication.  That notice ran once again the following week.  At the end of the month, on March 31, Thomas revised Moses Cleveland’s advertisement to indicate that the post rider carried the Royal American Magazine as well as newspapers printed in Boston on his route between that city and Norwich, Connecticut.  It was a clever means of gaining more exposure for the magazine and encouraging more subscriptions, a return, however brief, to the more expansive advertising campaign and marketing strategies that Thomas had adopted in previous months.

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“NUMBER I” (“Lately PUBLISHED” variant)

• March 2 – Essex Journal (third appearance)

“will be published, NUMBER II”

• March 3 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)

“THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER II”

• March 7 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (first appearance)
• March 14 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (second appearance)
• March 21 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (third appearance)

“first number … come to hand”

• March 7 – Newport Mercury (first appearance)
• March 14 – Newport Mercury (first appearance)

“This day published … NUMBER II” with contents

• March 10 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
• March 14 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
• March 17 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (first appearance)
• March 10 – Massachusetts Spy (possible second appearance)
• March 10 – Massachusetts Spy (second known appearance; possible third appearance)

“FOR JANUARY AND FEBRUARY 1774”

• March 11 – New-Hampshire Gazette (first appearance)
• March 18 – New-Hampshire Gazette (second appearance)

“Numb. III. is now in the press”

• March 17 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
• March 24 – Massachusetts Spy (second appearance)

“MOSES CLEVELAND”

• March 31 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)