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

“NUMBER IV. of THE ROYAL American Magazine … For APRIL, 1774.”

A year after he first announced plans to distribute subscription proposals for the Royal American Magazine, Isaiah Thomas continued advertising the only magazine published in the colonies at the time.  It took more than half a year to engage enough subscribers to make the venture viable.  Thomas intended to publish the first issue in January 1774, but the types did not arrive in time, so the inaugural edition came out in early February (though still bearing January as its date).  Once the magazine began circulating among subscribers and other readers, Thomas promoted it in the public prints, especially his own Massachusetts Spy, though not in as many newspapers as carried the subscription proposals.  The Adverts 250 Project has tracked advertisements for the Royal American Magazine that appeared in June, July, August, September, October, November, and December 1773 and January, February, March, and April 1774.  This entry provides an overview of Thomas’s marketing campaign in May 1774.

Two advertisements ran simultaneously in the Massachusetts Spy on May 5.  In one, Thomas announced that “Tuesday next will be published, No, IV of the Royal American Magazine … For APRIL, 1774.”  Publication continued to lag behind the date of the publication, but magazines followed a different schedule in the eighteenth century compared to today.  Modern magazines often circulate with dates that have not yet arrived, while eighteenth-century publishers tended to distribute a magazine for a particular month at the end of that month.  Such magazines featured content compiled during that month, not material intended to be read that month.  In the other advertisement in that issue of the Massachusetts Spy, Thomas called on “THOSE Gentlemen who are inclined to favour the Royal American Magazine, for MAY, with their Productions … to send them with all convenient Speed, to the Publisher.”  Thomas worked throughout May to gather the contents for that month’s issue of the magazine.  That notice appeared each week.  In contrast, he did not run announcements about the impending publication of the April edition in any newspapers except the Massachusetts Spy.

On May 12, Thomas announced publication of “NUMBER IV. of THE ROYAL American Magazine … For APRIL, 1774” in the Massachusetts Spy.  Similar to advertisements for previous editions, this one included a list of the contents to entice prospective subscribers as well as a header that highlighted the “elegant Engravings” that accompanied the magazine.  For April, those illustrations included “The Bust of Mr. Samuel Adams,” an influential leader in the dispute with Parliament over taxing tea and blockading the harbor as punishment for the Boston Tea Party, and “The Hill-Tops: A new Hunting Song, set to Music, with a Representation of the Death of the Stag.”  Paul Revere engraved the portrait of Adams, but Thomas did not consider that notable enough to mention in the advertisement.  The publisher inserted this notice in the Massachusetts Spy for three consecutive weeks.  It also appeared once in the Boston Evening-Post on May 16.

The Boston-Gazette and the Essex Journal each ran an abbreviated version of that advertisement on two occasions.  That variation included only the header about the engravings and the announcement that the magazine “was Published,” but not the list of contents.  Henry-Walter Tinges printed the Essex Journal in Salem in partnership with Thomas, helping to explain the multiple insertions in that newspaper.  The second time that the advertisement appeared in the Boston-Gazette, it was on the final page of a supplement.  Thomas may have arranged for a second insertion in that newspaper, but the printers might have opted to fill remaining space in the supplement with type already set for advertisements that ran in previous issues.  Thomas did not arrange to have an advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy nor the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  His advertising efforts in even Boston’s newspapers contracted in May 1774, down to only three of the five newspapers published there.

Only one advertisement for the Royal American Magazine ran in a newspaper published beyond Boston in May 1774.  On May 20, a notice announced the publication of the April issue, but did not include the header about the engravings or the list of contents.  It did advise “Subscribers in Portsmouth, York, Berwick, New-Castle, Dover, Windham, and Kittery … to apply to Mr. Isaac Williams of Portsmouth for their Books.”  Apparently local agents in other towns and colonies distributed the new issue of the magazine without resorting to newspaper advertisements.

Overall, five distinct advertisements for the Royal American Magazine appeared a total of fourteen times in American newspapers in May 1774, including eight insertions of three of those advertisements in Thomas’s own Massachusetts Spy and two more insertions of one of the other notices in the Essex Journal, the newspaper operated by Tinges in partnership in Boston.  Thomas continued to actively promote the magazine in his own newspapers, but advertising in other publications did not range as far and wide as in previous months, especially the period for attracting subscribers before taking the first issue of the magazine to press.

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“Tuesday next will be published”

• May 5 – Massachusetts Spy (first insertion)

“with their Productions”

• May 5 – Massachusetts Spy (first insertion)
• May 12 – Massachusetts Spy (second insertion)
• May 19 – Massachusetts Spy (third insertion)
• May 26 – Massachusetts Spy (fourth insertion)

“This Day was published … NUMBER IV” (variation with contents and header)

• May 12 – Massachusetts Spy (first insertion)
• May 16 – Boston Evening-Post (first insertion)
• May 19 – Massachusetts Spy (second insertion)
• May 26 – Massachusetts Spy (third insertion)

“This Day Published … NUMBER IV” (variation with header and without contents)

• May 16 – Boston-Gazette (first insertion)
• May 18 – Supplement to the Essex Journal (first insertion)
• May 25 – Essex Journal (second insertion)
• May 30 – Supplement to the Boston-Gazette (second insertion)

“JUST PUBLISH’d, Number IV”

• May 20 – New-Hampshire Gazette (first insertion)