What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“She has removed from Fore-street, to a little above the Hay-Market.”
Susanna Renken achieved her greatest visibility in the public prints with the advertisements for garden seeds she inserted in several newspapers printed in Boston in the winter and spring. In several years, she was the first entrepreneur to advertise garden seeds, quickly joined by a sorority of seed sellers who sought their share of the market. Most of those female entrepreneurs did not place advertisements throughout the rest of the year, even those, like Renken, who mentioned that they also stocked “English and India Goods all which may be had cheap for Cash.”
In the summer of 1774, however, circumstances prompted Renken to advertise that “she has removed from Fore-street,” where she had been for many years, “to a little above the Hay-Market.” She reminded both current customers and the public that she “has for Sale, a variety of English and India GOODS, Groceries of all sorts, West-India and New-England Rum.” Renken did not go into as much detail about her wares as many other merchants and shopkeepers, confining her notice to announcing her new location so she could maintain (and perhaps expand) her clientele.
She also did not advertise as widely as she usually did when she promoted garden seeds. She usually placed notices in several newspapers printed in Boston and sometimes even in the Essex Gazette published in Salem. Of the five newspapers that served Boston in 1774, Renken opted to advertise in only two, the Boston-Gazette, printed by Benjamin Edes and John Gill, and the Massachusetts Spy, printed by Isaiah Thomas. Those printers and their publications were well known for their support of the Sons of Liberty and their critiques of a British government that encroached on the liberties of colonizers. Thomas had recently updated the masthead of the Massachusetts Spy to include an image of a snake, representing the colonies, defending itself against a dragon, representing Britain, with the declaration “JOIN OR DIE.” With the harbor closed to trade due to the Boston Port Act, perhaps Renken expressed her own political views in choosing which newspapers to carry her advertisement.