What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Boston Evening-Post (October 31, 1774).
“The Manual Exercise, recommended to be practised by the above Resolve of the Congress.”
The placement of advertisements varied in colonial newspapers. Many printers reserved them for the final pages, while others positioned them on the first and last pages with news on the middle pages. Sometimes advertisements and news appeared on the same page, such as two columns of news and one column of advertising on the front page or advertisements completing a column of news on any page. Even with those variations, advertisements and news typically did not alternate within the columns on any page of early American newspapers.
That made an advertisement on the third page of the October 31, 1774, edition of the Boston Evening-Post both unusual and notable. The first column bore the headline “In PROVINCIAL CONGRESS” and commenced with “A true Extract from the Minutes” of a meeting held on October 26. The same headline, in smaller font, occurred three more times in the first and second columns, reporting on meetings held on October 28 and 29. The last of those featured a short resolution: “That it be recommended to the Inhabitants of this Province, that in Order to their perfecting themselves in the Military Art, they proceed in the Method ordered by his Majesty in the Year 1764; it being in the Opinion of this Congress, the best calculated for Appearance and Defence.” That recommendation came as Boston and the rest of the colony reacted to the Quartering Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the other Coercive Acts that Parliament passed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.
A brief advertisement immediately followed the resolution: “The Manual Exercise, recommended to be practised by the above Resolve of the Congress, is to be had only of T. and J. Fleet, at the Heart and Crown in Cornhill, Boston.” The column returned to news, that lone advertisement embedded between articles. The Fleets happened to be the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, known for their support of the patriot cause. They likely had dual purposes in running the advertisement and selecting where to place it. Supplying the public with a military manual reflected their political principles, yet as entrepreneurs the Fleets also stood to generate revenue from its sale. They served the public good, both in printing the manual and the proximity of their advertisement to the resolution, while also attempting to increase sales in their printing office. Scholars have debated whether printers who sold political tracts during the era of the American Revolution merely seized an opportunity to line their pockets, yet participating in politics and earning their livelihoods were not necessarily mutually exclusive endeavors.
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.
Boston Evening-Post (October 31, 1774).
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Boston-Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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Connecticut Courant (October 31, 1774).
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Newport Mercury (October 31, 1774).
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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
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Supplement to the South-Carolina Gazette (October 31, 1774).
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this month?
“THIS DAY PUBLISHED … The Royal American Magazine … For SEPTEMBER, 1774.”
Boston Evening-Post (October 31, 1774).
Upon becoming the proprietor of the Royal American Magazine, Joseph Greenleaf set about publishing new issues to catch up with how many should have been distributed. Isaiah Thomas, the original proprietor, had fallen behind because of the “Distresses of the Town of Boston” when the Boston Port Act went into effect in the summer of 1774. Initially, Thomas intended to suspend the magazine until “the Affairs of this Country are a little better settled,” but then he decided to transfer it to Greenleaf. By that time, the magazine was several months behind schedule. Greenleaf took the July issue to press in September 1774. In October, he published two issues, the August issue near the beginning of the month and the September issue at the end of the month. Since magazine typically came out at the end of the month rather than the beginning, that meant that the Royal American Magazine was now only a month behind schedule. In keeping subscribers and the public apprised of the new issues, Greenleaf resorted to a greater number of advertisements in a greater number of newspapers in October than in September.
The Adverts 250 Project has examined advertisements for the Royal American Magazine that began with Thomas’s first mention of circulating subscription proposals in May 1773 and subsequent newspaper advertisements in June, July, August, September, October, November, and December 1773 and January, February, March, April, May, and June 1774. The “Distresses” meant no newspaper advertisements for the magazine in July 1774, but they resumed with the notices from Thomas and Greenleaf in August, September, and October.
A brief advertisement in the October 6 edition of the Massachusetts Spy announced, “To-morrow will be published, THE Royal American Magazine, No. 8. For AUGUST, 1774.” A more elaborate notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter on the same day proclaimed, “THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER VIII. of The Royal American Magazine.” That one noted that the issue was “Embellished with an elegant Engraving” to supplement the articles. It also encouraged new subscribers to submit their names to Greenleaf at his printing office on Hanover Street. Apparently, there had been a miscommunication with one of the printing offices concerning when the September issue would be ready for subscribers. That did not matter by the time the Boston Post-Boy ran the same “THIS DAY PUBLISHED” advertisement on October 10. Readers knew that “THIS DAY PUBLISHED” did not necessarily refer to a specific day but instead meant that a book, pamphlet, or other item was now available. The Boston-Gazette carried yet another version of Greenleaf’s advertisement, also on October 10. That one stated that he “JUST PUBLISHED” the magazine and promoted the engraving. Advertisements for the August issue of the Royal American Magazine appeared in four newspapers published in Boston, compared to advertisements for the July issue running in only two.
Those four newspapers each carried advertisements about the September issue of the magazine by the end of October. On October 20, Greenleaf inserted a notice in the Massachusetts Spy to inform the public that he moved his printing office to Union Street. In a nota bene, he stated, “The Magazine for September, will be out next week.” He ran the same notice in the Boston Evening-Post on October 24. A few days later, both the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy featured variant advertisements that declared, “To-Morrow will be published, THE Royal American Magazine, for September 1774.” On October 31, the Boston-Evening Post and the Boston-Gazette also ran similar, but not identical, advertisements that stated, “THIS DAY PUBLISHED … The Royal American Magazine … For SEPTEMBER 1774.” The version in the Boston Evening-Post promoted an “elegant Engraving of a Water-Spout” and directed readers to Greenleaf’s printing office. The one in the Boston-Gazette did not. Greenleaf got the word out about the latest issue of the magazine, produced incredibly quickly compared to previous issues, but did not resort to standard copy that he sent to the various newspapers in Boston.
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“THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER VIII”
October 6 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (first appearance)
October 10 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
October 13 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (second appearance)
October 17 – Boston Evening-Post (second appearance)
“To-morrow will be published … No. 8”
October 6 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
October 13 – Massachusetts Spy (second appearance)
“JUST PUBLISHED … NUMBER VIII”
October 10 – Boston-Gazette (first appearance)
“The Magazine for September, will be out next week”
October 20 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
October 24 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
October 27 – Massachusetts Spy (second appearance)
“TO-MORROW will be Published … Magazine … For SEPTEMBER”
October 27 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (first appearance)
“To-Morrow, will be published … Magazine … for September … by J. GREENLEAF”
October 27 – Massachusetts Spy (first appearance)
“THIS DAY PUBLISHED … NUMBER IX … Embellished with an elegant Engraving”
October 31 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Providence Gazette (October 29, 1774).
“BRAZIER, from Boston … has opened a Shop at the North of Providence, near Liberty-Tree.”
When Caleb Allen, a “BRAZIER, from Boston,” opened a shop in Providence in the fall of 1774, he took to the pages of the local newspaper to advise the public of his new endeavor. He announced that he “makes and mends Brass Kettles, Tea-Kettles, Skillets,” and other items and “mends old Pewter and Tin.” Like many other artisans, he pledged that his customers “may depend on having their Work done in the neatest Manner, with Care and Dispatch.” Braziers and other artisans often assured the public about their skill and the quality of their work.
In giving his location, Allen stated that customers could find his shop “at the North End of Providence, near Liberty-Tree.” In so doing, he may have signaled his political views. At the very least, he seemingly indicated that he was friendly to the patriot cause rather than holding it in disdain. After all, he could have chosen from among many ways to give his location, including just “at the North End of Providence” without mentioning the Liberty Tree. He could have given the name of the street, noted his shop’s proximity to a prominent resident or business, or invoked another familiar landmark. Yet the newcomer from Boston specifically associated the Liberty Tree with his business.
Allen did not mention how recently he arrived in Providence. He had not advertised in the Providence Gazette prior to October 29, 1774. Perhaps he left Boston after the Boston Port Act went into effect, blockading the harbor until the residents of the town paid for the tea destroyed during the Boston Tea Party. That legislation, along with the other Coercive Acts, disrupted commerce and everyday life in Boston. The same issue of the Providence Gazette that carried Allen’s advertisement also featured an update from Boston that “transports, with troops, &c. on board, arrived here from New-York.” Anticipating that things would get even more difficult in that city, the “BRAZIER, from Boston” may have determined to depart and seek his fortunes elsewhere. In that case, the Liberty Tree in Providence would have had particular significance for him when he set up shop near it.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Connecticut Journal (October 28, 1774).
“When a boat shall set off from either side, a boat shall immediately put off from the other.”
Jesse Leavenworth had two years of experience of operating a ferry “to and from East Haven, on the lower road,” but they had not been easy years. In an advertisement he placed in the October 28, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Journal, he explained that the “hounourable General Assembly … thought fit to establish under his care and direction” the ferry in October 1772. He accepted the charge, seeking to support “himself and a numerous family.” That site, however, possessed “many difficulties” due to the “flats and openness of the place to sea” that had previously made it “insurmountable by all those who have heretofore attempted” a similar venture. At a “vast expence,” Leavenworth “furnished himself with a number of large & sufficient boats.” Whether they ran ferries or stagecoaches, entrepreneurs who provided transportation frequently underscored the financial investments they made in their businesses. Leavenworth kept at least two boats on each side and hired staff to give “suitable attendance.”
Despite the obstacles, Leavenworth met with success. He asserted that he “gain’d the approbation and custom of the public beyond his most sanguine expectations, which he gratefully acknowledges.” The ferry was so successful that the operator prepared to introduce another innovation to the service. Three weeks later, he planned that “when a boat shall set off from either side” that another boat “shall immediately put off from the other, to supply its place.” The companion boat would go whether or not it had passengers or freight. That way the ferry would maintain two boats on each side “to oblige his customers and prevent all suggestions of nonattendance on either side.” Patrons would face less inconvenience in waiting if they happened to arrive when the ferry was in use. Leavenworth concluded by noting that “this will be an additional expense” so he “hopes for the countenance of the public, and a continuance of their custom.” Again, he suggested that prospective customers should recognize his investment and choose to hire his services because of it.
Following his signature, Leavenworth added a brief note aimed at recruiting an employee, a “hardy stout Man … who can be well recommended (for honesty, sobriety, and good nature). A month earlier, he had advertised that a “negro man” who “speaks the Portuguese language, and bit little English” had “let himself to me.” Suspecting that his new employee may have been an enslaved man who fled from his enslaver, Leavenworth placed a notice in the public prints. Not long after that, an advertisement about just such a man in the Connecticut Courant featured an observation that a “Negro answering the above Discription has let himself to Mr. Jesse Leavenworth of New-Haven.” The forthcoming innovation in his ferry service may not have been the only reason Leavenworth sought a new employee. The Black man that he hired as he planned to launch the next stage of his business may have been captured and returned to his enslaver.
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.
Connecticut Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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Connecticut Journal (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (October 28, 1774).
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Norwich Packet (October 27, 1774).
“HATS … of as good a Quality and at as low a Price as they are sold in New-York and Boston.”
The use of decorative type as a border certainly distinguished David Nevins’s advertisement from other content in the October 27, 1774, edition of the Norwich Packet. It appeared in the final column on the third page along with several other advertisements. News items filled the facing page as well as the first two columns of that page, each of them in relatively small type compared to some of the fonts in the advertisements. The compositor used printing ornaments to separate those news items, but nothing as extensive as the border that surrounded Nevins’s advertisement.
Some of the advertisements featured larger fonts to draw attention to consumer goods and services and their purveyors and providers, including “THOMAS COIT” and “Drugs and Medicines” in one, “FLAX SEED, SMALL FURRS, BEES-WAX” in another, and “PUBLIC VENDUE” in a third. The same was true in Nevins’s advertisement, with his name, “Musquash Skins,” and “HATS” each centered and in larger fonts. Yet Nevins did not deploy those fonts alone in his effort to draw the attention of readers. He must have submitted a request for the decorative border along with the copy for his advertisement when he contacted the printing office.
Even with that visual advantage, Nevins also devised copy intended to sell the hats that he produced at his shop. In addition to hats made of musquash or muskrat pelts, he promoted others “Of all Kinds” that customers could depend on being “of as good a Quality and at as low a Price as they are sold in New-York and Boston.” Norwich was a small town compared to those major urban ports, yet that did not mean that consumers had to settle for second best or inflated prices. Nevins consistently mad that point in his advertisements. In February, he “warranted” his hats “to be of the best Quality, and as cheap and fashionable as can be purchased in Boston and New-York” in an advertisement in the Connecticut Gazette.
Other advertisers who placed notices in the Norwich Packet may or may not have made requests about the design elements. In writing the copy, they may have assumed that the compositor would select certain words to capitalize, center, and print in larger font without providing instructions to do so. After all, that was a common feature of advertisements in that newspaper. Nevins, on the other hand, almost certainly stated that he wished to enhance his advertisement with a decorative border to aid in highlighting the appeals he made in his copy.
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Gazette (October 26, 1774).
“THO’ this is metre it’s no fun, / My servant boy has from me run.”
It was a novel means of drawing attention to the description of an indentured servant who ran away from his master. Rather than the usual sort of advertisement that crowded the pages of newspapers from New England to South Carolina, John McGoun rejected writing a paragraph of dense text in favor of composing a series of rhyming couplets that gave readers all sorts of information about John Hunter and offered a reward for imprisoning or returning him. On occasion, aggrieved masters composed and published such poems, yet they were rare enough to merit a closer look when McGoun inserted his advertisement. In the first couplet, he played with the form, asserting that his situation was a serious matter even as he sought to entertain readers so they would take note of the details he presented: “THO’ this is metre it’s no fun, / My servant boy has from me run.”
Five other advertisements for the same purpose appeared on the final page of the October 26, 1774, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, yet readers may have been more likely to linger over McGoun’s notice. The others filled the space purchased by the advertisers, running from one side of the column to the other, while McGoun’s poem had white space on each side, making his advertisement visually unique among those on the page. That aspect initially drew the eyes of readers, with the couplets offering enough “fun” for a subject that was “no fun” for them to peruse the entire poem. In addition to relaying details about the runaway’s age, height, hair, and eyes, that “fun” included an interesting way of stating that he would disguise himself with new garments: “He left his clothes, both coarse and fine, / To steal some others he’ll incline.” Likewise, McGoun described Hunter’s habits and comportment: “Talks much, lies some, inclines to sing, / Says he can work at every thing.” The master apparently did not find the servant as skilled at a variety of tasks as the servant claimed. McGoun even managed to reference politics and current events in expressing his suspicion that Hunter headed to Boston: “He’s now full eighteen years of age, / I think he’ll push for Thomas Gage.” He did not need to name the city: “(Where he is almost all men know, / As he’s become our country’s foe).” The Pennsylvania Gazette and other newspapers certainly provided plenty of coverage of Gage and his role in enforcing the Coercive Acts as governor of Massachusetts.
Readers constantly encountered advertisements about runaway indentured servants, apprentices, and convict servants during the era of the American Revolution. They usually followed a standard format, yet occasionally masters resorted to verse to distinguish their notices from others that competed for attention in the public prints.
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.
