Month: December 2024

December 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (December 31, 1774).

“For the Support … of the distressed Town of Boston … suffering in the common Cause of North-America.”

As 1774 ended, readers of the Providence Gazette contemplated how they could aid the town of Boston where the harbor had been closed to commerce for seven months.  The Boston Port Act went into effect on June 1, retribution for the Boston Tea Party.  In turn, that inspired a variety of responses, including the meetings of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September and October and the formation of relief efforts for Boston.  Local committees throughout the colonies started subscriptions for collecting food to send to the town, as Bob Ruppert documents in “The Winter of 1774-1775 in Boston.”

An advertisement in the December 31, 1774, edition of the Providence Gazette announced an upcoming sale of a “Quantity of FLOUR, WHEAT, RYE, INDIAN-CORN, and PORK” that would be held “For the Support and Animation of the distressed town of Boston, which is now suffering in the common Cause of North-America.”  Although Parliament aimed the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the other Coercive Acts at agitators in Massachusetts, that legislation prompted a unified response, a sense of a “common Cause” as other colonies realized that Parliament could just as easily target them.  The shipment of grains and pork that arrived in Providence came from New Jersey, “a Donation … to the Town of Boston.”  According to the advertisement, the Committee of Correspondence in Boston instructed the Committee of Correspondence in Providence to sell the grains and pork to raise funds rather than attempt to transport them to Boston.

John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, gave that advertisement a privileged place both times that it ran in his newspaper.  The first time that it appeared, he inserted it immediately after local news and before other advertisements.  Readers likely experienced it as a continuation of news related to the imperial crisis, including updates about other “Donations … to the Town of Boston.”  When the advertisement ran a week later, two days before the sale, it was the first item in the first column on the first page, making it nearly impossible for readers to miss.  Through the choices he made about the layout of his newspaper, the printer made his own contribution in support of the “common Cause of North-America.”

December 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-Hampshire Gazette (December 30, 1774).

“TO BE SOLD, BY Samuel Gardner, At his Store on Spring-Hill.”

When it came to interspersing advertisements among news, editorials, and other content in colonial newspapers, the New-Hampshire Gazette was the exception to the rule.  Not all newspapers took the same approach to where advertisements appeared, but they generally avoided mixing advertisements and other content.  For instance, some newspapers reserved advertising for the final pages, printing all the news and editorials first, then the shipping news from the custom house to signal the transition to advertising, and finally the paid notices.  Others ran advertising on the first and last pages, printed first on the same side of the broadsheet, and saved the second and third pages for the latest news that arrived.  In some instances, news and advertising appeared on the same page.  The front page, for example, could include a column of paid notices and two columns of news with the advertisements in either the left column or the right column.  No matter the order, individual advertisements did not appear interspersed with news …

… except in the New-Hampshire Gazette.  Daniel Fowle, the printer, took a novel approach that may have looked haphazard to contemporary readers, though later generations came to expect news and advertising alternating in newspapers.  The layout of the New-Hampshire Gazette often required active reading to determine which portions featured advertising and which delivered news.  Consider the December 30, 1774, edition.  A short advertisement placed by George Whipple, “Attorney at LAW,” ran as the first item in the first column on the first page.  News constituted the remainder of the content on that page.  The second page began with news from the “Continental Congress continu’d” from the previous issue.”  It spilled over into a second column, followed by an advertisement for goods available at Samuel Gardner’s store, and then a lengthy essay about conditions in Boston by “MASSACHUSETTENSIS.”  That essay occupied most of the third page.  Three advertisements completed the third column.  More news and editorials appeared in the first column on the final page.  In addition, news from New York and the shipping news from the custom house ran at the top of the third column.  George Craigie’s lengthy advertisement for “A General Assortment of English Goods” interrupted the news and editorials.  Half a dozen advertisements appeared below the shipping news in the final column.  In other issues, Fowle interspersed short advertisements and short news items even more indiscriminately, giving readers of the New-Hampshire Gazette a different sort of visual experience in terms of organizing content compared to what they encountered in other colonial newspapers.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 30, 1774

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

New-Hampshire Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (December 30, 1774).

December 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Massachusetts Spy (December 29, 1774).

“*** The last Chance.”

Prospective customers needed to act quickly or risk missing out on the opportunity entirely.  That was the message that Duncan Ingraham, Jr., emphasized in his advertisement for “A few ENGLISH GOODS, now remaining” in his store in Boston at the end of 1774.  His notice featured a headline that proclaimed “The last Chance” that he hoped would entice readers to look more closely at the list of merchandise in stock.  Unlike the headlines for other advertisements, Ingraham’s headline included three asterisks to help draw attention to the offer he made available for a limited time.  That offer included low prices that he described as “terms wholly to the advantage of the purchaser.”  Ingraham was so eager to liquidate his inventory that he passed along significant savings to consumers, but only if they acted quickly.  He concluded his advertisement with a warning that those “who design purchasing must apply immediately.”

Those “few ENGLISH GOODS, now remaining” had been on hand for six months or more.  The Boston Port Act closed the harbor on June 1, 1774.  Parliament asserted that the harbor would remain blockaded to commerce until the town made restitution for the property destroyed during the Boston Tea Party in December 1773.  As a result, merchants and shopkeepers did not receive shipments from their suppliers in England.  Ingraham peddled goods, including “China Bowls, Cups and Saucers,” “a variety of silk mitts and gloves,” and “children’s cotton, thread and worsted hose,” that had been on his shelves for some time.  Under other circumstances, advertisers often emphasized that they received their merchandise via the ships most recently arrived in port, anticipating that consumers would associate the newest goods with the most fashionables ones.  Such appeals, however, no longer held sway in Boston in the wake of the Boston Port Act.  Elsewhere in the colonies, similar appeals lost their effectiveness once the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement enacted in response to the Boston Port Act and the other Coercive Acts, went into effect on December 1, 1774.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 29, 1774

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Maryland Gazette (December 29, 1774).

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Massachusetts Spy (December 29, 1774).

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 29, 1774).

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 29, 1774).

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 29, 1774).

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (December 29, 1774).

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Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (December 29, 1774).

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Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (December 29, 1774).

December 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (December 28, 1774).

“No advantage of the times taken.”

In the early 1770s, Robert Loosely sold “SHOEMAKER’s TOOLS” and materials at his shop on Walnut Street in Philadelphia.  In an advertisement he ran in the Pennsylvania Chronicle in May 1772, he advised the public that he “served his apprenticeship in England, and for some years carried on a considerable trade there.”  During that time, he “became acquainted with the most reputed manufacturers of tools and leather.”  After migrating to Philadelphia, he put his knowledge and connections to good use in importing and selling only the highest quality items connected to that trade.

Loosely did not rehearse that history when he advertised in the Pennsylvania Journal in December 1774.  Perhaps he believed that prospective customers were familiar enough with his reputation that he no longer needed to do so.  He did, however, continue to make appeals to quality and even offered a money-back guarantee for some of his wares.  He described his tools and soles as “exceeding good quality,” even “much superior to what are generally imported.  When it came to “black-heel balls” used to blacken the edges of heels and soles, Loosely told shopkeepers that they “may be supplied with any quantity … cheaper than in any other shop in this city.”  Furthermore, those items “shall be engaged good, and if not found so, taken back and the money returned.”  He trusted that his confidence would entice prospective customers to purchase from him over his competitors.

In a nota bene, Loosely encouraged customers to send orders rather than visiting his shop, declaring that they “shall be as punctually attended to, as if the persons were present.”  In addition, he assured readers, “no advantage of the times taken.”  He referred to the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement enacted by the First Continental Congress in response to the Coercive Acts.  With imported goods curtailed after December 1, he could have raised prices, yet he abided by the ninth article that asserted, “Venders of Goods or Merchandise will not take Advantage of the Scarcity of Goods that may be occasioned by this Associacion, but will sell the same at the Rates we have been respectively accustomed to do for twelve Months last past.”  Politics and commerce interested in Loosely’s marketing efforts in the final days of 1774.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 28, 1774

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Pennsylvania Gazette (December 28, 1774).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (December 28, 1774).

December 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (December 27, 1774).

“THE Committee of Inspection for the Town of PLYMOUTH, hereby give Notice.”

Once the Continental Association went into effect on December 1, 1774, a new sort of advertisement began appearing in the Essex Gazette and other newspapers.  Rather than advertising and selling their own merchandise, importers surrendered those roles to local Committees of Inspection, “agreeable to the Tenth Article of the Association of the American Continental Congress.”  The First Continental Congress had devised the nonimportation agreement during its meetings in Philadelphia in September and October 1774 and then disseminated it throughout the colonies.

The tenth article of the Continental Association made provisions for goods imported between December 1, 1774, and February 1, 1775.  The importers could choose to return the merchandise or turn it over to the local Committee of Inspection.  If they chose the latter, they could opt for the committee to store the wares until the nonimportation agreement ended or sell them on behalf of the importer, in which case the importer recovered the cost of the items, but profits were designated for relief of Boston since it faced so much hardship once the Boston Port Bill closed and blockaded the harbor.  The tenth article also specified that “a particular Account of all goods so returned, stored, or sold, [was] to be inserted in the publick Papers.”

Such was the case in two advertisements that John Torrey, chairman of the Committee of Inspection in Plymouth, first placed in the Essex Gazette on December 20, 1774, and again in subsequent issues.  Those advertisements indicated which vessels transported the goods, but did not name the importers.  They gave straightforward lists of the merchandise offered for sale without incorporating any of the common appeals to price, quality, fashion, or consumer choice.  No marketing strategy nor turn of phrase (such as “very cheap” or “large Assortment”) sought to distinguish the merchandise in these advertisements from other goods available for sale.  With political principles as the primary focus, John Torrey and the Committee of Inspection had little motivation to craft the sort of lively advertisements that the importers might have placed on their own behalf under other circumstances.

Slavery Advertisements Published December 27, 1774

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

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.

Essex Gazette (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 27, 1774).

December 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (December 26, 1774).

“Bride and Christening Cakes.”

Despite the distresses that Boston experienced in the fall and winter of 1774 because of the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, and the Quartering Act, Thomas Selby, a “Pastry and Kitchen Cook, from London,” advertised that he “carries on his Business as usual” and declared to his “Friends and Customers” that he “hopes for the Continuance of their Favours, as he is determined to spare neither Pain nor Expence to merit them.”  Apparently, he did not intend to discriminate when it came to prospective customers since he also confided that the “Gentlemen of the Army and Navy who will be pleased to favour him with their Custom, may depend on having their Orders well executed.”  Selby chose to look beyond politics, figuring that a customer was a customer during hard times.  Notably, he advertised in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, known for its more sympathetic stance toward the government than other newspapers published by Patriot printers.  He also advised “Country Shopkeepers” that he would make a “good Allowance” for those who submitted orders for “Candied Almonds and Sugar-Plumbs of all sorts.”  In other words, he gave discounts for purchasing in volume to retailers outside the city.

Selby filled many kinds of orders at his “Pastry and Jelly Shop.”  He prepared and sold “Pastry and Confectionary, cheaper than can be made in private Families,” making it smart and economical to engage his services.  He offered the eighteenth-century version of take-out food, advertising “Dinners drest” at his shop, and catered functions for his clients, highlighting “Entertainments prepared.”  In addition, he baked and decorated cakes for special events: “Bride and Christening Cakes made, and ornamented in the genteelest Manner.”  Bakers occasionally advertised such items.  In November 1773, for instance, Frederick Kreitner marketed “Wedding-Cakes” among the many “Sorts of Confections” that he made in Charleston.  The term “bride cake” was more widely used in England and America, including in Selby’s advertisement.  Such cakes contained candied fruits, symbolizing fertility and prosperity.  At about the time that Selby advertised his bride cake, icing became an essential element, as Carol Wilson explains in “Wedding Cake: A Slice of History.”  Selby suggested that his “Bride and Christening Cakes” featured elaborate decorations to help commemorate the occasions.  Even as the imperial crisis intensified, some colonizers paused to mark important milestones, including weddings and baptisms, and incorporated special foods into those observances.