What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“ALL Persons who have … Subscription Papers … are desired immediately to return the same.”
Samuel Hall and Ebenezer Hall, the printers of the Essex Gazette, inserted a brief notice in the January 17, 1775, edition to request that “ALL Persons who have in their Hands any Subscription Papers for printing the Independent Whig … to return the same to the Printers hereof.” They referred to a project that they had first announced more than fifteen months earlier on September 23, 1773, with another advertisement in their newspaper. On that occasion, they confided that “A Number of the principal Gentlemen in this Town … encouraged the Publication” of the work that Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard first distributed as a weekly magazine in London in 1720. For those not as familiar with that “celebrated Performance,” the printers gave the full title: “THE Independent Whig, Or, A Defence of primitive Christianity, and of our Ecclesiastical Establishment, against the extravagant Claims of fanatical and disaffected Clergymen.”
The Halls informed the public that they could subscribe to the work at their printing office in Salem. Those not yet certain that they wished to reserve copies could examine the “Proposals.” The printers eventually published subscription notices in the Massachusetts Spy in February 1774, hoping to reach even more prospective customers in Boston and other towns throughout the colony. Yet the Halls apparently did not limit their marketing efforts to newspaper advertisements, choosing to circulate “Subscription Papers” that likely described the purpose of the book and the conditions for ordering copies. They may have requested that friends and associates post the subscription proposals in their shops and offices, recruiting the assistance of local agents in other towns. Such items often featured space for subscribers to sign their names, making their support of the project visible to others, though local agents sometimes compiled separate lists. No copies of the “Subscription Papers” that the Halls mention in their newspaper advertisement survive, at least not any that have been identified and cataloged yet. Their newspaper notice testifies to a more extensive culture of marketing media in early America than the collections in research libraries, historical societies, and private collections reveal. How much advertising ephemera circulated that has been lost without any mention in the public prints?