Month: March 2025

March 31

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , ,

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

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

“She intends again OPENING her BOARDING and DAY-BOARDING SCHOOL.”

Mrs. Lessley ran a “BOARDING and DAY-BOARDING SCHOOL for YOUNG LADIES” in Charleston in the 1770s. She closed the school for a while, as schoolmasters and schoolmistresses often did for various reasons, but, as spring arrived in 1775, she took to the pages of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette to announce that she planned on “again OPENING” her school “after the Easter Holiday.”  She decided to do so, she stated, at the “kind Invitation and Advice” of “Ladies and Gentlemen” familiar with her school, offering an implicit endorsement she hoped would convince prospective pupils and their families.

Lessley also gave information about others who worked at her school.  “MR. LESSLEY continues teaching DRAWING and PAINTING as usual,” enriching the curriculum offered by his wife.  Readers, especially former students, may have assumed that was the case, but they did not necessarily know about a new employee.  The schoolmistress reported that she “has a YOUNG LADY from ENGLAND who talks French, has lived in a Boarding-School there, and is every Way qualified as an ASSISTANT.”  Those cosmopolitan skills and experiences enhanced the education that Lessley provided for her charges.  Her assistant aided in teaching a language considered a marker of gentility among the gentry and those who aspired to join their ranks.  Perhaps she even served as the primary instructor for that subject.  She may have consulted with Lessley on replicating an English boarding school without students having to cross the Atlantic while also serving as a role model for how “YOUNG LADIES” should comport themselves at such a school.

The schoolmistress gave less attention to the amenities at her school, though she did mention that it was located “in a very pleasant and airy Situation upon the Green.”  With classes slated to begin sometime after April 16, she assured prospective students and their families that they would live and learn in a comfortable environment.  She also indicated that she would commence lessons “sooner should any young Ladies be losing their Schooling.”  In other words, if other schoolmasters and schoolmistresses closed or suspended their schools, Lessley would gladly accept their students.  She hoped that these additional appeals in combination with her description of those who taught at her school would help in encouraging prospective pupils and their families to enroll.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 31, 1775

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.

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 31, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 31, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 31, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 31, 1775).

**********

Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 31, 1775).

March 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

“He shall continue a publication of this GAZETTE.”

On March 30, 1775, the colophon for the Maryland Gazette stated, “ANNAPOLIS: Printed by FREDERICK GREEN,” for the first time.  In the previous issue, it read, “ANNAPOLIS: Printed by ANNE CATHARINE GREEN and SON.”  Anne Catharine Green had been publishing the newspaper since April 16, 1767, upon the death of her husband, Jonas.  She commenced a partnership with her son, William, in January 1768, but it ended with his death in August 1770.  In January 1772, she commenced another partnership, that one with another son, Frederick.  When she died on March 23, 1775, he became the sole publisher.

On that occasion, he inserted his own notice in the Maryland Gazette, placing it first among the advertisements in the March 30 edition.  Frederick “inform[ed] his customers and the public, that he shall continue a publication of this GAZETTE.”  He offered assurances of his editorial strategy, pledging that “impartiality, candour, and secrecy, shall govern his conduct.”  Through “diligence and application,” he intended to make the newspaper “instructive and entertaining to his readers.”  To that end, “All pieces of a public nature, which may merit attention, and be thought conducive to the welfare and happiness of the community, will be thankfully received, and inserted gratis.”  As had been the case when he worked alongside his mother, the printer needed to cultivate relationships with readers who would supply content to fill the pages of his newspaper.

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

Elsewhere on the same page, Frederick ran a death notice in memory of his mother.  Thick black borders appeared above and below it, a common practice readily recognized as a sign of mourning.  “Last Thursday Morning,” the notice reported, “departed this Life, Mrs. ANNE CATHARINE GREEN, relict of the late Mr. JONAS GREEN, Printer to the Province.”  Her son remembered her “mild and benevolent Disposition,” declaring that “for conjugal Affection, and parental Tenderness” she was “an Example to her Sex.”  He did not elaborate on the service she provided to Annapolis and the rest of the colony.  Throughout most of her tenure as printer, the Maryland Gazette had been the only newspaper published in Maryland.  Anne Catharine Green was one of several women who ran printing offices in colonial America during the imperial crisis that culminated in a war for independence.  Along with Margaret Draper, Sarah Goddard, and Clementina Rind, she contributed to the dissemination of news and shaping of public opinion as momentous events occurred.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 30, 1775

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 (March 30, 1775).

**********

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

**********

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

**********

Maryland Gazette (March 30, 1775).

**********

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (March 30, 1775).

**********

Massachusetts Spy (March 30, 1775).

**********

Supplement to the New-York Journal (March 30, 1775).

**********

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (March 30, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 30, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 30, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 30, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 30, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 30, 1775).

**********

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 30, 1775).

March 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Essex Journal (March 29, 1775).

“A DISCOURSE … Preached … In Cammemoration of the MASSACRE at BOSTON.”

In March 1775, residents of Boston once again participated in an annual commemoration of the Boston Massacre, marking its fifth anniversary.  Joseph Warren delivered the oration, just as he had done three years earlier.  As had been the case in years past, local printers published and marketed copies of the address.  Printers in other towns also produced and advertised their own editions of Warren’s oration, helping to keep its memory alive as colonizers dealt with the effects of the Coercive Acts that Parliament imposed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.

Colonizers in other towns joined in commemorating the Boston Massacre and critiquing Parliament.  Oliver Noble, “Pastor of a Church in NEWBURY,” delivered a sermon that did so, “PREACH[ING] AT THE REQUEST of a Number of Respectable Gentlemen of said Town.”  In turn, Noble partnered with Ezra Lunt and Henry-Walter Tinges, the printers of the Essex Journal, to publish the sermon “at the General Desire of the Hearers.”  The extensive title, which doubled as the advertising copy, gave an overview of its contents and purpose: “SOME STRICTURES upon the sacred Story recorded in the Book of ESTHER, shewing the Power and Oppression of State Ministers, tending to the Ruin and Destruction of GOD’s People:– And the remarkable Interpositions of Divine Providence in Favour of the Oppressed; IN A Discourse … In Cammemoration of the MASSACRE at BOSTON.”  An advertisement ran in the March 29 edition of the Essex Journal, encouraging colonizers to acquire their own copies.  Those who had heard Noble preach could experience the sermon again every time they read it, remembering how the minister delivered each “STRICTURE” and how other “Hearers” reacted.  Others who had not been fortunate to be present for the commemoration did not have to miss it entirely if they purchased and read Noble’s Discourse.

Relations between the colonies and Britain had deteriorated to the worst point yet during the imperial crisis.  Although they did not know it, a war would start within weeks of Noble preaching his sermon in commemoration of the Boston Massacre and advertising it in the Essex Journal, a war that began because colonizers wanted redress of their grievances and eventually became a war for independence.  Commemoration and commodification of the events that were part of that conflict began before the fighting started.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 29, 1775

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 Journal (March 29, 1775).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (March 29, 1775).

**********

Pennsylvania Gazette (March 29, 1775).

March 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 28, 1775).

“A remarkable fine breeding MARE to be SOLD.”

It was not exactly front-page news, at least not as twenty-first-century readers think about how newspapers are organized.  The first item in the first column on the first page of the March 28, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post was an advertisement for a “remarkable fine breeding MARE to be SOLD.”  Immediately below, Benjamin Towne, the printer inserted an excerpt about the “right and capacity of the people to judge of government” from “CATO’s LETTERS, No. 38.”  It continued onto the second page, followed by news from Annapolis, Boston, Newport, and New York.  Local news from Philadelphia ran on the third and fourth pages, with advertisements completing the issue.

Once again, eighteenth-century methods of organizing the news differed from what modern readers have come to expect from newspapers.  The news with the dateline “PHILADELPHIA, March 28” included “the copy of a letter which was wrote by a Lady of New-York, to Capt. S—s, and Capt. McD—” and an “Extract of a letter from London, to a gentleman in Virginia, dated Dec. 24, 1774.”  Only a few very brief items relayed news from the vicinity, including a report on the “appointment [of] officers of militia for the county of Newcastle” and the date for the “MAYOR’s COURT.”

Eighteenth-century readers devised their own strategies for perusing newspapers published during the era of the American Revolution.  They did not depend on editors intentionally placing the most important news first, nor did they rely on headlines to summarize the content of letters and articles.  Instead, they had to give greater attention to that “letter which was wrote by a lady of New-York” and that “Extract of a letter … to a gentleman in Virginia” to determine what they contained and if they were interested in examining them more closely.  In contrast, the advertisement for the “breeding MARE” did feature a headline.  Advertisements were far more likely to have some sort of headline than any other items in early American newspapers.  The differences between those newspapers and today’s newspapers can be disorienting at first, yet they testify to an evolution in how publishers have disseminated the news and how readers engage with it.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 28, 1775

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 (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (March 28, 1775).

March 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , ,

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

Newport Mercury (March 27, 1775).

“Worth the Perusal of each TRUE SON OF LIBERTY.”

In the years after British soldiers fired into a crowd of protestors and killed several colonizers on March 5, 1770, the residents of Boston staged an annual commemoration of the “horrid MASSACRE.”  They called on a prominent patriot to give an “ORATION” about what occurred and the dangers of having British soldiers quartered in urban ports during times of peace.  Colonizers did not need to be present for the oration to experience it for themselves.  Each year, printers published and marketed the oration, commodifying an event that played an important role in the imperial crisis becoming a revolution.

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 27, 1775).

In the first several years, printers in Boston published the oration and newspapers in Massachusetts carried advertisements for it.  In 1775, however, printers in other colonies produced their own editions of Joseph Warren’s oration commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre.  Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette, and Joseph Greenleaf, the publisher of the Royal American Magazine, partnered in printing and advertising a Boston edition.  Not long after, Solomon Southwick, the printer of the Newport Mercury, advertised his own edition, giving the notice a privileged place as the first item in the first column on the first page of the March 27 edition of his newspaper.  On that same day, John Anderson inserted a notice in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury to alert readers of the imminent publication of a local edition undertaken “At the particular Desire of a Number of respectable GENTLEMEN.”  Patriots expressed intertest in obtaining their own copies of Warren’s oration; in turn, printers believed they could generate even greater demand.  To that end, Anderson declared, “The genuine Spirit of Freedom which breathes in every Line of this inimitable Performance, renders it worth the Perusal of each TRUE SON OF LIBERTY.”

The political climate had shifted since printers in Boston disseminated John Hancock’s oration commemorating the fourth anniversary of the Boston Massacre.  Since then, colonizers experienced how Parliament reacted to the destruction of tea during what has become known as the Boston Tea Party.  The Coercive Acts, including the Boston Port Act that closed the harbor until residents paid restitution, prompted delegates from throughout the colonies to gather in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774.  They adopted a nonimportation agreement, the Continental Association, that remained in effect in the spring of 1775.  Given the events that transpired in 1774 and early 1775, it made sense that the anniversary of the “BLOODY TRAGEDY of the 5th of MARCH, 1770” garnered greater attention beyond Massachusetts.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 27, 1775

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.

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 27, 1775).

**********

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 27, 1775).

**********

Newport Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

Newport Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 27, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (March 27, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (March 27, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (March 27, 1775).

**********

South-Carolina Gazette (March 27, 1775).