Month: March 2025

March 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

“The Royal American MAGAZINE … for February 1775.”

In March 1775, three of Boston’s newspapers carried advertisements that the February issue of the Royal American Magazine was now available “at Greenleaf’s Printing Office in Union-Street near the Market” in Boston.  The advertisements first appeared in the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette on March 13.  Based on publication dates for magazines today, the February issue seems quite overdue, but in the eighteenth century published distributed magazines at the end of the month or early in the following month.  Considering that Greenleaf had not advertised the January edition until February 20, it appears that he managed to take the next issue to press in just three weeks.

Above: Boston Evening-Post (March 13, 1775); Below: Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (March 17, 1775).

The advertisement in the Boston-Gazette ran for two consecutive weeks.  The more elaborate version in the Boston Evening-Post reported that the February issue was “Embellished with an elegant Engraving of a History Piece.”  That copperplate engraving, executed by Paul Revere, depicted a scene from the “History of Lauretta,” a moral tale included among the contents of the magazine.  The advertisement ran only once in the Boston Evening-Post, but appeared in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter on March 17 and 30.  Once again, those printing offices seem to have shared type set in one printing office and transferred to the other.  It is not clear what role Greenleaf played in that arrangement since some of the city’s printers engaged in that practice on other occasions.

What is clear is that Greenleaf’s marketing campaign was not nearly as extensive as the one devised by Isaiah Thomas when he first proposed publishing the Royal American Magazine and announced distribution of the first several issues.  Yet the number of advertisements and the array of newspapers that carried them diminished even during Thomas’s tenure as publisher of the magazine, likely due to the evolving political situation in Boston and throughout the colonies.  He had promoted the magazine widely in the months before colonizers dumped tea into Boston Harbor, but only began publishing it as they contended with the aftermath, including the closure of the port and other punitive measures passed by Parliament in the Coercive Acts.  Even as Thomas filled the magazine with patriot propaganda, he and other residents of Boston experienced “Distresses” that apparently made marketing the Royal American Magazineless of a priority.  For his part, Greenleaf advised the public about new issues, but he did not attempt to replicate the initial marketing strategy devised by Thomas.

This entry continues an ongoing series in which the Adverts 250 Project has tracked advertisements for the Royal American Magazine from Thomas’s first notice, in May 1773, that he planned to distribute subscription proposals to newspapers advertisements in June, July, August, September, October, November, and December 1773 and January, February, March, April, May, and June 1774.  No magazine advertisements for the magazine appeared in July 1774 because of the “Distresses,” yet they resumed in August, September, October, November, and December 1774 and January and February 1775.

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“This Day PUBLISHED, The Royal American MAGAZINE … for February 1775.”

  • March 13 – Boston-Gazette (first appearance)
  • March 20 – Boston-Gazette (second appearance)

“THIS DAY PUBLISHED … The Royal American Magazine … For FEBRUARY 1775.”

  • March 13 – Boston Evening-Post (first appearance)
  • March 17 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (first appearance)
  • March 30 – Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (second appearance)

March 25

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

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (March 25, 1775).

“Certificates of its success shall be speedily inserted in this and the other Papers on the continent.”

William Drewet Smith, “Chemist and Druggist,” ran an apothecary shop “At HIPPOCRATES’s Head, in Second-street” in Philadelphia in the 1770s.  He expected that prospective customers would associate Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician known as the “Father of Medicine,” with the “general Assortment of Drugs and patent medicines, surgeons instruments, [and] shop furniture” that he sold.  Yet those were not the only items that Smith peddled.

The apothecary ran an advertisement for “Baron Van Haake’s royal letter pattent composition, for manuring land” in the March 25, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger.  In addition to medicines for treating the body, the Smith sold this compound for nurturing soil and raising crops.  For those not familiar with its use, the chemist explained that the “valuable composition has been tried in England with the greatest success.”  In addition, “a number of gentlemen of this province are giving it a fair trial here.”  Trials demonstrated that the treatment “is not only fit for arable, meadow, and pasture land, but is also excellent for hop, turnip, tobacco grounds and vineyards” as well as “kitchen gardens and nurseries.”  In other words, any farmer, any gardener, or anybody else who raised crops or plants of any kind needed to try Varon Van Haake’s composition to see for themselves its positive impact on their endeavors.

Smith stated that he included “printed Directions for its use” free with every sale.  He also planned to insert “Certificates of its success” (or testimonials from satisfied customers) “in this and the other Papers on the continent,” suggesting that he was already in possession of such endorsements.  To further entice prospective customers, he offered a “five per cent discount” to customers who “take two hundred pounds weight at a time, or upwards.”  He also mentioned that he imported this product from England “last fall,” signaling to readers that he acquired it before the Continental Association went into effect so they could purchase it with a clear conscience.

Elsewhere in the same issue of the Pennsylvania Ledger, Smith published a lengthy advertisement for “Baron SCHOMBERG’s Grand Prophylactic LINIMENT” that supposedly prevented and cured “most venerial complaints.”  He included a statement from the “ingenious” chemist responsible for the liniment and noted that he provided printed directions “for its particular use.”  When it came to advertising Baron Van Haake’s composition for treating soil, Smith applied marketing strategies already familiar from the patent medicines that he sold.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 25, 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.

Pennsylvania Ledger (March 25, 1775).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (March 25, 1775).

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Providence Gazette (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (March 25, 1775).

March 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

North-Carolina Gazette (March 24, 1775).

“ADVERTISEMENTS, of a moderate Length, are inserted for THREE SHILLINGS the first Week, and TWO SHILLINGS for every Week after.”

Today, the North-Carolina Gazette makes its first appearance in the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project.  Few copies of this colonial newspaper from New Bern survive.  Clarence Brigham provides an overview of the publication history of the North-Carolina Gazette, noting that James Davis likely founded it on May 27, 1768, “judging from the date of the earliest issue located, that of June 24, 1768, no. 5.”  The volume numbering also suggests that “publication was suspended for several months between 1769 and 1773 and again in 1776.”[1]  The last known issue appeared on November 30, 1778.  Edward Connery Lathem reports “no copies extant” for 1770, 1771, 1772, 1773, and 1776 “few numbers known (usually less than 25% of those issued)” for 1768, 1769, 1774, and “complete or extensive coverage exists” for 1775, 1777, and 1778.[2]  America’s Historical Newspapers includes only seven issues that have been digitized for greater accessibility, all of them published in 1774.

The March 24, 1774, edition is the first of those issues.  In addition to news, letters, and the “POETS CORNER,” that issue carried nine advertisements, including two concerning enslaved people, that accounted for a quarter of the content.  The colophon at the bottom of the fourth and final page provided information about both subscription costs and advertising fees: “All Persons may be supplied with this PAPER at SIXTEEN SHILLINGS per Annum.  ADVERTISEMENTS, of a moderate Length, are inserted for THREE SHILLINGS the first Week, and TWO SHILLINGS for every Week after.”  Throughout the colonies, printers took a variety of approaches when it came to regularly publishing such information in their mastheads or colophons.  Some did not do so at all, some included only annual subscription costs, some listed only advertising fees, and some, like Davis, provided both.  He happened to charge the same price for advertisements as William Dixon and John Hunter’s Virginia Gazette and John Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette, both published in Williamsburg, suggesting that was the going rate in the region.  For some colonial newspapers it remains difficult or impossible to determine what printers charged for advertising.  Davis, on the other hand, incorporated that information for the North-Carolina Gazette into the colophon, making readily apparent the advertising fees and how much they cost relative to subscriptions.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 770.

[2] Edward Connery Lathem, Chronological Tables of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Barre, MA: American Antiquarian Society and Barre Publishers, 1972), 8, 12.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 24, 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.

North-Carolina Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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North-Carolina Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 24, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 24, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 24, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 24, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 24, 1775).

March 23

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (March 23, 1775).

“A FINE mezzotinto print of that truly worthy Patriot S.A.”

When Charles Reak and Samuel Okey set about publishing a “FINE mezzotinto print of that truly worthy Patriot” Samuel Adams in the spring of 1775, they believed that they could generate interest in their project in Boston.  Accordingly, they placed advertisements in the March 23 edition of the Massachusetts Spy and the March 26 edition of the Boston-Gazette. Reak and Okey chose among the five newspapers published in Boston at the time, selecting the two that consistently took the strongest stance in favor of the American cause during the imperial crisis that eventually became a war for independence.  The savvy entrepreneurs knew which publications would put their notice before the eyes of readers most likely to form a market for a print of the influential and vocal advocate for American liberties.

The advertisement did not go into much detail about the print.  It did not even name Adams, trusting that prospective customers would recognize him from the description and his initials, “S.A.”  They did give the size, “fourteen inches by ten and an half,” so readers could envision framing and displaying the print.  A note at the end of Reak and Okey’s notice in the Massachusetts Spy suggested that they had provided more information to the printing office and “[t]he remainder of this advertisement [will appear] in our next [issue].”  The Boston-Gazette, however, carried the same copy without any additions.  The Massachusetts Spy did not run any version of the advertisement again, neither the original nor an updated variation.  Isaiah Thomas, the printer, published only two more issues in Boston before the political situation got too hot for him to remain there.  He re-established the Massachusetts Spy in Worcester, safely away from British authorities, in May.  The Boston-Gazette did run Reak and Okey’s advertisement one more time, on April 3, but Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers (and local agents designated to sell the print of Adams) suspended the newspaper after publishing the April 17 edition.  Following the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord on April 19, they dissolved their partnership.  Edes moved to Watertown and continued publishing the newspaper from there in June.  The outbreak of hostilities almost certainly disrupted Reak and Okey’s plans for advertising and distributing their print of Samuel Adams.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 23, 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 23, 1775).

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Maryland Gazette (March 23, 1775).

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Maryland Gazette (March 23, 1775).

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Maryland Gazette (March 23, 1775).

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Maryland Gazette (March 23, 1775).

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Maryland Gazette (March 23, 1775).

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Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (March 23, 1775).

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New-York Journal (March 23, 1775).

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Supplement to the New-York Journal (March 23, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 23, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 23, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 23, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 23, 1775).

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Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (March 23, 1775).

March 22

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

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

Essex Journal (March 22, 1775).

“The mode of education adopted is similar to that of the most approved English Boarding-schools.”

When Eleanor Druitt moved to Newburyport from Boston in the spring of 1775, she placed an advertisement in the local newspaper, the Essex Journal, to announce that she planned to open a boarding school for “young Ladies.”  According to her notice, she had been in the colonies for just three years, yet in that time she had established a reputation for educating young women that she hoped would serve her well in her new town.  Druitt provided a “mode of education … similar to that of the most approved English Boarding-schools,” offering pupils in Massachusetts the same benefits.

The schoolmistress gave an overview of the curriculum, emphasizing that students would learn “French and English Grammatically” and “Writing, in which branch, Epistolary correspondence (that very essential though much neglected part of female education) will be introduced as an established part of their exercise.”  In other words, she taught young women how to write polite letters that would serve them well in maintaining relationships with family and friends in other cities and towns.  Her students also learned arithmetic, “made familiar by a method adapted to their capacities, the want of which makes that study generally disgustful and consequently often ineffectual.”  Druitt had a much higher estimation of young women’s aptitude for drawing, embroidery, and other kinds of decorative “Needle-work,” asserting that she “thinks needless to insert” a longer description “as her abilities in that way are well known in Boston and many other parts of the continent.”  The families of prospective pupils may have seen some of the advertisements she ran in Boston’s newspapers over the past three years since those publications circulated in Newburyport and other towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  In general, her curriculum focused on “polite accomplishment[s]” to distinguish the “young Ladies” that she “tenderly and carefully looked after.”

To that end, Druitt declared that the “faults and defects of the pupils [will] be rectified by mild and gentle usage.”  That meant “rewards and encouragement; rather than harsh severe treatment.”  Parents did not need to worry about the treatment their daughters would receive when boarding with Druitt, though she did state that she would adopt some of those stricter methods as a last resort when “absolutely necessary.”  The schoolmistress suggested that she established just the right balance of encouragement and discipline that allowed pupils at her boarding school to thrive.  Families had a variety of concerns as the imperial crisis intensified in the spring of 1775, but they need not worry about the “reception” their daughters would experience at Druitt’s boarding school.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 22, 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.

Pennsylvania Journal (March 22, 1775).

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Pennsylvania Journal (March 22, 1775).

March 21

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 21, 1775).

“Being resolved to decline his Retail Trade … he will sell his Stock of Goods on Hand at the very lowest Rates.”

George Bartram had been in business “At the Sign of the GOLDEN FLEECE’s HEAD” in Philadelphia for several years by the time he placed an advertisement in the March 21, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  He sometimes called his establishment the Woollen-Drapery and Hosiery WAREHOUSE and used visual elements to enhance his advertisements.  For instance, a decorative border enclosed the name of his business in some advertisements while others featured a woodcut that depicted that golden fleece’s head.  Earlier in his career, he kept shop “at the Sign of the Naked Boy.”  An even more elaborate woodcut replicated that sign with a naked boy holding a yard of cloth in a cartouche in the center, flanked by rolls of fabric on either side and the proprietor’s name below them.  Bartram was still using the golden fleece’s head woodcut to adorn his advertisements in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet in March 1775, but he did not have a second one to use in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.

Instead, he relied on advertising copy in making his pitch to prospective customers.  As he had often done in previous newspaper notices, Bartram emphasized the array of choices he made available to consumers, promoting a “large and fresh Assortment of MERCHANDIZE.”  To demonstrate that was the case, he inserted a lengthy list of goods, such as “Broadcloaths, of the neatest and most fashionable Colours, with suitable Trimmings,” “beautiful buff and white Hair Shags,” “rich black Paduasoys and Satins,” and “handsome Silk and Worsted Stuff for Womens Gowns.”  His intended for those evocative descriptions to entice readers.  He played to both taste and imagination by making choice a theme throughout his catalog of merchandise: “Handkerchiefs of all Sorts,” “a Variety of Cambricks suitable for Gentlemen’s Ruffles and Stocks,” “a large Assortment of brown and white Russia Sheetings and Hessians,” “an elegant Assortment of the best Moreens,” “a Quantity of the best Rugs,” and “a large Assortment of Hosiery.”

In a final nota bene, Bartram announced that customers could acquire his wares at bargain prices because he was going out of business.  He “resolved to decline his Retail trade” and “assures his Friends and the Public that he will sell his Stock of Goods on Hand at the very lowest Rates.”  He also offered a discount “to those who purchase a Quantity,” hoping that would offer additional encouragement for prospective customers.  Bartram did not indicate why he was closing his business, though the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement adopted throughout the colonies, may have presented an opportunity to liquidate his merchandise and get rid of items that had lingered on the shelves in his Woollen Drapery and Hosiery Warehouse.  Bartram was “SELLING OFF” his inventory, offering good deals on absolutely everything.