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

“JOURNAL OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1775.”

On Wednesday, December 6, 1775, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, announced that “On FRIDAY Next, WILL BE PUBLISHED … [the] JOURNAL OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, HELD AT PHILADELPHIA, MAY 10, 1775.”  The contents of that volume covered the period from May 10 through August 1.  Throughout the colonies, readers had been able to follow news from the Second Continental Congress reprinted from newspaper to newspaper.  Local printers made editorial decisions about which items to include.  With this volume, however, readers gained access to the entire proceedings.  It supplemented the news they previously read or heard.  It also provided a convenient means of collecting the information in a single place, though some colonizers did save newspapers and one, Harbottle Dorr, even created an extensive index to aid him as he reviewed news of the imperial crisis that eventually became a revolution.

The Bradfords announced publication of the Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress in advance in hopes that the anticipation would incite demand.  They gave their advertisement a privileged place in their newspaper, placing it immediately after the news.  The “ARTICLES of CAPITULATION made and entered into between Richard Montgomery, Esq; Brigadier General of the Continental army, and the citizens and inhabitants of Montreal” on November 12 appeared in the column to the left of the Bradfords’ advertisement.  They may have hoped that news of an American victory in the two-pronged invasion of Canada that targeted Montreal and Quebec City would help to sell copies of the Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress.  In addition to publishing the journal documenting the first months of the Second Continental Congress, the Bradfords previously printed and advertised a complete journal of the proceedings of the First Continental Congress held in Philadelphia in September and October 1774.  Nearly as soon as that body adjourned, the Bradfords published and advertised a collection of Extracts that included “a List of Grievances” and the Continental Association, a nonimportation and nonconsumption agreement intended to use commercial leverage to achieve political goals.  Within a month of marketing the Extracts, the Bradfords made the complete journal available to the public.  These publications supplemented and expanded newspaper coverage of the debates and decisions made by delegates meeting in Philadelphia.