What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“His large and elegant STOCK of China, Glass and Earthern Wares.”
The extensive advertisement for a “large and elegant STOCK of China, Glass and Earthern Wares” that Joseph Stansbury ran in the May 4, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Ledger looked more like advertisements that appeared before the Continental Association went into effect on December 1, 1774, and before the war began on April 19, 1775. It filled an entire column, listing countless items that Stansbury sticked at his store “opposite Christ Church [in] Philadelphia.”
To help prospective customers navigate his inventory, Stansbury used headings for “CHINA,” “GLASS,” and “EARTHERN WARE.” To make the most efficient use of the space, he divided the column into two columns with a line of decorative type running down the center. Under each heading, he grouped similar items together and, when their description extended more than one line, indented the second and subsequent lines so the resulting white space guided readers. Some categories of goods were short, just two lines, such as “Rich enamelled tea-table sets complete” and “Blue and white soup terrines, two sizes.” Others were much longer, including one that extended for twenty-two lines. That one offered “Cream-pots, salts, mustards, pepper-castors, egg slices, custard cups, blamange moulds, cheese-toasters, cream-buckets, Italian lamps for the chambers of the sick, garden pots, flower horns, jarrs and beakers, sauce-boats, terrines, butter-tubs and stands, egg cups, bottles and basons, water dishes, fish drainers, cream cheese dishes, chamberpots, pattypans, baking dishes, compotiers, pudding dishes, pap boats, sallad dishes, plates, oblong dishes, mugs, jugs, childrens tea sets, whistling birds, &c.” The “&c.” (the abbreviation for et cetera commonly used in the eighteenth century) suggested an even greater array of goods available to consumers who visited Stansbury’s store. He promoted “a great choice of patterns” among his “Chocolate, & coffee tea-cups and saucers,” part of his larger theme of presenting all kinds of choices to consumers.
Stansbury encouraged the sort of conspicuous consumption that had become increasingly popular in the middle decades of the eighteenth century as colonizers participated in a transatlantic consumer revolution. A series of boycotts (known at the time as nonimportation and nonconsumption agreements) during the imperial crisis and then the disruptions to trade during the war prompted many merchants, shopkeepers, and consumers to suspend some of their operations or abstain from importing and purchasing all sorts of goods. Stansbury’s advertisement, however, testified to an active market or, at least, his desire to continue making sales despite the trying times. As a Loyalist, Stansbury may not have much cared about the Patriot position when he ran his advertisement. He was imprisoned later in 1776 for boisterously singing “God Save the King” and eventually served as an intermediary between Benedict Arnold and John André.