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November 19

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , ,

What kinds of principles were expressed in advertisements in colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Providence Gazette (November 19, 1774).

“VOTES and PROCEEDINGS of the AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.”

“RUN away … a Negro Man, named Prince.”

The press was a powerful engine for promoting freedom and rallying colonizers to resist abuses perpetrated by Parliament and, eventually, declare independence from Britain during the era of the American Revolution, yet it simultaneously aided in perpetuating the enslavement of Black and Indigenous people by publishing advertisements offering enslaved people for sale or offering rewards for the capture and return of those who liberated themselves by running away from their enslavers.  The juxtaposition of liberty and slavery in colonial newspapers was common, as Jordan E. Taylor has demonstrated in “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704-1807.”  Among the most stark examples he identifies, Solomon Southwick, the printer of the Newport Mercury, published the Declaration of Independence and an advertisement for a “NEGRO BOY” on July 18, 1776.[1]

Providence Gazette (November 19, 1774).

In addition to news and editorials advocating for liberty while advertisements perpetuated slavery, sometimes other advertisements also stood in such contrast.  On November 19, 1774, for instance, John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, inserted advertisements for “EXTRACTS From the VOTES and PROCEEDINGS of the AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS” and “ENGLISH LIBERTIES, OR, The free-born Subject’s INHERITANCE” in the same issue that carried an advertisement that described “a Negro Man, named Prince” who had liberated himself by running away from Thomas Wood earlier in the month.  The Adverts 250 Project has noted the publication and dissemination of the Extracts in several towns in the fall of 1774.  The Providence Gazette certainly was not the only newspaper that advertised this important political pamphlet while simultaneously running notices about enslaved people.  On November 2, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, were the first to announce that they published the Extracts.  In the same issue they ran two advertisements that sought to capture fugitives seeking freedom, one about “a Negro Man named CAESAR” and another an unnamed “NEGRO MAN” who “speaks Low Dutch.”  Almost all the newspapers carrying advertisements for the Extracts that the Adverts 250 Project has featured so far ran them alongside advertisements about enslaved people.  The juxtaposition of liberty and enslavement in revolutionary print culture that Taylor identifies was not merely incidental or occasional.  It occurred consistently, even in newspapers published in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

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[1] Jordan E. Taylor, “Enquire of the Printer: Newspaper Advertising and the Moral Economy of the North American Slave Trade, 1704-1807,” Early American Studies 18, no. 3 (Summer 2020): 313-4.

November 17

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Spy (November 17, 1774).

“To the whole is added, The ASSOCIATION of the Grand AMERICAN CONGRESS.”

Like many colonial printers, Isaiah Thomas generated significant revenue from publishing almanacs.  From the most affluent to the most humble households in port cities and in the countryside, each year colonizers acquired these handy reference manuals that included all kinds of information.  Thomas’s “NEW-ENGLAND ALMANACK, OR THE MASSACHUSETTS CALENDER, For the Year of our Lord Christ, 1775,” for instance, had everything from the tides or “Time of High Water” to a schedule of “the Superior and Inferior Courts setting in the four Governments of New-England” to poetry.  Thomas “Embellished” the almanac with two images, “one representing an Antient Astrologer, the other a FEMALE SOLDIER.”  The latter corresponded to the “LIFE and ADVENTURES of A FEMALE SOLDIER” that the printer promoted among the content of his almanac.  Practically every almanac included the tides and many listed the dates for important meetings in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, so Thomas and other printers sought ways to distinguish their almanacs from others, including images and novel stories.

Thomas anticipated doing brisk business with the contents that he selected for his almanac.  He announced that he sold it “by the Thousand, Hundred, Groce or Dozen, or Single,” offering peddlers, booksellers, and shopkeepers the opportunity to purchase in volume for resale.  A single copy cost “Six Coppers,” yet Thomas promised that “Very great Allowances are made to those who buy to sell again.”  In addition to turning a profit on his almanac, this patriot printer also wanted it disseminated widely because of a particular item that he inserted among the contents.  His almanac included “The ASSOCIATION of the Grand AMERICAN CONGRESS.”  He referred to the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement recently adopted by the First Continental Congress when it met in Philadelphia in September and October 1774.  The inclusion of the Continental Association distinguished Thomas’s almanac from others advertised in the same issue of the Massachusetts Spy, including “BICKERSTAFF’S BOSTON ALMANACK” published by Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks and “LOW’S ALMANACK” published by John Kneeland.  That newspaper also featured advertisements for two different editions of “EXTRACTS from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental CONGRESS,” which included the Continental Association.  Whether or not readers happened to purchase that political pamphlet, Thomas provided easy access to what they needed to know about the nonimportation agreement in an almanac that they would consult for a variety of purposes throughout the coming year.  He asserted that the Continental Association “is absolutely necessary for every American to be acquainted with” … and since so many colonizers already planned to purchase an almanac for 1775 they might as well become acquainted with the Continental Association by purchasing Thomas’s almanac, the one that he sought to distribute “by the Thousand, Hundred, Groce or Dozen” to get into as many households as possible.

November 16

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (November 16, 1774).

“For the better conveniency of his customers … leav[e] their orders at the store of Messieurs ROBERT and NATHANIEL LEWIS.”

Moving to a new location had caused some difficulty for Francis Wade, a brewer, prompting him to insert an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Journal in hopes of remedying the situation.  He formerly operated his brewery in the vicinity of “Hamilton’s Wharf, near the Draw-Bridge,” in Philadelphia, but in the fall of 1774 he could be found on Fourth Street “at the corner of Race-street.”  Wade reported that he had been “informed by a number of his friends,” likely including some of his former neighbors, “that his old country customers and other that inclined to deal with him, have been at a loss to find him out” since he moved.  Although many residents of the city knew about his new location, his “former customers” from the countryside did not have the same familiarity with the happenings in Philadelphia.  Since the Pennsylvania Journal circulated far beyond Philadelphia, Wade hoped that his notice would reach them and encourage them to seek him out on Fourth Street.

The brewer realized that his new location might not have been as convenient for some customers as his old one, so he used his advertisement as an opportunity to offer them an alternative.  Wade instructed “his customers down town, masters of vessels, shallopmen, and others” that they could place their orders at the store operated by Robert Lewis and Nathaniel Lewis.  When they did so, they could expect that they would “be served as expeditious as when he lived in that neighbourhood.”  Wade enlisted the aid of associates in his efforts to maintain and grow his client base, seeking to ameliorate an obstacle that he encountered following “his removal from his old Brewery.”  Working with the Lewises allowed him to maintain a presence in the vicinity of his former location.  Running newspaper advertisements made that presence visible to his “country customers” and other prospective customers.  Wade endeavored to sell “all sorts of BEER for exportation or home consumption as usual,” yet his move caused him to devise new methods of doing business that had not been part of his usual routine.

November 15

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (November 15, 1774).

“PUBLIC NOTICE in the three Gazettes of this Province.”

The section for “NEW ADVERTISEMENTS” in the November 15, 1774, edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal included a notice from David Deas and John Deas.  “OUR Co-partnership being now expired,” they declared, “we are desirous of brining all our Concerns in Trade to a speedy and final Settlement.”  Like many other merchants, shopkeepers, and other entrepreneurs, the Deases used a newspaper advertisement to call on associates to settle accounts.  Their notice replicated so many others that ran in newspapers throughout the colonies, including a threat of legal action against those who did not respond.  Any “Bonds, Notes, and Book Debts, due to us, which shall not be discharged or settled to our Satisfaction, on or before the 10th Day of March next,” they warned, “will then be put in Suit without Distinction.”  The Deases did not plan to make any exceptions for any reasons, so those with outstanding accounts needed to tend to them by the specified date.

Today, the Deases are best known among historians for their broadside advertising the sale of “A CARGO OF NINETY-FOUR PRIME, HEALTHY NEGROES, CONSISTING OF Thirty-nine MEN, Fifteen BOYS, Twenty-four WOMEN, and Sixteen GIRLS …from SIERRA-LEON” held in Charleston on July 24, 1769.  Yet that was not the only time that they leveraged the power of the press in advancing their business interests.  In this instance, they published their “PUBLIC NOTICE in the three Gazettes of this Province,” submitting it to the South-Carolina and American General Gazette and the South Carolina Gazette as well as the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  While inserting it in just one of those newspapers would have been sufficient to argue that they gave fair notice, running it in all three increased the likelihood that associates who owed them debts would see their announcement and take heed.  At the same time, placing the advertisement in all three newspapers increased their investment in the endeavor, apparently money the Deases considered well spent if it either had the desired results or gave them a stronger case when they had to resort to going to court.

October 9

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (October 6, 1774).

“ALMAN[A]CK … Ornamented with a large and elegant Engraving, representing the VIRTUOUS PATRIOT.”

When it came to buying almanacs, residents of Boston had many choices during the era of the American Revolution.  That meant that printers often advertised what made the almanacs they published distinctive from others on the market.  Such was the case for John Kneeland when he advertised Nathanael Low’s Astronomical Diary: Or, Almanack for the Year of Christian Aera, 1775 in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter in the fall of 1774.  The production of the almanac and its promotion resonated with current events as the imperial crisis intensified.  The Boston Port Act closed the harbor, the Massachusetts Government Act revoked the colony’s charter, and the other Coercive Acts punished the port city for the Boston Tea Party.

Kneeland informed prospective customers that this almanac was “Ornamented with a large and elegant Engraving, representing the VIRTUOUS PATRIOT at the Hour of Death.”  In addition to the usual contents, “every Thing necessary in an Almanack,” it also included a “long and sympathetic Address to the Inhabitants of Boston, with several other Pieces of Speculation, which tends to rend it not only useful, but entertaining.”  The engraving dominated the cover of the almanac.  It depicted a man, the “VIRTUOUS PATRIOT,” on his deathbed. A woman, presumably his wife, and three children kneeled in the foreground.  On the other side of the bed, a minister prayed while another man, perhaps a relative and likely another patriot, joined the family in their vigil.  Above the bed, an angel welcomed the “VIRTUOUS PATRIOT” into heaven.  A caption below the image stated, “IF Prayers and Tear th’ PATRIOT’s Life could save, None but usurping Villains Death would have.”

According to an auction catalog prepared by PBA Galleries, the “long and sympathetic Address” filled the first four pages of the almanac.  Echoing rhetoric that circulated in newspapers and pamphlets, the address “rails against the British,” assuring residents of Boston that “[Your countrymen] are sensible the heavy hand of power under which you are now groaning is designed only as a prelude to the utter abolishment of American freedom.”  The Coercive Acts, the address warned, would enslave the colonies to Britain.  (Two advertisements on the same page as the advertisement for the almanac in the October 6, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter concerned enslaved people, one presenting an enslaved woman for sale and the other offering a reward for the capture and return of an enslaved man who liberated himself by running away from his enslaver.)  The address proclaimed, “My dear brethren, the destiny of America seems to be suspended on the present controversy; and it is on your fidelity, firmness, and good conduct, for which you have so remarkably signalized yourself on all occasions, that a happy issue of it in a great measure depends.”  The advertisement for the almanac containing this address ran in the newspaper as the First Continental Congress continued its meetings in Philadelphia.  A month earlier, the colonial militia in Worcester County to the west of Boston had closed the courts and removed British authority in what has become known as the Worcester Revolution of 1774.  Six months after Kneeland advertised the almanac with the engraving and the address, a war for independence began with the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord.

Nathanael Low, An Astronomical Diary: Or, Almanack for the Year of Christian Aera, 1775 (Boston: John Kneeland, 1774). Courtesy PBA Galleries.

May 9

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (May 9, 1774).

“Cannot fail to give universal Satisfaction to their Customers.”

I originally selected this advertisement to further demonstrate that even though advertisers usually wrote the copy but left the format and other aspects of graphic design to compositors who worked in printing offices they sometimes gave instructions about how they wanted specific elements of how their notices to appear.  In this instance, John Barrett and Sons ran a lengthy advertisement enclosed within a border of decorative type in three newspapers simultaneously.  Their notice appeared in the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on May 9, 1774.  On closer examination, however, I discovered that this advertisement presents further evidence that printing offices in Boston sometimes shared type already set for advertisements.  A week ago, I documented this with Joseph Peirce’s advertisement.

As was the case with that notice, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy operated independently.  Among other newspapers, Barrett and Sons’ advertisement apparently originated in the Boston-Gazette before being reprinted in the Boston Evening-Post.  Notably, it ran next to Peirce’s advertisement in the May 9 edition, that type having made its way back to the printing office for the Boston-Gazette.  The visual evidence makes it difficult to dispute that some printers transferred type from one newspaper to another.  The printing ornaments that formed the border around the advertisement make that clear.  Even if the compositor for the Boston Evening-Post happened to copy the font, capitalization, italics, size, centering, left justification, right justification, and other format exactly from the Boston-Gazette, itself a highly unlikely scenario, matching the decorative type would have been practically impossible.  Note that the compositor chose one type of ornament for the upper and lower borders and a different ornament for the left and right borders, except for the last ornament before the right corner in the lower border.  In that position appears the same ornament from the left and right borders in the advertisements in both newspapers.  Furthermore, the compositor introduced one more variation midway down the left and right borders, marking where the side-by-side columns listing goods begin.  To the left of “Chints, Calicoes” and to the right of “An Assortment,” a different ornament appears, once again in both the Boston-Gazette and the Boston Evening-Post.

Barrett and Sons’ advertisement did not make it into the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, in any form, unlike the type for Peirce’s advertisement that seems to have been transferred from the Boston-Gazette and the Boston Evening-Post to that newspaper.  That might have been due to Richard Draper’s poor health and seeking a partner to assist him in running his printing office making such coordination too difficult at that moment.  Yet the type for Peirce’s advertisement made its way into that newspaper once again on May 12 after running in the Boston-Gazetteon May 9 (but not in the Boston Evening-Post for a second time on that day).  This suggests instead that Barrett and Sons, the advertisers, made decisions about which publications would carry their advertisement, likely based on their own marketing budget and sense of which newspapers had the best circulation.  This instance raises further questions about the coordination among printing offices, especially the logistics, the bookkeeping, and the fees.  These advertisements demonstrate that printers in Boston who usually competed with each other for both subscribers and advertisers cooperated on occasion when it came to inserting advertisements in their newspapers.

Left to right: Boston-Gazette (May 9, 1774); Boston Evening-Post (May 9, 1774).

Welcome, Guest Curator Clare Teskey

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized ,

Clare Teskey is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is majoring is Elementary Education and History, with a Concentration in STEM. She looks forward to focusing on American History with her future students. Beyond her studies, she is the President of Assumption University’s Habitat for Humanity chapter, the Secretary for Assumption’s Education Club, and a member of the Women’s Club Volleyball team on campus. Clare is also a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society. Clare made her contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.

Welcome, guest curator Clare Teskey!

Welcome, Guest Curator Maria Lepak

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized ,

Maria Lepak is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is pursuing a double major in History and Secondary Education and plans to be a middle school teacher. She is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honors Society and a recipient of the History Department’s Moggio Award for Outstanding Essay. She also participated in “We Protect Us: Early American Histories of Mutual Aid and Community Care,” the Fall 2022 American Studies Seminar at the American Antiquarian Society. Beyond her studies, Maria participates in an a cappella group on campus, is the president of a fashion sustainability club, and is a tutor for various history courses. Maria made her contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.

Welcome, guest curator Maria Lepak!

Welcome, Guest Curator Delia Lee

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized ,

Delia Lee is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She is majoring in History with minors in Education and Marketing. She is a member of the field hockey team and Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society.  Delia made her contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.

Welcome, guest curator Delia Lee!

Welcome, Guest Curator Madison Kenney

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized ,

Madison Kenney is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is a double major in History and Secondary Education. She plans to become a high school sistory teacher and is especially interested in the history of marginalized communities. In Spring 2024, she is student-teaching at Westborough High School.  Madison made her contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.

Welcome, guest curator Madison Kenney!