Adam Ide is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is a double major in History and Secondary Education. He is especially interested in different types of historiographical study. He recently defended his Honors thesis on the use of counterfactuals in historiographical studies. Beyond academics, Adam is the Sports Editor for Assumption University’s newspaper, Le Provocateur, as well as the Residential Assistant advisor to the Residence Hall Association. He is a recipient of the Light the Way Scholarship due to his work with children with autism spectrum disorder. He has made his contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.
Jack Healy is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is a History major with a minor in Theology. He describes himself as a history fanatic and a devout Catholic. His hobbies include collecting flags and prayer cards. He often uses the prayer cards as bookmarks. Jack made his contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.
Grace Crowley is a senior double majoring in History and Secondary Education at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her interest in history includes history from the “bottom up,” switching the focus of history to everyday people living through historical events.
On campus, Grace is an active member of the Assumption community. She is an Admissions Ambassador, Orientation Leader, First Year COMPASS Facilitator, and a Student Ambassador for Alumni. She also serves as the Student Leader of the new ASPIRE Program. For the past two summers, Grace has worked as the Student Leader of the Argentinian Summer Exchange Program that Assumption hosts every summer. Grace worked with more than fifty high school students from Argentina and their teachers who came to take classes and immerse themselves in American culture for the month of July.
Grace is also an active member of Hound Sound A Capella, the National Honor Society of Leadership and Success, and Phi Alpha Theta, the National History Honor Society.
In the future, Grace hopes to pursue a career in higher education, focusing on the success of students in their academic lives and beyond. She would also like to visit all of her students in Argentina.
Elizabeth “Ellie” Chaclas is a senior majoring in History and minoring in Art History at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She has loved reading her whole life and reads prolifically in her free time. She specializes in many different art forms, including, but not limited to, costuming, painting, mixed media illustration, writing, sculpture, analog photography, and film. Her work has appeared in art shows. On occasion, she performs on stage. Ellie is an equestrian on the university’s equestrian team. She has won several first places for the team and recently graduated to pre-novice class in shows. She has worked as a classroom learning assistant and has plans to a master’s program in Special Education as well as pursue her interests in art history and fashion history. Ellie 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.
Caroline Branch is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is majoring in History and minoring in Political Science. She plans to get her master’s degree in library science and history. Caroline is very passionate about her role as Opinion Editor at Le Provocateur, Assumption University’s student newspaper, and as secretary of Secondhand Hounds. In her free time, she enjoys dance, art, and historic fashion. Caroline spends her summers working at Camp Bernadette in New Hampshire as an activity head. During the school year she works at Assumption’s d’Alzon Library as a front desk supervisor. Caroline 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.
Kolbe Bell is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is a history major with a political science minor. He is also president of the Republicans’ Club on campus. He has always been history buff and, in particular, enjoys learning about the history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is an Eagle Scout; his Eagle Scout project was building bat houses to protect endangered brown bats in New England. Kolbe made his contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2023.
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 (February 1, 1774).
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Essex Gazette (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (February 1, 1774).
Madeleine Arsenault is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is from Stow, Massachusetts. Madeleine is majoring in History and Secondary Education. She plans to become a high school history teacher. She is the oldest of four kids, which contributed to her decision to become a teacher. She spent a semester at Assumption’s Rome campus where she was surrounded by history and loved every second of it. She loves to travel and be outside. In the summer, she spends as much time at the beach (especially on Cape Cod) as possible and tries to go to as many Red Sox games as possible. She is also a camp counselor for second and third graders. Madeleine made her contributions to the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project while enrolled in HIS 401 Revolutionary America in Fall 2023.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Connecticut Gazette (January 21, 1774).
“Greatly contribute towards the elevation and enlivening of Literary Manufactures.”
Both before and after the American Revolution, Robert Bell, one of the most influential publishers and booksellers of the eighteenth century, set about creating an American market for books. That did not always mean publications by American authors but rather editions printed in America for American readers. More than any other printer, publisher, or bookseller, Bell devised advertising campaigns that spanned the colonies in the early 1770s, distributing subscription proposals and inserting notices in newspapers from New England to South Carolina. His advertisement addressing “SAGES and STUDENTS of the LAW, in AMERICA,” for instance, appeared in newspapers in several colonies, promoting “American editions” of “celebrated works” undertaken by “ROBERT BELL, Printer and Bookseller, of Philadelphia.”
Readers of the Connecticut Gazette, published in New London, encountered Bell’s “SAGES and STUDENTS” advertisement in the January 21, 1774, edition. By then, the advertisement had been in circulation in various newspapers for several months as Bell attempted to cultivate a community of readers and consumers not bounded by local geography but instead defined by their common interest in “the elevation and enlivening of Literary Manufactures in America.” To that end, readers in New London and other places near and far had “had an opportunity of seeing at most of the booksellers shops in the capital towns and cities on the Continent, printed proposals with conditions and specimens” for “American editions” of several books, including “BACON’s new abridgment of the law,” “FERGUSON’s essay on the history of Civil Society,” and “A second American edition of Judge BLACKSTONE’s Commentaries on the laws of England.” For some of those books, Bell asserted that they matched “page for page with the last London edition,” yet he charged only half the price for the American edition. The savvy publisher wedded bargain prices and supporting American industry at a time when relations with Parliament deteriorated in the wake of the Tea Act.
To learn more about subscribing to these various American editions, prospective customers could view the conditions in the printed proposals as well as examine specimens (or samples) to confirm that the quality of the type, paper, and printing was not inferior to imported editions. Bell’s marketing efforts thus incorporated several media, not newspaper advertisements alone. Bell cultivated a network of printers and booksellers to disseminate his various forms of advertising in the public prints and in their printing offices and bookshops, enlisting distant associates in the project of encouraging a market for American editions of important and popular books.
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.
Connecticut Courant (December 14, 1773).
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Essex Gazette (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
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South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 14, 1773).
