Address to Readers

June 21

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (June 21, 1776).

“ISAIAH THOMAS, having relinquished the Printing business in Worcester.”

The title changed from Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy to The Massachusetts Spy with issue “NUMB. 269” on June 21, 1776.  Two months earlier, Isaiah Thomas informed readers that he intended to remain in Worcester “for the present,” but since then he decided to pursue new opportunities in Salem.  He previewed that decision in a notice in the May 31 edition, the last one he published.  In a lengthy address on the first page, William Stearns and Daniel Bigelow, the new “publishers of this Paper,” informed the public that Thomas “relinquished the Printing business in Worcester” to them.  They now occupied the printing office “near the COURT-HOUSE,” where they undertook “the various branches of said business with the utmost care and fidelity, and will exert their utmost efforts to procure authentic intelligence of affairs, in the various parts of this continent and elsewhere.”  They hoped to attract customers for job printing as well and maintain and expand their subscribers.

The title shifted slightly, but the subtitle, American Oracle of Liberty, remained the same.  Stearns and Bigelow made their editorial stance clear in their address.  “At a time when OUR ALL is at stake, when no less than the fate of the STATES of AMERICA is in agitation,” they proclaimed, “then (of all times) the means of conveying intelligence ought to be encouraged.”  That meant that subscribers had a duty to continue to subscribe and others had a responsibility to support Worcester’s only newspaper by becoming subscribers, placing advertisements, and sharing news as they received it in letters and by other means.  In turn, the printers would do their civic duty.  “The liberty and free exercise of the PRESS,” Stearns and Bigelow continued, “is the greatest temporal safeguard of the state—it assists the civil magistrate in wielding the sword of justice—holds up to public view the vicious, and in their odious colours— … —It detects political impostors, and is a terrific scourge to tyrants.”  Readers could expect the same vigilance and advocacy for the American cause from Stearns and Bigelow that Thomas had a reputation for delivering.

Following Stearns and Bigelow’s address, Thomas inserted a brief notice in which he expressed “sincere thanks to those gentlemen who have settelled with him for News-Papers for the year past.”  The spelling error may have been an actual error rather than an eighteenth-century variation.  Despite their pledge to “do services highly beneficial to their oppressed brethren” in central Massachusetts, their skill as printers paled in comparison to Thomas.  For his part, the printer did not offer words of encouragement or general expressions of gratitude as he departed Worcester.  After thanking subscribers who already settled accounts, he called on those who still owed to “pay their respective balances” to Stearns and Bigelow.  After a hiatus of three weeks, a new issue of the Massachusetts Spy carried news (and a couple of advertisements) to readers.  When news of the Declaration of Independence reached Worcester about three weeks later, Thomas may (or may not) have made the first public reading in New England, but he no longer ran his own newspaper.  He published an account of the battles at Lexington and Concord in the first edition of the Massachusetts Spy printed in Worcester, but now others would cover the Declaration of Independence and its reception in the commonwealth of Massachusetts and other states.

July 17

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (July 14, 1774).

“The great and daily Increase in the Number of Customers to this Paper.”

John Holt’s address to readers of the New-York Journal in the July 14, 1774, edition did not include an element that many likely expected to encounter.  It did not request that subscribers and others who owed money for goods and services provided by Holt’s printing office send payment or else face legal action.  Colonial printers frequently ran such notices, what Isaiah Thomas, printer of the Massachusetts Spy, termed a “‘dunning’ advertisement” a month earlier.  Instead, Holt expressed appreciation to his customers and expounded on the satisfaction he derived from serving the public by disseminating the news.

He also took the opportunity to promote the New-York Journal to readers who were not yet subscribers, commencing his notice by noting a “great and daily Increase in the Number of Customers to this Paper.”  Drawing attention to an increase in circulation also signaled to prospective advertisers that placing notices in the New-York Journal would be a good investment, especially since Holt’s newspaper competed with the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and Rivington’s New -York Gazetteer.  Yet he framed the recent increase in subscribers as approval of “the Sentiments and Measures he has from Inclination and a Sense of Duty endeavoured to inculcate and promote for the public Good.”  For instance, the front page of that edition featured two items reprinted from the South-Carolina Gazette that Holt “republished both on account of the excellent sentiments they express, which are equally applicable to all the British Colonies, and to show that our brethren in South Carolina concur with the other Colonies in resenting and opposing the tyrannical acts of the British Parliament.”  The first of those editorials encouraged colonizers to “UNITE,” echoing the sentiments expressed in the “UNITE OR DIE” image that recently replaced the British coat of arms in the masthead.

Holt allowed that more customers meant “private Advantage to himself,” alluding to more revenue in his printing office, but emphasized that his editorial decisions “have been generally acceptable to all Ranks of People.”  He considered this a “double Pleasure,” while leaving no doubt that he regarded serving the public more important than earning his livelihood.  The printer asserted that “he shall ever receive more Pleasure from those Advantages he may receive in common with the Society of which he is a Member than in those peculiar to himself.”  Positioned first among the advertisements in that issue of the New-York Journal, Holt’s notice did not explicitly make demands of readers, neither to settle accounts nor to become subscribers.  Instead, the printer cultivated support for his newspapers in a more subtle manner, explaining that “the public Good” motivated his editorial perspective and gently suggesting to readers that they become patrons of a newspaper that was already increasing in circulation because “all Ranks of People” appreciated his approach to delivering news and editorials.