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June 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (June 22, 1775).

“The doctors family medicines, which are well known in most parts of the continent.”

Doctor Yeldall ran his advertisement for remedies available “at his medicinal ware-house” on Front Street in Philadelphia in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer at the same time that it appeared in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  He did, after all, claim that the “doctors family medicines” that he produced as an alternative to other patent medicines were “well known in most parts of the continent” and advised that “any person in the country may, be sending an account of their disorder … have advice and medicines as the nature of their complaint may require.”  Yeldall operated the eighteenth-century version of a mail order pharmacy.  Advertising in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer: Or, the Connecticut, Hudson’s River, New-Jersey, and Quebec Weekly Advertiser placed his notice before the eyes of many more prospective patients.  In addition to selling medicines, Yeldall also performed medical procedures.  Two of the four testimonials in the original advertisement described restoring sight “by taking off the film” from a patient’s eye and repairing “the deformity of a Hare-Lip.”  New York was close enough to Philadelphia that Yeldall may have expected that some prospective patients who exhausted their options in one place would travel to Philadelphia in hopes that he would successfully treat them.

The advertisements in the two newspapers were nearly identical.  The use of capital letters and italics varied, likely the result the decisions made by compositors in the two printing offices.  That was usually the case when advertisers submitted the same copy to multiple newspapers.  The version in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer lacked the longest of the four testimonials that ran in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  The compositor might have removed Alexander Martin’s description of how Yeldall “recovered me to my perfect health” after being “afflicted with a consumptive disorder for upwards of three years” in the interest of space.  Yeldall’s advertisement ran at the bottom of the final column on the third page of the June 22, 1775, edition of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, making it one of the last items inserted during the production of that issue.  The compositor, lacking space for the entire advertisement, may have simply removed one of the testimonials.  The notice still made the point that Yeldall supposedly cured several patients who “could obtain no relief” until they sought medical care from him.

January 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Braydon Booth-Desmarais

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

Norwich Packet (January 19, 1775).

“A fresh ASSORTMENT of DRUGS, and GENUINE PATENT MEDICINES.”

Benjamin Dyer Published this advertisement in the Norwich Packet on January 19, 1775.  The advertisement says that he was selling many items, including “GENUINE PATENT MEDICINES,” at his shop in Norwich-Landing.  Patent medicines were available to anyone without needing a prescription.  According to the American Antiquarian Society’s Past Is Present blog, “Usually patent medicines were made of relatively inexpensive ingredients sold at high prices. It is important to know that because many patent medicines did not explicitly list their ingredients.”  Due to this the people selling the items can make claims about what was in the medicine without being fact checked.  It is also important to realize that Dyer referred to all the medicines as “GENUINE,” meaning that whatever was supposed to be in each medicine was in that medicine. Another interesting thing about this advertisement was how it listed each type of medicine that he sold instead of just saying that medicines were available.  I believe that this is because he wanted to show that he had a large number of medicines available.  Shopkeepers like Dyer tried to convince people that their “ASSORTMENT” of medicines were truly genuine and not fakes.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

When Braydon and I met to discuss the advertisement that he selected to examine for the Adverts 250 Project, we talked about patent medicines as the over-the-counter medications of the eighteenth century.  They were so familiar to consumers that they did not need descriptions of what each did.  Readers of the Norwich Packet recognized, for instance, Turlington’s Balsam of Life and knew which illnesses, complaints, or discomforts that nostrum treated.  Stoughton’s Elixir, Godfrey’s Cordial, and Bateman’s Drops were the name brands of the period.  When consumers had access to multiple remedies that purported to treat the same symptoms, many had favorites based on experience and reputation.  Reading the list of “GENUINE PATENT MEDICINES” in Dyer’s advertisement in 1775 would have been similar to browsing the aisles of a pharmacy in 2025.

As I worked on other aspects of producing the Adverts 250 Project and Slavery Adverts 250 Project beyond working with Braydon on developing his entry, I noticed another interesting aspect of Dyer’s advertisement.  In addition to running it in the Norwich Packet, he also inserted it in the Connecticut Gazette, published in New London, on January 20.  That increased the circulation of his advertisement, placing it before the eyes of many more prospective customers. This aspect of Dyer’s marketing campaign resonates with the analysis of yesterday’s advertisement, also selected by a student in my Revolutionary America course, that ran in the Connecticut Journal, published in New Haven.  Connecticut had four newspapers, printed in four towns, yet each circulated widely throughout the colony and beyond.  Many advertisers dispatched advertising copy to printing offices in more than one town.  In addition to Dyer’s advertisement, the January 19, 1775, edition of the Norwich Packet featured a notice from clock- and watchmaker Thomas Harland.  He simultaneously ran an advertisement in the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford.  In his case, he ran two different advertisements rather than submitting identical copy.  Though both advertised in more than one publication, Dyer and Harland made decisions that suited their needs when it came to which messages for consumers they wished to disseminate in which newspapers.

August 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Supplement to the Connecticut Journal (August 26, 1774).

“Just published in New-York, And to be sold … in New-Haven, a Pamphlet just arrived from London.”

Printers in several cities published American editions of Considerations on the Measures Carrying On with Respect to the British Colonies in North-America in 1774, including Benjamin Edes and John Gill in Boston, John Holt in New York, Benjamin Towne in Philadelphia, and Ebenezer Watson in Hartford.  The Adverts 250 Project has examined advertisements for this “Pamphlet just arrived from London” that Edes and Gill ran in their own Boston-Gazette and Holt ran in his own New-York Journal.  Both newspapers had reputations for ardently supporting the patriot cause, making it no surprise that their printers would publish and sell a tract outlining the “absurdity and wickedness” of the Coercive Acts that Parliament passed in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party.

Other colonizers joined those printers in their efforts to disseminate the pamphlet.  At the end of August, for instance, the Connecticut Journal carried an advertisement that promoted the edition “Just published in New-York” by Holt.  Readers could purchase it from David Atwater, Jr., in New Haven.  In addition to supplying Atwater with copies of the pamphlet, Holt also provided the copy for the advertisement.  After the introduction that listed Atwater as the local agent who sold the pamphlet, the main body of the advertisement featured copy identical to Holt’s advertisement.  It was the same copy that Edes and Gill appropriated for their advertisement.  Atwater made one small revision to the final note, adjusting the price to suit the currency in Connecticut.

That four printing offices published the pamphlet suggests that it circulated widely in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.  However, printing and advertising the tract did not necessarily result in sales.  On the other hand, Edes and Gill produced multiple editions, suggesting that they did indeed find buyers for it.  Even if readers did not choose to purchase the pamphlet, they encountered the same rhetoric about the “ruinous consequences” of the Coercive Acts when they perused newspaper advertisements.  As short editorials, those notices buttressed the arguments made in news items and letters that were reprinted from newspaper to newspaper throughout the colonies.

May 8

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

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

Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (May 5, 1774).

“City Tavern, Philadelphia.”

When the City Tavern opened in Philadelphia, Daniel Smith inserted advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Packet in February 1774.  The opening had been much anticipated in that city, following the efforts of some of the most prominent residents to erect the building via subscription.  In 1772, Samuel Powel entrusted the land to seven wealthy colonizers.  In turn, those “Gentlemen Proprietors” oversaw a “voluntary subscription of the principal gentlemen of the city” to raise funds to build the tavern and then selected Smith to lease and operate the City Tavern.

About three months after his advertisement ran in Philadelphia’s newspaper, it appeared in the Supplement to the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter on May 5.  It featured identical copy and, except for the headline, identical format in terms of capitalization and italics.  Smith may have written it out exactly, but just as likely he clipped the advertisement from his local newspaper and sent it to Richard Draper’s printing office in Boston.  Alternately, he could have sent instructions to reprint the notice from a newspaper that Draper received via his exchange networks with other printers, but Smith would not have been certain that Draper received the issues that originally carried his advertisement.  Given that the tavernkeeper proclaimed that he “fitted up a genteel Coffee Room, … properly supplied with English and American papers and magazines,” he likely corresponded directly with Draper, ordering a newspaper subscription and arranging to run his advertisement in the public prints in Boston.

That advertisement provided a brief history of the City Tavern that would have been familiar to many residents of Philadelphia yet new to readers in Boston.  Smith hoped to impress prospective visitors to his city with the “largest and most elegant house occupied in that way [as a tavern, coffeehouse, and inn], in America.”  He emphasized his own “very great expence” in furnishing it with “every article of the first quality, in the stile of a London tavern.”  Indeed, when John Adams traveled to Philadelphia to attend the First Continental Congress several months later, he described it as “the most genteel [tavern] in America.”[1]  That was the reputation Smith hoped to cultivate, not only in his city but throughout the colonies.  He positioned the City Tavern as a destination itself, not just a place to eat, drink, and lodge while visiting Philadelphia.

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[1] See entry for August 29, 1774, in John Adams diary 21, 15 August – 3 September 1774 [electronic edition]. Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive. Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/

November 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Newport Mercury (November 29, 1773).

“THESE PILLS ARE NOW SOLD BY HUGH GAINE.”

Colonial printers often supplemented the revenues they generated from subscriptions, advertising, and job printing by selling books, stationery, blanks, … and patent medicines.  Hugh Gaine, the printer of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, and James Rivington, the printer of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, competed with each other and with apothecaries to sell “KEYSER’s FAMOUS PILLS,” a cure for syphilis and other maladies, in the fall of 1773.  Rivington also supplied William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, with pills that he imported.  As he perused newspapers printed in Philadelphia, Rivington noticed that Townsend Speakman and Christopher Carter, chemists and druggists in that city, advertised that they sold Keyser’s Pills acquired directly from James Cowper, “Doctor of Physick” and “the only legal proprietor” of that medicine in England.  Rivington sent the Bradfords a letter testifying that he received the pills he forwarded to them directly from the son of the late Keyser, residing in Paris.  The Bradfords promptly published that letter in an advertisement that ran immediately below the one placed by Speakman and Carter.

Rivington was not alone in his efforts to gain as much of the market beyond New York as he could.  Gaine looked to the north, advertising in the Newport Mercury.  His notice appeared at the top of the first column on the first page of the November 29 edition of that newspaper, a place of prominence that likely garnered some attention.  A headline in a larger font than anything else on the page except the title of the newspaper in the masthead also enhanced the visibility of the product that Gaine peddled.  This advertisement replicated the copy of Gaine’s notice in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury a week earlier, though it did not retain the format.  Gaine’s advertisement in the Newport Mercury lacked a decorative border and the multiple manicules that pointed to each letter in “KEYSER,” though it still featured a representation of a “Seal” at the end of the transcription of the certificate of authenticity sent to Gaine by Keyser’s widow.  Gaine did not list Solomon Southwick, the printer of the Newport Mercury, or any other associates in Newport as local agents who sold Keyser’s Pills on his behalf.  He apparently expected that readers would submit orders to him in New York, an eighteenth-century version of mail order medications.

August 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-London Gazette (August 27, 1773).

“WATCHES are restored to their pristine vigour.”

A month had passed since Thomas Hilldrup, a “WATCH MAKER from LONDON” who recently relocated to Hartford, inserted an advertisement that originally ran for several weeks in the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford, in the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy as well.  When he did so, he revised the dateline to “July 20, 1773,” but did not otherwise alter his advertising copy.  Near the end of August, he decided that he wished for the same notice to run in the New-London Gazette.  He once again altered the dateline, this time to “Aug. 20, 1773,” but did not make other changes.  Apparently, the watchmaker felt confident in his address to prospective customers as it appeared in the Connecticut Courant for the past two months.

By the time he placed that notice in the New-London Gazette, Hilldrup had been in Connecticut for the better part of a year.  He had been there long enough that it was not the first time that he attempted to extend his share of the market by saturating the newspapers published in the colony with his advertisements.  He initially published an advertisement in the September 15, 1772, edition of the Connecticut Courant and then revised it a month later.  Over time, he placed the revised advertisement in the Connecticut Journal on January 8, 1773, and in the New-London Gazette three weeks later.  The watchmaker established a pattern of starting with a single newspaper, the one printed in his own town, and then attempting to reach other prospective customers in the region though the same advertisement in other newspapers.

Such industriousness may have caught the attention of John Simnet, a watchmaker in New York, as newspapers published in Connecticut circulated beyond that colony.  Simnet learned his craft in London and had decades of experience working with clients there, a point of pride that he frequently highlighted in his advertisements.  Given his background, Simnet also promoted himself as the only truly skilled watchmaker in the area.  He had a long history of denigrating his competitors in his advertisements.  The cantankerous Simnet may have taken exception to Hilldrup’s arrival on the scene, considering Hartford too close for a competitor who listed similar credentials in his advertisements.  He had not previously placed notices in any of the newspapers printed in Connecticut, but decided to run an advertisement in the January 26, 1773, edition of the Connecticut Courant.  In choosing the newspaper published in Hartford, Hilldrup’s new location and a town more distant from New York than New Haven and New London, Simnet increased the chances that Hilldrup would see his advertisement.

For his part, Hilldrup did not respond directly to Simnet in the public prints, but he did follow the other watchmaker’s lead in making veiled references to competitors in an advertisement in the April 27 edition of the Connecticut Courant.  The headline for that advertisement, “WATCHES! only,” seemed to comment on a notice in which Enos Doolittle offered his services repairing clocks and watches in the previous issue.  In addition, Hilldrup included a nota bene that seemingly mocked Doolittle for hiring a journey who completed an apprenticeship in London, proclaiming that “I am capable of going through the business myself without any assistance.”  That nota bene also appeared in the original iteration of Hilldrup’s second advertisement that eventually found its way into multiple newspapers, though he removed it after several weeks in the Connecticut Courant.

As Hilldrup worked to cultivate a clientele that would secure his position in Hartford, he published advertisements in newspapers in several towns.  Achieving that kind of reach with his notices was only part of his marketing strategy.  In addition to engaging prospective customers, those advertisements put Hilldrup in conversation with competitors, directly and indirectly.  Rather than mere announcements that readers might easily dismiss, the watchmaker crafted messages that resonated beyond any single issue of a colonial newspaper.  In an advertisement that eventually appeared in all three newspapers published in Connecticut, he requested “the favour of those gentlemen who are or may be satisfied of his abilities, to assist in recommending” his services to others.

July 24

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

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

Providence Gazette (July 24, 1773).

“Best ANCHORS … In NEW-YORK.”

For quite some time in 1773, William Hawxhurst “In NEW-YORK” advertised widely, seeking customers for the “Best ANCHORS, Made of Sterling Iron,” among mariners in several colonies.  Consider the notice that appeared in the Providence Gazette on Saturday, July 24.  During the previous week, the same advertisement ran in the Newport Mercury on Monday, July 19, the Connecticut Courant (published in Hartford) on Tuesday, July 20, and the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy and the New-London Gazette on Friday, July 23.  Curiously, Hawxhurst did not place notices in any of the newspapers published in New York.  Perhaps he relied on personal connections and the visibility of the anchors “in a Yard between [Burling’s] Slip and Byvank’s Store, on the Dock,” to market them to prospective customers in that busy port.  The publications he did choose for his advertisements represented every newspaper in Connecticut and every newspaper in Rhode Island, suggesting that he carefully crafted a regional marketing campaign.

In addition to the anchors, Hawxhurst advertised other goods.  Several years earlier, he “erected a Finer and great hammer, for refining the Sterling pig iron, into bar” in New York.  He continued to produce and sell “the best Sterling-refined Iron, warranted good” and “Pig-Iron of the Sterling new Mine, cast in Cinder, warranted good” as well as “Scythe [Iron]” and “Keen’s best Bloomery Iron.”  Hawxhurst also made clear that he was willing to barter, accepting several commodities, including “pickled Cod Fish, Mackarel, Liver-Oil, and New-England Tobacco,” in exchange for anchors and iron.  That list of commodities certainly reflected what mariners operating from ports in Connecticut and Rhode Island could offer as payment.  While he had the attention of readers of several newspapers, Hawxhurst also announced that he sought to hire a “Person well qualified to manufacture Steel from Pig Iron, in the German Way.”  Like many advertisements that appeared in early American newspapers, this one served multiple objectives that defied classification for a single purpose.  It ranged widely in terms of both distribution and the results that the advertiser wished to achieve.

April 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (April 13, 1773).

“Said Hooks, also Cod-Lines, to be sold by WILLIAM VANS, in Salem.”

In the early 1770s, Abraham Cornish made “New-England Cod & Mackrell FISH-HOOKS … At his Manufactory” in Boston’s North End.  To promote his product, he placed advertisements in the Massachusetts Spy, printed in Boston, and in the Essex Gazette, printed in Salem in March and April 1773, hoping to capture the attention of fishermen in both maritime communities.  He presented his hooks as an alternative to those imported to the colonies, describing them as “the best Cod and Mackrell Hooks,” yet he did not ask prospective buyers to take his word for it.  Instead, he declared that “Fishermen who made Trial of his Hooks last Season, found them to correspond with his former Advertisement” in which he presented his hooks as “much superior to those imported from England.”

Cornish did not address solely the fisherman who would use his hooks.  He also called on those who supplied them to stock his hooks made in Boston in addition to those they acquired from England.  He set prices “as cheap by Wholesale for Cash on delivery” as imported hooks, hoping that the combination of price and quality would prompt retailers to add them to their inventory.  Cornish believed that various members of the community should demonstrate their interest in supporting the production of fish hooks in Boston, calling on “all Importers, and those concerned in the Fishery” to purchase his product.  To cultivate brand recognition, he noted that his hooks “are all marked A.C. on the Flat of the Stem of each Hook.”  In an earlier advertisement, he also noted that he packaged them in “paper … marked ABRHAM CORNISH” and called attention to his initials on each hook in order to “prevent deception” or counterfeit products.

To aid in distributing his wares, Cornish recruited a local agent in Salem.  His advertisement in the Essex Gazette stated that William Vans, a merchant who frequently placed his own advertisements, sold “Said Hooks.”  Vans, however, did not generate the copy for the notice about Cornish’s hooks.  The text replicated what appeared in the advertisement in the Massachusetts Spy, with the addition of a nota bene about the marks on each hook and an additional sentence identifying Vans as the local distributor.  The version in the Essex Gazette lacked the characteristic woodcut depicting a fish that adorned Cornish’s advertisements in the Massachusetts Spy.  Like most other advertisers who incorporated visuals images, Cornish apparently invested in only one woodcut.  He depended on the strength of the advertising copy when hawking his hooks in a second market.

March 23

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

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

Connecticut Courant (March 23, 1773).

“A motive to Gentlemen in Business to give orders for the Papers.”

As he prepared to launch a new newspaper, “RIVINGTON’s NEW-YORK GAZETTEER; OR THE CONNECTICUT, NEW-JERSEY, HUDSON’s-RIVER, AND QUEBEC WEEKLY ADVERTISER,” James Rivington continued to expand his advertising campaign in newspapers in New York, New England, and Pennsylvania.  He placed a notice in the Connecticut Courant on March 23, 1773, a full month after his first notices appeared in the Newport Mercury and the Pennsylvania Chronicle on February 22.  Except for the brief advertisement in the Newport Mercury, the much more extensive subscription proposals in the other newspapers all provided an overview about how Rivington envisioned that his newspaper would include content that distinguished it from others.  In many ways, he proposed a hybrid of a newspaper and a magazine, a publication that “will communicate the most important Events, Foreign and Domestic” as well as the “State of Learning” with the “best modern Essays,” a “Review of New Books,” and coverage of “new Inventions in Arts and Sciences, Mechanics and Manufactories.”

For readers of the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy, Rivington also attempted to incite interest through noting that “the Merchants and Traders of New-York, have universally patronized this Design, and their Advertisements will constantly appear in the Gazetteer.”  Given New Haven’s proximity to New York, Rivington apparently believed that consumers and retailers there would find such advertisements by merchants and shopkeepers in the bustling port as interesting and as useful as the rest of the content.  He made a similar pitch to residents of Hartford in his notice in the Connecticut Courant.  Following the paragraph describing the news and essays he planned to include in the newspaper, the printer expressed his hope that the “general support and promise of Mr. Rivington’s Friends, to Advertise in his Gazetteer … may be a motive to Gentlemen in Business to give orders for the Papers, which will be very regularly sent to the Subscribers.”  Rivington envisioned that advertising, in addition to coverage of “the Mercantile Interest in America, Departures and Prices Current, at Home and Abroad,” would facilitate commerce between New York and smaller towns in neighboring Connecticut.  He suggested to prospective subscribers in Hartford and New Haven that they consider advertisements placed by “Merchants and Traders” in New York as valuable sources of information, as newsworthy and practical in their own right as reports about current events.

March 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (March 18, 1773).

“PROPOSES to publish a Weekly NEWS-PAPER.”

James Rivington continued to expand his marketing campaign to gain subscribers for his new newspaper, “RIVINGTON’s NEW-YORK GAZETTEER; OR THE CONNECTICUT, NEW-JERSEY, HUDSON’s-RIVER, AND QUEBEC WEEKLY ADVERTISER,” with an advertisement in the March 18, 1773, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Mercury.  Nearly a month earlier, he commenced advertising in newspapers with a brief notice in the Newport Mercury on February 22.  That same day, he placed a longer notice in the Pennsylvania Chronicle.  That version became the standard that Rivington published, with minor variations, in other newspapers, including the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal on February 24, the Connecticut Journal on February 26, and the Pennsylvania Packet on March 1.  On March 8, he informed readers of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury that the “first Number” of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer “shall make its Appearance in the month of April” and requested that “Gentlemen who may be inclined to promote the Establishment of this Undertaking” send their names “as soon as convenient, which will determine the Number he shall print of the first Paper.”

For prospective subscribers in Massachusetts, Rivington provided directions for contacting local agents.  “Subscriptions taken,” he declared, “by Messrs. Cox and Berry and Dr. M.B. Goldthwait, at Boston.”  Otherwise, the proposal in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Mercury replicated those that ran in the newspapers published in Philadelphia.  For some reason, that initial notice in the Newport Mercury differed significantly from those that ran in half a dozen other newspapers in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.  The overall consistency of those subscription proposals amounted to a regional advertising campaign that delivered the same content to prospective subscribers in several colonies.  Members of the book trade – printers, booksellers, and publishers – devised the vast majority of advertising campaigns that extended beyond a single town in the eighteenth century.  Merchants and shopkeepers frequently placed advertisements in multiple newspapers published in their town; the purveyors of goods, rather than the products they sold, defined the geographic scope of their markets since most producers did not advertise the items they made.  Even when merchants and shopkeepers in several towns sold the same items, such as patent medicines, they did not participate in centralized advertising campaigns coordinated by the producers of those items.  Markets confined to colonial cities and their hinterlands, however, often could not support printed items, such as books and pamphlets, so printers, booksellers, and publishers developed advertising campaigns that placed the same notices in newspapers throughout a region or even throughout the colonies.  Rivington adopted that model in marketing a newspaper that he also intended would serve readers far beyond his printing office in New York.