Alexander Purdie

June 10

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 10, 1773).

“A CATALOGUE of BOOKS, STATIONARY, &c.”

Alexander Purdie and John Dixon, the printers of the Virginia Gazette, placed a full-page advertisement in the June 10, 1773, edition of their newspaper.  Their “CATALOGUE of BOOKS, STATIONARY, &c. To be SOLD at the PRINTING OFFICE, WILLIAMSBURG,” occupied the entire third page.  While rare, full-page advertisements were not unknown in eighteenth-century newspapers.  Printers and booksellers, especially newspaper printers who also sold books, most frequently adopted this format, but merchants and shopkeepers sometimes utilized it as well.

Purdie and Dixon’s catalog consisted of four columns with one title per line throughout most of it.  They organized the entries first by size, with headings for “FOLIOS,” “QUARTOS,” “OCTAVOS,” and “DUODECIMOS.”  Within each category, the printers arranged the entries roughly in alphabetical order according to the author’s name or the title of the book.  They also had auxiliary categories for “FRENCH SCHOOL BOOKS,” “GREEK SCHOOL BOOKS,” and “LATIN SCHOOL BOOKS,” in the fourth column.  To conserve space, titles of school books, many of them familiar to prospective customers, appeared in paragraphs rather than each receiving its own line.  Rather than a header for “STATIONERY” (or “STATIONARY” as it was most commonly spelled in the eighteenth century), a line indicated where the list of writing supplies and other items began.  There, once again, Purdie and Dixon listed only one item per line to help prospective customers navigate their catalog.

In addition to inserting their catalog in their newspaper, Purdie and Dixon may have published it separately and distributed it via other means, as they seemingly had done on at least one previous occasion.  They could have passed it out to customers who visited their printing office.  Treating it as a broadside, the printers could have posted it around town or made arrangements for associates in other towns to hang it in their stores and shops.  They may even have folded it over, sealed and addressed it, and had it delivered to prospective customers, though printers and others experimented with circular letters less often than they distributed broadsides, handbills, and catalogs in the eighteenth century.  The catalog might have appeared solely in the Virginia Gazette, but given the printers’ access to the press and their other efforts to distribute book catalogs it seems more likely that they published and disseminated this catalog separately as well.

January 17

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (January 14, 1773).
“ADVERTISEMENTS coming to this Office from any other those with whom we have Accounts, unless the NEEDFUL accompanies them, will be paid no Regard to.”

In the second edition of the Virginia Gazette published in 1773, Alexander Purdie and John Dixon, the printers, inserted a notice addressed to “CUSTOMERS who have never paid a Farthing since the Commencement of our Partnership (very near Seven Years).”  They made the usual sorts of threats that printers throughout the colonies made when they found themselves in similar situations.  They vowed not to deliver any more newspapers to those recalcitrant subscribers.  In addition, those who did not settle accounts “before the ensuing April General Court” could expect that they “will be put in the Hands of an Attorney to bring Suit.”  Other customers had also neglected to pay their bills, including some who “have owed us a great Deal too long for BOOKS and STATIONARY.”  They would receive “the same Treatment, if they do not pay in a very short Time.”

The printers did not mention whether they previously extended credit to advertisers who also neglected to make payments.  Many printers required advertisers to pay in advance, but not all did so.  A note that Purdie and Dixon added at the end of their notice indicated that, no matter their policy in the past, certain advertisers had to submit payment along with any advertising copy directed to the printers.  “ADVERTISEMENTS coming to this Office from any other those with whom we have Accounts,” the printers advised, “unless the NEEDFUL accompanies them, will be paid no Regard to.”  In other words, prospective advertisers had to send payment or else Purdie and Dixon would not print their notices.  The colophon specified that advertisements “of a moderate Length” cost three shilling for the first week, covering the cost of setting type as well as the amount of space they occupied, and another two shillings for each additional insertion.  Given that subscriptions cost twelve shillings and six pence per year, Purdie and Dixon may have been able to wait seven years for some subscribers to pay their bills because they collected payment for most advertisements before publishing them.  In such an instance, advertising accounted for a more significant revenue stream than subscriptions.

September 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (September 5, 1771).
“PURDIE and DIXON have imported a fresh Assortment of all Kinds of Paper.”

Like many other colonial printers, Alexander Purdie and John Dixon took advantage of their access to the press to insert advertisements for goods and services they provided in the newspaper they published.  Such was the case in the September 5, 1771, edition of the Virginia Gazette.  Interspersed among the paid notices, the printers included their own advertisement for a vast array of imported goods.

Purdie and Dixon deployed a standard list format, creating a dense block of text.  Within their advertisement, however, they did organize their merchandise according to three main categories:  stationery wares, music, and patent medicines.  Many printers created additional revenue streams by selling books, stationery, and writing equipment.  Purdie and Dixon stocked “a fresh Assortment of all Kinds of Paper, fine large Dutch and Hudson Bay Quills, fine Japan Ink, shining Sand, red and black Dutch Sealing Wax,” and a variety of other items to equip any desk for business or correspondence.  They also carried several pieces of music, including “Midas, the Padlock, and Love in a Village, for the Harpsicord, Voice, German Flute, Violin, or Guitar” and “eight Italian Sonatas for two Violins or Flutes, with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsicord, by several eminent Composers.”  The printers had on hand both popular and genteel selections to suit the tastes of their customers.  Furthermore, most printers and booksellers who included music among their titles did not indicate such an extensive selection.  Purdie and Dixon concluded by enumerating a dozen patent medicines, including many of the most common ones marketed from New England to Georgia.  “Bateman’s Pectoral Drops; Stoughton’s Squire’s, and Daffy’s Elixirs; [and] Turlington’s Balsam” required no further explanation because they were so familiar to consumers.  That may have been one of the reasons that printers frequently supplemented their stock of books and stationery with patent medicines, even if they did not sell other sorts of consumer goods.

Purdie and Dixon’s printing office “at the POST OFFICE” in Williamsburg was a hub for collecting and disseminating information, but it was also a place to go shopping.  They made available a variety of equipment for writing, all kinds of sheet music for entertainment, and an assortment of patent medicines for customers to treat illnesses and chronic conditions.  In addition to the fees they generated for subscriptions, advertising, and job printing, Purdie and Dixon also generated revenues from selling items from select categories of imported goods.

March 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Mar 20 - 3:17:1768 Virginia Gazette Purdie and Dixon
Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 17, 1768).

“ADVERTISEMENTS (of a moderate Length) inserted in it for 3s. the first Week, and 2s. each Week after.”

Alexander Purdie and John Dixon published the Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg in 1768. William Rind also published the Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg in 1768, though it was not the same newspaper despite bearing the same name. The printers competed for subscribers, readers, and advertisers as well as customers for job printing. Most eighteenth-century printers did not regularly list their rates for subscriptions or advertisements in their newspapers, but Purdie and Dixon did so in the colophon of their Virginia Gazette, as did Rind in the colophon of his Virginia Gazette.

Not surprisingly, the competitors set the same rates. An annual subscription cost 12 shillings and 6 pence. Advertisements were much more lucrative for printers. Purdie and Dixon specified that colonists could have “ADVERTISEMENTS (of a moderate Length) inserted … for 3s. the first Week, and 2s. each Week after.” Rind named the same prices, though he also offered a further clarification: “long ones in Proportion.” Among eighteenth-century printers who did publish their advertising rates that was a standard practice. Purdie and Dixon most likely adopted the same practice even if they did not underscore it in the colophon of their Virginia Gazette. What qualified as an advertisement “of a moderate Length” likely depended on negotiations between printer and advertiser. Neither Purdie and Dixon nor Rind indicated whether they defined length by the number of words or the amount of space on the page or both. Although the two would have been roughly proportional, inserting woodcuts or deploying several lines of type set in larger font did occupy more space.

These rates reveal that advertising could generate significant revenues that contributed to making it possible for printers to publish their newspapers and disseminate news and other content, including editorial pieces like the tenth missive in the “LETTERS From a FARMER in Pennsylvania to the inhabitants of the British colonies” that appeared in both Virginia Gazettes on March 17, 1768. In “Letter X,” John Dickinson warned about the progression of tyranny that colonists could expect if the current abuses by Parliament were not challenged but instead became precedent for future governance from the other side of the Atlantic.

At 12 pence per shilling, a subscription to either Virginia Gazette cost 150 pence total, just under 3 pence per issue. An advertisement, however, cost twelve times as much, three shillings, just for its first insertion. This model, advertising funding the distribution of other content, continued into the nineteenth century and beyond with the introduction of new media made possible by advancing technologies. Although we take this system for granted today and even lament the intrusion of advertising into practically every aspect of daily life, colonists depended on advertising for its role in delivering the news at a crucial point in American history. Advertising provided an important alternate revenue stream for printers, helping them to spread news and editorial content during the imperial crisis that eventually resulted in the American Revolution.

November 15

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

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

Nov 15 - 11:12:1767 Virginia Gazette
Virginia Gazette (November 12, 1767).

“A large ASSORTMENT of STATIONARY.”

Purdie and Dixon’s advertisement reveals several aspects of consumer culture, commercial exchange, and everyday life in colonial America, yet when considered alone it tells only a partial story of print culture and advertising practices in the eighteenth century. When disembodied from the rest of the newspaper in which it appeared, this advertisement does not fully communicate how readers would have interacted with its visual aspects. Viewers get a sense of the typography – different font sizes, the selective use of italics and capitals, and the deployment of white space – but cannot compare those details to their treatment in other advertisements. Only in examining the entire page or the entire issue does the full significance of the typographical choices become apparent.

When viewing Purdie and Dixon’s notice in isolation, it would be natural to consider the size of the font throughout most of the advertisement to be the standard or default size. The quasi-headline “STATIONARY” stands out not only because it appeared in italics and capitals but especially because the compositor chose a font significantly larger than that used for the remainder of the text. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that font size replicated what was used in other advertisements in the same issue. Throughout the rest of the newspaper, both advertisements and news items appeared in a significantly smaller font, making them appear more dense and more difficult to read. By printing their advertisement in a larger font, Purdie and Dixon called special attention to it.

In addition, this advertisement occupied a privileged place in the November 12, 1767, edition of the Virginia Gazette. The four-page issue featured slightly over one page of news items; advertisements filled nearly three pages. About one-third of a column of news flowed onto the second page before a header for “Advertisements” indicated the purpose of the remaining content. Purdie and Dixon’s advertisement, with its larger font, appeared at the top of the second (and middle) column on the second page. This positioned it at the head of the first full column devoted to advertising, practically implying that the advertisements began there rather than at the header (printed with much smaller type). As a result of these typographical decisions, readers turning from the first to second page likely noticed Purdie and Dixon’s advertisement before their gaze landed anywhere else. Any readers who intended to continue perusing the news could hardly help but notice “STATIONARY” immediately to the right of what little news appeared on the second page. (Purdie and Dixon may have been especially keen to sell as much stationery as quickly as possible since the Townshend Act, which assessed new duties on imported paper, was scheduled to go into effect just eight days after their advertisement appeared.)

While it may be tempting to dismiss all of this as circumstantial, keep in mind that Alexander Purdie and John Dixon printed the Virginia Gazette. While they may not have set the type themselves, the compositor would have acted on their behalf as the publishers of the newspaper. The typography benefited their business interests in particular, an element that gets lost when viewing just their advertisement but not the entire page or the rest of the issue in which it appeared. As printers, they exercised power over what appeared in their publication, but they also exercised privilege in the presentation of the selected contents.

To examine the entire issue of the Virginia Gazette, visit Colonial Williamsburg’s Digital Library.