Benjamin Kneeland

January 14

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

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

Massachusetts Spy (January 14, 1773).

“AN ORATION on the Beauties of Liberty.”

An advertisement in the January 14, 1773, editions of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy announced the imminent publication and sale of a political pamphlet about “the Beauties of Liberty or the essential rights of the Americans.”  David Kneeland and Nathaniel Davis advised that the work was “Now in the press” and would be available in a few days.  The printers also noted that the pamphlet was “AN ORATION … Delivered at the second Baptist-Church in Boston, upon the last annual thanksgiving.”

Kneeland and Davis did not name the orator-author, perhaps expecting that many prospective customers already knew his identity as a result of having heard the sermon on liberty or heard about it from friends and acquaintances.  The title page attributed the Oration on the Beauties of Liberty to “A British Bostonian.”  The same author composed The American Alarm, published and advertised a few weeks earlier.  John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark identify both pamphlets as the work of John Allen, “a Baptist minister and recent émigré from England, politically disenchanted and personally discredited” for an incident involving a forged promissory note.[1]

According to Bumsted and Clark, the second of those pamphlets, the Oration, “proved to be one of the best-selling pamphlets of the pre-Revolutionary crisis, passing through seven editions in four cities between 1773 and 1775” and the “immense popularity of this fiery attack on British policy – specifically the appointment of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the burning of the Gaspee – marked the author as an agitator of considerable importance.”[2]  Advertising may have contributed to the popularity of the pamphlet, especially if Kneeland and Davis carefully chose which newspapers carried their notice.  Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, had a reputation as an agitator.  Benjamin Edes and John Gill, printers of the Boston-Gazette did as well.  Following the initial announcement about the pamphlet on January 14, Kneeland and Davis placed an advertisement in the Boston-Gazette on January 18, but opted not to insert notices in the other two newspapers published in the city that day, the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Their conceptions of the political sympathies of both the printers and readers of those newspapers may have played a role in selecting where to invest their limited funds for advertising.

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[1] John M. Bumsted and Charles E. Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine: John Allen and the Spirit of Liberty,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 21, no. 4 (October 1964): 562.

[2] Bumsted and Clark, “New England’s Tom Paine,” 561.

November 20

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

GUEST CURATOR: Patrick Keane

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

nov-20-11201766-massachusetts-gazette
Massachusetts Gazette (November 20, 1766).

“A general Assortment of Goods.”

I chose this advertisement because Bartholomew Kneeland ran a store that sold a wide variety of products that almost everyone during colonial times used. These products were “imported from London” to be sold at his store in Boston. Kneeland did not sell just one category of products; he sold items such as fabrics to make clothing, tea and spices, “Writing Paper,” “English and Poland Starch,” and “many other articles not mentioned.”

Many of these are everyday products were very much needed in colonial America; many continue to be important even today. I noticed a lot of materials that colonists used to make their own clothing and other necessities. According to Virginia Johnson, “Every colonial family except for the very rich had to be able to make their own soap, candles, furniture, cloth, baskets, toys, and musical instrument.” Families in colonial Boston needed the products Kneeland sold. This made me think of today and how most people do not need to make their own clothing and other household items.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

When Patrick and I met to review his advertisements together, I asked him to explain why he selected this particular advertisement for his first day as guest curator of the Adverts 250 Project. Of all the possible advertisements he could have chosen, what was it about this advertisement that attracted his attention. Patrick indicated that he noticed this advertisement because of its length and the number of consumer goods listed separately in its two columns. We then had a discussion in which we compared Bartholomew Kneeland’s advertisement to others that appeared in the same issue of the Massachusetts Gazette.

Kneeland’s advertisement appeared at the top of the first column on the second page of that issue. It extended approximately three-quarters of the way down the column. Readers would have noticed it not only because it was the first advertisement in that issue but also because it occupied so much space on the page. Immediately below it, another advertisement announced “West-India Goods” for sale but did not list any specific items. To the right, similar list-style advertisements by Thomas Hickling and Samuel Eliot extended the entire second and third columns, respectively. Other lengthy list-style advertisements appeared on the third and fourth pages of the issue.

Many other advertisements, however, were markedly shorter. Richard Salter and Joshua Blanchard, for instance, each inserted short advertisements that announced goods imported for London available at low prices, but they did not deploy a list of merchandise as an appeal to attract customers to their shop. One advertisement briefly stated, “Nathaniel Appleton, At his Shop in CORNHILL, has just opened: A General Assortment of English and India Goods, which he will sell cheaper than ever for Cash only.”

nov-20-11201766-appleton-massachusetts-gazette
Massachusetts Gazette (November 20, 1766).

Each advertiser attempted to incite demand and encourage potential customers to visit their shops, but they used different strategies. Bartholomew Kneeland and some of his competitors invested in lengthy list-style advertisements to demonstrate the variety of their merchandise and to make it more likely that readers noticed their advertisements. A quarter of a millennium later this method continued to succeed: Kneeland’s advertisement caught Patrick’s attention and prompted him to read through it to see what the shopkeeper offered for sale.