Boston Evening-Post

March 22

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

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

Boston-Gazette (March 22, 1773).

“An ORATION … to COMMEMORATE the BLOODY TRAGEDY of the FIFTH of MARCH 1770.”

Within a week of Benjamin Edes and John Gill announcing that “Dr. CHURCH’S ORATION will be Published by the Printers hereof as soon as possible,” advertisements for that pamphlet appeared in three of Boston’s newspapers.  Edes and Gill referred to the address that Dr. Benjamin Church delivered “At the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of BOSTON” on the third anniversary of the Boston Massacre “to COMMEMORATE the BLOODY TRAGEDY.”  Edes and Gill reported on the commemorations in their newspaper, the Boston-Gazette, on March 8, 1773, reporting that Church spoke about “the dangerous Tendency of Standing Armies” to the “universal Applause of his Audience.”  Furthermore, “his Fellow Citizens voted him their Thanks, and unanimously requested a Copy of his Oration for the Press.”  In the next weekly issue of the Boston-Gazette, Edes and Gill advised the public that they would soon publish Church’s Oration.

Boston Evening-Post (March 22, 1773).

Three days later, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter carried a notice that the “THIRD EDITION, corrected by the AUTHOR” was “Just Publish’d” and sold by Edes and Gill as well as Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the printers of the Boston Evening-Post.  Apparently, Joseph Greenleaf was the first printer to take Church’s Oration to press, but Edes and Gill produced a superior edition.  In promoting the third edition, the printers gave their advertisement a privileged place in the Boston-Gazette.  It appeared as the first item in the first column on the first page of the March 22 issue, making it difficult for readers to overlook.  The same day, the Fleets ran the same notice in the Boston Evening-Post.  Although not as prominently displayed as in the Boston-Gazette, the placement likely received special attention.  Rather than nestled among the dozens of advertisements on the third and fourth pages, it ran as the sole advertisement on the second page.  As readers moved from “Proceedings of the Town of Westminster” to news from London that arrived in the colonies via New York, they encountered the advertisement for Church’s Oration.  In its own way, that notice served as news, continuing the coverage of current events and shaping how colonizers viewed their place within the empire.

February 21

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

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

Boston Evening-Post (February 15, 1773).

“Early Charlton, early Hotspur, early Golden Hotspur.”

For colonizers in Boston and nearby towns, it was a sign that spring was coming!  The first advertisement for garden seeds appeared in local newspapers on February 15, 1773.  In the late 1760s and the early 1770s, seed sellers, most of them women, took to the pages of the public prints to advertise their wares when they believed that winter passed its halfway point.  Susanna Renken was the first in 1773, just as she had been in 1768 and 1770.  Soon, several other women who advertised seeds each year would join her, as would a smaller number of men.  Indeed, shopkeeper John Adams placed the second advertisement for seeds in newspapers printed in Boston in 1773, but it did not take long for women to outnumber him with their advertisements.

Renken, already familiar to many readers in part due to her annual advertising campaign, had the market to her herself for a few days.  On February 15, she ran notices with identical copy in two of the three newspapers published in Boston that day, the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette.  She focused primarily on a long list of seeds, but concluded by mentioning some grocery items, a “Variety of China Bowls and Dishes,” and an “Assortment of India and English Goods.”  Most of her female competitors usually did not promote other items, but Renken recognized an opportunity to encourage other sales, especially if customers were not quite ready to purchase garden seeds in the middle of February.  After all, many of the headlines in other advertisements still hawked “WINTER GOODS.

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

She had the public prints to herself for only three days.  Adams inserted his advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter on February 18.  Renken did not expand her advertising to that newspaper or the Massachusetts Spy.  Her next notices ran once again in the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette and, for the first time that year, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on February 22.  Other women who participated in the annual ritual joined her on that day, Elizabeth Clark and Nowell, Elizabeth Dyar, and Elizabeth Greenleaf in the Supplement to the Boston-Gazette and Elizabeth Greenleaf in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Ebenezer Oliver, who inherited the business from his mother, Bethiah Oliver, and invoked her name in his notice, also advertised in the Supplement to the Boston-Gazette, as did John Adams.  A few days later, John Adams, Elizabeth Greenleaf, and Ebenezer Oliver advertised in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and Lydia Dyar, Elizabeth Greenleaf, and Anna Johnson advertised in the Massachusetts Spy on February 25.  By then, Renken decided that she would increase the number of newspapers carrying her advertisements, perhaps after noticing that her competitors launched their campaigns.  She also placed a notice in the February 25 edition of the Massachusetts Spy.  For a few days Renken was the sole seed seller promoting her merchandise in Boston’s newspapers, but it soon became a very crowded field.

August 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (August 24, 1772).

“At the Sign of the STAGE COACH and FOUR on the one Side, and MAN and HORSE on the other.”

Shop signs identified a variety of businesses in colonial Boston.  Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, printers of the Boston Evening-Post, operated their printing office at the Sign of the Heart and Crown, a symbol so synonymous with their business that in an advertisement in the August 24, 1772, edition they advised readers of “Paper, To be Sold at the Heart& Crown” without giving any other details about the location.

In the same issue, Edward Wentworth, Jr., included two shop signs in his advertisement for a “Variety Shop” where he sold “All Sorts of West-India Goods, and many other Articles in the Grocery Way.”  He indicated that customers could find the shop “at the Sign of the STAGE COACH and FOUR on the one Side, and MAN and HORSE on the other,” perhaps appropriating signs that marked other businesses in directing customers to the “Variety Shop.”  The remainder of the advertisement suggests that Wentworth ran one or both of those other businesses as well.  He offered “Victualling, Lodging & Boarding for Gentlemen and good Keeping for Horses” as well as “Horses and Carriages to Let.”  The “Variety Shop” may have been a new venture, one that did not yet merit its own sign since others already marked its location.

Wentworth may have been quite content to stick with signs already familiar to residents of the South End, images they associated with his reputation, rather than hanging yet another sign, especially if he was uncertain how long he might run a “Variety Shop” in addition to a tavern.  After all, the devices on shop signs did not always directly correspond to the goods and services available in the shops they marked.  Residents of Boston knew that the Sign of the Heart and Crown adorned a printing office through experience, not because the image replicated the work undertaken there.  The Sign of the Stage Coach and Four and the Sign of the Man and Horse did correlate with “Victualling, Lodging & Boarding for Gentlemen and good Keeping for Horses,” but that did not preclude Wentworth from associating those images with other enterprises.   Rather than literal representations of the businesses they marked, shop signs often served as symbols meant to resonate with much more meaning.  They represented colonial entrepreneurs, their skills and reputations, not just the work they performed.

July 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (July 20, 1772).

“Ebenezer Oliver Hereby informs the Publick and the Customers of his late Mother …”

In the summer of 1772, Ebenezer Oliver ran advertisements to advise “the Publick and the Customers of his late Mother Mrs. Bethiah Oliver, deceased,” that he had for sale a variety of goods “at the Shop formerly improved by her, nearly opposite the Old South Meeting-House, in Boston.”  The inventory included a “fine Assortment of China, Cream-colour’d, Glass, Delph, Flint and Stone WARE” as well as tea, sugar, coffee, and spices.

Ebenezer placed more emphasis on marketing those items than his mother had before her death.  Between 1765 and 1771, she placed advertisements in several newspapers each spring, joining the ranks of female seed sellers who sought customers among the residents of Boston.  Most of those women advertised seeds exclusively, even though they likely sold other items.  On occasion, Bethiah listed additional items at the end of an advertisement for “All Sorts of Garden Seeds,” such as a “general Assortment of Glass, Delph and Stone Ware, Lynn Shoes, best Bohea Tea, Coffee, Chocolate, and all other Groceries” in a notice in the April 14, 1766, edition of the Boston Evening-Post.  In contrast, Ebenezer placed an advertisement that did not mention seeds at all, but did provide an extensive list of groceries organized in two columns.

He did not, however, immediately transform the advertisements placed by his mother.  Bethiah died in the spring of 1771.  The following spring, her name appeared as a headline in advertisements for “GARDEN SEEDS Just imported by Captain Scott, from LONDON” in several newspapers, including the April 6, 1772, edition of the Boston-Gazette.  That advertisement included an extensive list of seeds, similar to the lists Bethiah published in recent years.  On closer examination, readers noted that the advertisement specified that the seeds were “to be Sold at the Shop formerly improved by Bethiah Oliver.”  Ebenezer replicated the marketing strategy that his mother had deployed mother in the late 1760s and early 1770s, probably hoping that name recognition and customer loyalty would draw friends and former customers to the shop that he now operated.

When Ebenezer expanded his marketing efforts beyond selling seeds in the spring, he initially invoked Bethiah’s name and “the Shop formerly improved by her” as a means of enticing “the Customers of his late Mother.”  As spring approached in 1773, nearly two years after his mother’s death, Ebenezer placed advertisements for “GARDEN SEEDS … just Imported in Capt. Jarvis from London” that deployed his name as a headline and referred to “his Shop,” though he added “(formerly improv’d by his late Mother Mrs. Bethiah Oliver, deceased.”  In the February 25, 1773, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, he added a nota bene that alerted prospective customers that he also stocked “a fine Assortment of Cream-colour’d Ware, Glass, Delph, Flint and Stone Ware, with a general Assortment of Groceries.”  In so doing, he revived the format his mother formerly used but abandoned several years earlier when she decided that her notices in the public prints, like those of so many of her fellow female seed sellers, would focus exclusively on “GARDEN SEEDS.”

July 6

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

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

Boston Evening-Post (July 6, 1772).

“THE STAGE-COACH Between NEW-YORK and BOSTON.”

In the early 1770s, Jonathan Brown and Nicholas Brown placed advertisements seeking “encouragement” for stagecoach service they wished to establish between Boston and New York.  In addition to calling on the public to support them by traveling on their stagecoaches, the Browns sought investors “willing to become adventurers … in said undertaking.”  They outlined the various benefits of this service, including increasing commerce in the Connecticut as colonizers traveled through the province instead of bypassing it by sailing from New York to Providence and then continuing overland to Boston.

When summer arrived, the Browns launched the service on a trial basis.  They initially placed an advertisement in the June 25 edition of the New-York Journal to announce that the “STAGE COACH BETWEEN NEW-YORK AND BOSTON … for the first Time sets out this Day.”  In the following days, they placed additional advertisements in the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford, and the Connecticut Journal, published in New Haven.  On July 6, their advertisement from the New-York Journal appeared in the Boston Evening-Post, alerting the public at that end of the line that the stagecoach paused in Hartford for a week and would arrive in Boston on July 11.  The Browns planned for the next trip to depart on July 11, so prospective passengers had nearly a week to make plans if they wished to travel at that time.  If demand warranted, the operators intended to “perform the Stage once a Week.”

The advertisement in the Boston Evening-Post included one element not included in the New-York Journal.  A woodcut depicting horses, a driver, and a stagecoach with a passenger visible inside appeared at the top of the advertisement.  That helped to draw attention to their notice by distinguishing it from others, especially since it was the only advertisement in that issue that incorporated an image (though Jolley Allen’s notice on the following page did feature his trademark border).

In hopes that their “Trial” would find sufficient “Encouragement” to establish a permanent route that ran once a week, the Browns placed advertisements in several newspapers along their route.  They did not, however, advertise as extensively as possible, perhaps due to budgetary constraints.  They could have flooded the market with advertising, placing notices in both newspapers printed in New York, all five in Boston, and even any in Philadelphia for prospective passengers who planned to travel north.  Perhaps they wished to assess the return on their investment for their initial round of advertising before expanding to additional publications.

June 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (June 29, 1772).

“Not one single Article in the Store was bought of any Merchant in this Country.”

William Jackson regularly placed advertisements in several newspapers published in Boston in the late 1760s and early 1770s.  In addition to those notices, he distributed a trade card, engraved by Paul Revere, that depicted the “BRAZEN HEAD” that marked his location “next ye Town House.”  He eventually marketed his shop with another name, calling it “Jackson’s Variety Store” to call attention to the array of choices he made available to consumers.  In his newspaper notices and on his trade card, Jackson listed some of his merchandise.  In a notice in the June 29, 1772, edition of the Boston Evening-Post, for instance, he promoted a “full and compleat Assortment of English, India & Hard-Ware GOODS, consisting of Cloths of all Kinds, Linnens of all sorts, Calicoes, … Brass Kettles, London and Bristol Pewter, … an elegant Assortment of Looking-Glasses, Paper Hangings, [and] Wilton and Scotch Carpets.”

In a note at the end of that notice, Jackson assured “Wholesale and Retail Customers” that they “may depend that not one single Article in the Store was bought of any Merchant in this Country.”  Instead, he imported his wares directly “from the BEST Hands in ENGLAND, via LONDON, BRISTOL, and LIVERPOOL.”  That allowed him to sell his inventory “extremely Cheap” because he did not deal with middlemen on either side of the Atlantic.  Going to the manufacturers rather than through merchants meant that he could pass along savings to his customers rather than marking up goods as much as his competitors.  Jackson apparently considered this an effective marketing strategy.  A year earlier, he informed prospective customers that he “has been in England himself the last Winter, and has visited most of the manufacturing towns.”  As a result of that trip, Jackson “flatters himself that he has his Goods upon as good Terms as any Merchant in the Town.”  In a subsequent advertisement, he asserted, “Wholesale and retail Customers may depend upon having goods” at his store “as cheap as at any store or stop in town, without exceptions, as all his goods are from the best hands in England.”  If Jackson did not believe that this appeal resonated with consumers then he probably would not have published so many variations of it.  Many merchants and shopkeepers combined appeals about low prices and extensive choices.  Jackson devised a means of making those appeals distinctive.  He did not merely claim to offer low prices but also explained how he was able to do so.

June 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (June 22, 1772).

“A great Variety of European & India Goods.”

Many advertisers sought to convince prospective customers that they offered an array of choices to meet their tastes and budgets.  In the June 22, 1772, edition of the Boston Evening-Post, Timothy Newell promoted his “general Assortment of Hard Ware Goods.”  John Nazro hawked a “general Assortment of English, India, Irish and Scotch GOODS” and a “great Variety of Cutlery & Braziery Wares; with all Sorts of West-India Goods, Spices and other Groceries.”  Smith and Atkinson announced that they carried a large and very general Assortment of Piece GOODS.”  William Jackson even named his shop “Jackson’s Variety Store.”

Among the merchants and shopkeepers who made appeals to consumer choice in that edition of the Boston Evening-Post, William Scott published the lengthiest advertisement in an effort to demonstrate many of the different kinds of merchandise available at his “IRISH LINNEN Store.”  He listed dozens of items, from “Strip’d and flower’d bordered Aprons and Handkerchiefs” to “a variety of Ebony and Ivory paddle-stick & Leather Mount Fans” to “blue and white, red and white, green & white Furniture Checks with Nonesopretties to match” to “a variety of plain and striped and sprigg’d Muslins, such as Jaconets, Mull-Mulls, Mainsooks, Golden Cossacs, strip’d Doreas, and Book Muslins.”  The names of some textiles may seem unfamiliar to modern readers, but colonizers immersed in the consumer revolution readily identified Scott’s merchandise.  For some of these items, Scott offered an even larger selection, using descriptions like a “variety,” a “large assortment,” a “great variety,” and an “elegant assortment” to indicate that he often listed categories of goods rather than individual items.

In their advertisement, Smith and Atkinson declared it “would be equally tedious and unnecessary to enumerate” their inventory.  Scott disagreed … and he was willing to pay for the additional space necessary to transform his newspaper advertisement into a miniature catalog that accompanied the news in that issue of the Boston Evening-Post.  That did not stop him from adapting the strategy deployed by Smith and Atkinson.  Scott proclaimed that in addition to those items that he listed in his advertisement he also had “too great a Variety of small Goods to be inserted in this Advertisement.”  Where Smith and Atkinson signaled exasperation with lists of goods, Scott expressed disappointment that he could not provide an even more elaborate accounting of his merchandise for his customers.

Scott apparently considered this strategy worth the investment.  He ran the same advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy, thus placing it in three of the five newspapers published in Boston at the time.  He presumably expected an appropriate return on his investment or else he would have followed the lead of competitors who composed much shorter advertisement.  Scott encouraged consumers to imagine the many and varied choices that awaited them at his store, but he did not leave it solely to their imaginations.  He prompted them with a catalog of his wares in hopes that they would visit his shop to see for themselves.

June 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (June 1, 1772).

“He fears that some Folks would call it Puffing.”

Recently the Adverts 250 Project featured Andrew Dexter’s advertisement to examine the type seemingly set in one printing office and transferred to others, but the copy merits attention as well.  Dexter attempted to entice prospective customers into his shop with a notice that mocked and dismissed many of the most popular marketing strategies of the period.

He began by stating that he sold ‘GOODS of various Sorts, fresh and new, from different Ports, but then refused to give details or elaborate.  Many merchants and shopkeepers gave that information.  Dexter critiqued the practice, proclaiming that he could mention the Ships by which he received them, and the Names of the respective Commanders; but most People know that this would not affect either the Quality or Price.”

Dexter then turned to other common elements of advertisements for imported goods.  “He could assert, that they were bought with ready Money, came immediately from the Manufacturers, and are the best of the several Kinds that were ever imported.”  Wanting it both ways, he implied that all of that was the case, but then called into question all of the advertisements that deployed such strategies.  “All of this he could say.– All of this, indeed, is easily said.”  He then leveled his most trenchant critique of a popular marketing strategy.  “But if he should add, that Shopkeepers might have his English Goods as cheap as from the Merchants in London, he fears that some Folks would call it Puffing, & others would give it even a worse Name.”

He continued to imply that he offered bargain prices without stating that he did so.  “If his Goods are cheaper than they are sold at any other Shop in Town, ‘tis abundantly sufficient.  He will not, however, roundly affirm any such Thing.”  Only after deriding the appeals made by his competitors in their advertisements did Dexter definitively present a reason for readers to visit his shop.  “He only wishes good People, Country Shopkeepers in particular, as they pass along, would be kind enough to call, and inform themselves.”  Figuring prospective customers engaged in comparison shopping, he acknowledged that they ultimately made decisions based on the information they gathered, no matter how much “Puffing” he included in his advertisements.

Ultimately, Dexter sought to build relationships with prospective customers, whether or not they bought anything the first time they visited his shop.  “After they have viewed every Article he has got, tho’ they should not then chuse to purchase even one of them,” he confided, “he will nevertheless own himself under great Obligations, and will kindly thank them for having given him Reason to hope, that, at some future Time, they will favor him with their Custom.”  Dexter prioritized prospective customers giving him the opportunity to serve them, now or in the future, over any of the usual appeals merchants and shopkeepers made about imported goods.  To underscore his intention, he jeered at the claims made in other advertisements, though he never denied that they also applied to his own merchandise.  He encouraged prospective customers to decide for themselves.

May 25

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (May 25, 1772).

“ALLEN … will sell … at a very little more than the Sterling Cost.”

Jolley Allen made his advertisements in the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston Gazette, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter easy to recognize in the spring of 1772.  Each of them featured a border comprised of ornamental type that separated Allen’s notices from other content.  Allen previously deployed this strategy in 1766 and then renewed it in the May 21, 1772, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  Four days later, advertisements with identical copy and distinctive borders ran in three other newspapers printed in town.  Allen apparently gave instructions to the compositors at the Boston Evening-Post and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Those advertisements had copy identical to the notice in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, but the compositors made different decisions about the format (seen most readily in the border of Allen’s advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy).  Allen’s advertisement in the Boston-Gazette, however, had exactly the same copy and format as the one in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  For some of their advertisements, newspapers in Boston apparently shared type already set in other printing offices.

That seems to have been the case with Andrew Dexter’s advertisement.  He also included a border around his notice in the May 21 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  The same advertisement ran in the Boston Evening-Post four days later.  It looks like this was another instance of transferring type already set from one printing office to another.  The compositor for the Boston Evening-Post may have very carefully replicated the format of Dexter’s advertisement that ran in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Mercury, but everything looks too similar for that to have been the case.  In particular, an irregularity in closing the bottom right corner of the border suggests that the printing offices shared the type once a compositor set it.  They might have also shared with the Boston-Gazette.  Dexter’s advertisement also ran in that newspaper on May 25.  It had the same line breaks and italics as Dexter’s notices in the other two newspapers.  The border looks very similar, but does not have the telltale irregularity in the lower right corner.  Did the compositor make minor adjustments?

It is important to note that these observations are based on examining digitized copies of the newspapers published in Boston in 1772.  Consulting the originals might yield additional details that help to clarify whether two or more printing offices shared type when publishing these advertisements.  At the very least, the variations in Allen’s advertisements make clear that he intentionally pursued a strategy of using borders to distinguish his advertisements in each newspaper that carried them.  The extent that Dexter meant to do the same or simply benefited from the printing offices sharing type remains to be seen after further investigation.

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Left to Right: Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Mercury (May 21, 1772); Boston-Gazette (May 25, 1772); Boston Evening-Post (May 25, 1772); Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (May 25, 1772).

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Left to Right: Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (May 21, 1772); Boston Evening-Post (May 25, 1772); Boston-Gazette (May 25, 1772).

April 29

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

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

Boston-Gazette (April 27, 1772).

“Oils … Paints … Varnishes … GUMS.”

John Gore and Son’s advertisement in the April 27, 1772, edition of the Boston-Gazette raises all sorts of interesting questions.  An identical advertisement appeared in the April 23 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  This does not seem to have been just a case of an advertiser inserting the same notice in multiple newspapers.  That was quite common in the 1770s, especially in Boston.  Yet this was not simply an instance of an advertiser writing out the copy more than once and then submitting it to more than one printing office.  Yes, the copy was identical … but so was the format and every aspect of typography, from the design of the table listing different kinds of paints to the line breaks to font sizes to capitalization of certain words.  Rather than a compositor copying an advertisement as it appeared in another newspaper, this looks like Richard Draper’s printing office outright transferred type already set for the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter to Benjamin Edes and John Gill’s printing office for publication in the Boston-Gazette.

That was not the only instance of such a transfer in the April 27 edition of the Boston-Gazette.  John Barrett and Sons ran an extensive advertisement that previously appeared in Draper’s newspaper on April 23.  So did Joseph Peirce.  To further complicate matters, both of these advertisements also ran in the April 27 edition of the Boston Evening-Post. Once again, this does not seem to have been merely an instance of a compositor consulting an advertisement in another newspaper when setting type.  Instead, the type from one printing office found its way to another printing office.

The placement of these advertisements on the page in each newspaper contributes to some confusion about the sequence of events.  Take into consideration that a standard issue consisted of four pages created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folding it in half.  Printers often printed the front and back pages first, filling them with the masthead, colophon, and advertisements.  They saved the second and third pages for the latest news.  Peirce’s advertisement ran on the fourth page of the April 27 edition of the Boston-Gazette, suggesting that the compositor received the type from the April 23 edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly Mercury fairly quickly.  That also allowed sufficient time to pass along the type to the Boston-Evening Post for inclusion in a two-page supplement that consisted entirely of advertising.  That timing makes sense.

The timing for inserting Barrett and Sons’ advertisement in each newspaper, however, does not seem as clear.  It ran on the first page of the April 27 edition of the Boston-Gazette, printed at the same time that Peirce’s advertisement was printed on the fourth page.  It did not, however, run in the supplement to the Boston Evening-Post or even on the second or third pages among the last items inserted in the standard issue.  Instead, it appeared on the fourth page, presumably making it one of the first items printed for that issue.  The compositor did eliminate the final eight lines listing several imported goods in order to make the advertisement fit among the other content on the page, but did not make other alterations.  That someone transferred the type from one printing office to another so quickly for it to appear in the Boston-Gazette and the Boston Evening-Post on the same day suggests a very efficient operation.

This raises questions about the organization and collaboration between printing offices.  Who assumed the responsibility for transferring the type for these advertisements from one printing office to another?  Did they make sure that the type was returned to its original printing office?  Did any of the printing offices adjust the prices they charged for running these advertisements based on whether they invested time and labor in setting type?  How extensive were these practices of transferring type from one printing office to another?  These are all questions that merit further investigation.

Left: Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (April 23, 1772). Right: Boston-Gazette (April 27, 1772).

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Left: Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (April 23, 1772). Center: Boston-Gazette (April 27, 1772). Right: Boston Evening-Post (April 27, 1772).