Breeches

October 16

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

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

Connecticut Courant (October 16, 1770).

“They have a Number of Pairs of Breeches already made.”

In the fall of 1770, the partnership of Converse and Stone, “Breeches Makers, at the Sign of the Breeches in Hartford,” took to the pages of the Connecticut Courant to inform “Gentlemen” that they had set up shop.  They told prospective clients that pursued “the Business of Breeches Making in all its Branches,” intending for that short phrase to provide assurances that they possessed all of the necessary skills of the trade and that they could construct breeches in a variety of styles according to the tastes and budgets of their customers.

In a nota bene, Converse and Stone asked potential clients to take note that they “have a Number of Pairs of Breechesalready made, together with skins of the neatest Kind, so that Gentlemen may suit themselves.”  The breeches makers catered to their customers.  Although they could measure clients and construct new garments for those who desired such services, Converse and Stone also offered the convenience of an eighteenth-century version of buying off the rack.  They already made and had on hand an inventory of breeches for men who wished to acquire them in a single visit to the shop. They adopted business practices and a marketing strategy similar to those that Thomas Hewitt, a wigmaker in Annapolis, described in his advertisement running in the Maryland Gazette at the same time.  Hewitt also promoted both custom-made items and “ready made” alternatives.

For those gentlemen who preferred custom-made breeches, Converse and Stone had “Skins of the neatest Kind” that they could examine and choose what suited them when they came to the shop for measurements.  In that case, their breeches were tailor-made in a collaboration between the breeches makers and individual patrons.  The clients expressed their tastes and preferences and Converse and Stone supplied the skill to create the garments envisioned and commissioned by their customers.  In their advertisement, the breeches makers balanced consumer choice and convenience against their abilities and expertise in their trade.

December 30

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

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

dec-30-12301766-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

“Those who … left Breeches to clean, are requested to call for them.”

Most advertisements for consumer goods and services attempted to convince potential customers to make purchases, to participate in the consumer revolution taking place around them. On occasion, however, shopkeepers and artisans placed advertisements requesting that customers actually take possession of the goods that belonged to them. Two such advertisements appeared in the December 30, 1766, issue of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.

In the first, Alexander Caddell, a “Breeches-maker and Glover,” announced that he planned to return to London. He called on business associates and former customers to settle their accounts, but he also informed anyone who “left Skins to be manufactured for Breeches” to retrieve them. Similarly, those who “left Breeches to clean” had two months to pick them up. Otherwise, Caddell planned to sell them.

dec-30-12301766-advert-2-south-carolina-gazette-and-country-journal
South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (December 30, 1766).

In another advertisement, Edward Weyman noted that he had “in his Possession sundry Looking-Glasses belonging to different Persons” who had entrusted him with silvering them. He called on the owners to “pay the Charges” and “take them away.” Like Caddell, he threatened to sell them, though he allowed six months, rather than two, for the owners to recover their property from his shop.

In both cases, the advertisers had provided services but presumably had not yet been paid. Selling items that had been abandoned by their owners, after giving sufficient notice that they planned to do so, became a method for receiving payment for their services through a different means.

This situation also illuminates one of the convoluted routes for delivering goods to consumers. Many eighteenth-century advertisements featured new goods that moved along a simple path from producer to retailer to consumer. The breeches that Caddell threatened to sell and the looking glasses that Weyman threatened to sell, however, did not traverse such a simple trajectory. Instead, these used goods had multiple owners, multiple sellers, and rather complicated provenances. The consumer revolution occurred not only because buyers and sellers valued and exchanged new goods but also because they developed markets for used wares, sometimes as an expediency when the original owners neglected to reclaim possessions left in the care of shopkeepers and artisans.