Cutler

September 14

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

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

New-York Journal (September 14, 1775).

“SMALL SWORDS … of various sorts.”

Richard Sause’s advertisement for “SMALL SWORDS” and other items available at his “Jewelery, Hardware, and Cutlery Store” became a familiar sight for readers of the New-York Journal in the summer of 1775.  The woodcut depicting a shop sign with Sause’s name and an array of cutlery, including a sword, made his notice even easier to spot.

On September 14, his notice happened to appear near the top of the left column on the final page of the newspaper, immediately below a regular feature called “POET’S CORNER.”  For that issue, John Holt, the printer, selected a short poem, “The Patriot’s Wish.”

OF private passions, all my soul divest,
and let my dearer country fill my breast,
To public good transfer each fond desire,
And clasp my country with a lover’s fire.
Well pleas’d her weighty burdens let me bear
Dispense all pleasure, and engross all care;
[ ] quick to [ ], to feel the public woes,
And wake, that millions may enjoy repose.

The strained verses were heartfelt even if not especially graceful or elegant.  Perhaps a reader submitted the poem as their way of contributing to the struggle that colonizers endured throughout the imperial crisis and then intensified with the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord the previous spring.  Sause aimed to make his own contribution by supplying “SMALL SWORDS and Cutteau de Chasse’s,” a type of sword, to the gentlemen of New York who prepared for the possibility that they would have to join the fight.  Although Sause’s advertisement appeared below “The Patriot’s Wish” almost certainly by coincidence, the cutler may have been pleased with the happy accident.  After all, the poem primed readers to think about their duty and to contemplate how to make their own contributions to the cause.  For many, that could have included outfitting themselves with weapons and other military equipment.

July 20

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

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

New-York Journal (July 20, 1775).

“SMALL SWORDS.”

Richard Sause resorted to a familiar image to adorn his advertisement in the July 20, 1775, edition of the New-York Journal.  It included his name and occupation, “RD. SAUSE. CUTLER,” and depictions of more than a dozen kinds of knives and other blades available at his “Jewlery, Hardware, and Cutlery Store.”  Some of the items, a table knife and a sword, even had his name on the blade, suggesting that Sause marked the items he made.  The image had periodically appeared in various newspapers published in New York since the early 1770s.  Personalized woodcuts, commissioned by advertisers, belonged to those advertisers to submit to printing offices as they saw fit.

In Sause’s previous advertisements, the woodcut accounted for a relatively small amount of space compared to the copy that Sause composed to promote his business.  This time, however, the image and the copy took up the same amount of space.  Sause noted that he sold “a General Assortment of the above articles,” perhaps referring to the “Jewelry, Hardware, and Cutlery” listed in the name of his store or perhaps referring to the many items in the woodcut.  In the copy, he highlighted only one sort of item: “SMALL SWORDS and Cutteau de Chasse’s of various sorts.”  (See Steve Rayner and Jim Mullins’s extensively researched “Cuttoe Knives: A Material Culture Study” for more on “a variety of short swords known as cutteau de Chasse.”  It includes an engraved trade card from 1739 for John Cargill, “Instrument Maker, at ye Saw & Crown in Lombard Street, London,” that featured an image of various blades and other instruments similar to Sause’s woodcut.)  It made sense that Sause emphasized swords in an advertisement placed in the summer of 1775.  Men in New York and other places prepared for the possibility that the fighting that began at Lexington and Concord in April and continued with the siege of Boston and the Battle of Bunkers Hill could occur in their own colonies.  They formed new companies to defend their liberties.  Merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans marketed military equipment while printers and booksellers published and sold military manuals.  Under those circumstances, Sause made a savvy decision to promote “SMALL SWORDS” in his advertisement.

May 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (May 30, 1774).

“Fox will engage his rifles to be as good as any that can be made in England.”

John Fox marketed American ingenuity when he advertised scythe rifles, instruments for “setting an edge on scythes,” that he invented.  In the May 30, 1774, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, the cutler proclaimed that his rifles “are far superior to any thing yet invented for that purpose.”  He was so certain of that assertion that he confidently asserted that “the more [his rifles] are known the more they will be used,” especially since “it will be found they are much cheaper and more convenient than any stone.”  Rifles were made of wood, light enough for farmers to carry with them to sharpen the edges of scythes as they worked in the fields; whetstones were much heavier and, in turn, much less convenient for such purposes.  Continuing his pitch, Fox claimed that “one rifle will serve a man two or three years hard working, if of a good quality,” and he considered “his rifles to be as good as any that can be made in England.”  Furthermore, he pledged to sell his product “wholesale and retail as cheap as those imported of as good a quality.”  If any customers were not satisfied once they gave his rifles a try, the cutler offered to exchange any that “should not prove good.”

During the imperial crisis, colonial entrepreneurs promoted “domestic manufactures” or products made in America rather than imported.  Such appeals appeared in newspaper advertisements with greater frequency when confrontations with Parliament intensified, especially when colonizers enacted nonimportation agreements in response to the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts.  Fox marketed his scythe rifles as relations between the colonies and Parliament once again deteriorated, this time because of duties on tea, the Boston Tea Party, and the Boston Port Act that closed the harbor until residents made restitution.  Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet and other newspapers published in Philadelphia carried extensive coverage of the debates and passage of the Boston Port Act and the responses in other cities and towns.  Fox’s advertisement appeared immediately below resolutions passed at “a meeting of the inhabitants of the city of Annapolis” on May 25, 1774.  They agreed “to put an immediate stop to all exports to Great-Britain” and, upon a date to be determined in coordination with other town in Maryland and “the principal colonies of America,” that “there be no imports from Great-Britain till the said act be repealed.”  Perhaps it was coincidence that Fox’s advertisement happened to follow the resolutions from Annapolis.  No matter where the two items appeared in relation to each other in the newspaper, the political crisis that inspired the resolutions provided support for Fox’s encouragement to purchase the rifle scythes he “MADE AND SOLD … At his shop in Fourth street, Philadelphia,” as an alternative to imported ones.

January 20

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

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (January 20, 1774).

“JAMES YOULE, CUTLER FROM SHEFFIELD, At the Sign of the GOLDEN KNIFE.”

James Youle, a “CUTLER FROM SHEFFIELD,” ran a shop “At the Sign of the GOLDEN KNIFE” in New York in the 1770s.  He advertised a “LARGE and general assortment of HARDWARE, CUTLERY and JEWELLERY” in the January 20, 1774, edition of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  In addition to the dozens of items he listed in that notice, Youle declared that he “makes and grinds razors, and all kinds of cutlery.”  Even given the length of Youle’s advertisement, many readers likely considered the woodcut that adorned it the most significant feature.  It depicted more than a dozen items that the cutler made or sold at his shop, including shears, a fork, a table knife, a pocketknife, and a sword.  The image rivaled the decorative borders that enclosed other advertisements in the same issue.

Youle had some experience incorporating similar woodcuts into his advertisements.  Nearly three years earlier, the partnership of Bailey and Youle included a similar image in their advertisements in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in March 1771.  In the summer of 1772, Youle updated the image to feature his name alone.  The partnership having dissolved, Bailey ran advertisements for his own shop “At the Sign of the Cross Swords.”  The woodcut that accompanied his advertisement showed several items arrayed around two crossed swords.  In the early 1770s, other cutlers in New York, including Richard Sause and Lucas and Shephard, devised similar images for their advertisements, apparently deciding that remaining competitive in their trade required visual images in their notices as well as skill in their shops.

When he returned to pairing advertising copy with a woodcut in 1774, Youle revived the image that he first used when partnered with Bailey and later on his own, though he made one significant alteration.  The cutler added a large knife, perhaps a machete, below the sword.  The blade bore the name “YOULE,” just as Richard Sause previously included his last name on the blades of both a knife and a sword in his woodcut.  Perhaps this new addition was the “GOLDEN KNIFE” from Youle’s sign, a new means of identifying his shop since his earlier advertisements with woodcuts.  The cutler may have crafted the woodcut himself.  Near the end of his advertisement, he noted that he “cuts Gentlemen and ladies names for marking linen or books.  He may have applied the same skill to enhancing his own newspaper advertisements.

October 3

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

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (September 30, 1773).

“A GENERAL ASSORTMENT OF CUTLERY.”

Richard Sause joined other entrepreneurs who experimented with decorative borders enclosing their advertisements when he promoted a “GENERAL ASSORTMENT OF CUTLERY” in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  The cutler had previous experience incorporating visual images into his advertisements in both the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  By the fall of 1773, many advertisements in New York’s newest newspaper featured borders, a popular means of enhancing notices.  Similar borders sometimes adorned advertisements in other newspapers, but not in the numbers and frequency that they appeared in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.

The September 30, 1773, edition of that newspaper, for instance, included eight advertisements with ornate borders.  Most of those notices were relatively short, a single square of text.  Among them, Dennis McReady, a tobacconist, hawked his wares and Aspinwall and Smith announced that they sold “CHOICE OLD JAMAICA SPIRIT.”  Another of these shorter announcements advised that “the Delaware Lottery for the Sale of Lands, belonging to the Earl of Stirling, will commence on Monday the first Day of November next.”  James Rivington, the printer, also enclosed his advertisement for Keyser’s Pills within a decorative border.  George Webster, “At the THREE SUGAR LOAVES,” listed a couple of items “just received from LONDON” and promised “many other Articles which will be inserted next week.”  That advertisement, however, never materialized.  Given that advertisers paid by the amount of space their notices occupied rather than the number of words, borders made advertisements more expensive.  Rivington may have also charged additional fees for the borders, making them especially attractive to entrepreneurs running shorter advertisements.

Still, some advertisers enclosed longer notices within borders.  Thomas Hazard, one of Sause’s competitors, did so with an advertisement for “Ironmongery and Cutlery,” as did Francis Lewis and Sons in their advertisement that listed dozens of items for sale at their store on Queen Street.  Among these three longer advertisements, Sause’s notice was the shortest.  He apparently appreciated the visual appeal of the border and considered it worth the investment.  Four weeks later he placed a much more extensive advertisement that extended approximately three-quarters of a column.  A decorative border enclosed the lengthy list of merchandise that Sause “JUST IMPORTED.”  Along with several other advertisers, the cutler sought to generate interest in his newspaper notices by making them more visually appealing than text alone.  The printing office seems to have encouraged this innovation.

April 29

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

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (April 29, 1773).

“RD. SAUSE. CUTLER.”

In the second issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, the printer continued publishing a significant number of advertisements to supplement the revenue earned from subscriptions.  Advertising accounted for six of the twelve columns in the April 29, 1773, edition.  Many of those advertisers also placed notices in other newspapers.

Richard Sause, a cutler, ran an advertisement that filled more than half a column.  He listed a variety of goods from among the “neat and general Assortment of Cutlery, Hardware, Jewellery and Tunbridge Wares” that he recently imported, clustering the various categories of merchandise together with headings to help readers locate items of interest.  A woodcut that depicted more than a dozen forms of cutlery, including knives, scissors, a saw, and a sword, adorned the advertisement.  That image may have replicated the sign that marked the location of Sause’s shop.  It likely looked familiar to readers who regularly perused the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury since it had previously accompanied the cutler’s advertisements in that newspaper.

Nesbitt Deane, a hatmaker who frequently advertised in the city’s newspapers, placed a notice that featured a woodcut of a tricorne hat with his name enclosed in a banner beneath it in the first issue of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, but it did not appear in the second issue.  Like Sause’s woodcut, that image would have been familiar to readers who regularly read other newspapers since it had been appearing in the New-York Journal for more than a year.  Deane apparently wished to increase the visibility of his business among curious colonizers who examined the first issue of Rivington’s newspaper, but returned to advertising in a publication that he had greater confidence would yield customers.  His advertisement, complete with the woodcut, ran in the New-York Journal rather than Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer on April 29.  Deane either collected the woodcut from one printing office and delivered it to the other or made arrangements for the transfer.

In both instances, the advertisers benefitted from visual images that prominently displayed their names and distinguished their notices from others that consisted solely of text.  To gain those advantages, they made additional investments in commissioning woodcuts and then carefully coordinated when and where they appeared in the public prints.  Like other advertisers who incorporated images into their notices, Deane and Sause each commissioned a single woodcut rather than multiple woodcuts that would have allowed them to enhance their advertisements in more than one newspaper simultaneously.

August 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (August 13, 1772).

“J. BAILEY, Cutler. from Sheffield.”

Several cutlers in New York competed for customers by inserting advertisements with elaborate woodcuts depicting an array of items available at their shops in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in the summer of 1772.  James Youle, “CUTLER FROM SHEFFIELD,” adapted an image that he and former partner J. Bailey previously ran in that newspaper a year earlier.  Lucas and Shephard, “WHITESMITHS and CUTLERS, From BIRMINGHAM and SHEFFIELD,” ran their own advertisement adorned with an image of many items included among their merchandise.

Bailey apparently determined that his competitors had an advantage, so he commissioned his own woodcut that featured both text, “J. BAILEY, Cutler. from Sheffield,” and an image that included two swords among a variety of cutlery.  The advertisement stated that Bailey was located “At the Sign of the CROSS SWORDS,” indicating that he sought to increase the effectiveness of the image beyond the efforts of his competitors with their woodcuts by closely associating it with the sign that marked his shop in addition to the goods he made and sold.  He also enhanced his advertisement by incorporating another image, that one depicting shears, below a note that he “has now for sale fullers shears.”

Those did not constitute Bailey’s only innovations relative to the advertising campaigns of his competitors.  Those advertisements all ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  On August 13, Bailey expanded the number of colonizers who saw his advertisement by inserting it in the New-York Journal.  That advertisement featured the same two woodcuts and the same copy that appeared in the other newspaper, giving Bailey an advantage over his former partner and other competitors who invested in woodcuts for their advertisements.  Some or all of these cutlers may have also advertised in another newspaper, the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy.  Unfortunately, issues of that newspaper from 1771 through 1773 have not been digitized, so I have not been able to consult them as readily as the other two newspapers published in New York City in 1772.  Whether or not any of these cutlers advertised in the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy, Bailey was the first to seek customers among the readers of the New-York Journal.  That meant arranging to have his woodcuts transferred from one printing office to another.  The available evidence suggests that Bailey put even more thought into his advertising campaign than his competitors who already made efforts to distinguish their notices from others in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.

January 9

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter (January 9, 1772).

“Cutlery Ware.”

Chris Barone, a student in my Revolutionary America class in Fall 2021, selected this advertisement that Nathan Frazier placed in the January 9, 1772, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  It prompted a conversation about how the meanings of some words have shifted since the eighteenth century.  Frazier advertised “Cutlery Ware” among his “fresh Assortment of English and Scotch GOODS,” but that phrase did not mean knives, forks, and spoons to the shopkeeper or his prospective customers.

Instead, cutlery referred to “the art or trade of the cutler,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.  That gave us a chance to discuss the cutler, “one who makes, deals in, or repairs knives and similar cutting utensils,” as a common occupation in the eighteenth century.  It also prompted us to explore the entry for “cutlery” in the Oxford English Dictionary in greater detail.  We learned that the word also refers to “articles made or sold by cutlers, as knives, scissors, etc.”  That definition included an example from 1787, the same period as the advertisement Chris selected.  For other examples, we looked to previous entries in the Adverts 250 Project.  We discovered several advertisements placed by cutlers that listed a variety of items they made, sold, and repaired.  Samuel Wheeler advertised “good scythes and sickles” in the Pennsylvania Gazette in June 1770.  Amos Atwell listed “Case Knives and Forks, Carving Knives and Forks, Pocket and Pen Knives of various Kinds, Razors, [and] Surgeons Instruments” in an advertisement for his “CUTLERY BUSINESS” in the Providence Gazette in 1771.  Bailey and Youle, “Cutlers from Sheffield,” informed the public that they “MAKE all sorts of surgeons instruments” and “grinds all sorts of knives, razors, shears, and scissors” in an advertisement in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in March 1771.  A month later, Richard Sause ran a similar advertisement that included the same services and added “sword cutling.”  Bailey and Youle included an image depicting about a dozen cutlery items.  Sause again imitated his competitors with a similar image.

The Oxford English Dictionary also includes a definition for cutlery more familiar to modern readers: “knives, forks, spoons, etc., used for eating or serving food; a set of table utensils of this kind.”  That entry includes several examples, though the earliest dates from 1821, half a century after Frazier placed his advertisement.  A note also states that in earlier examples it is difficult to distinguish this meaning from “articles made or sold by cutlers.”  Frazier’s advertisement for “Cutlery Ware” demonstrated that colonizers easily spoke a language of consumption among themselves that requires some effort by historians to understand 250 years later.

November 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (November 9, 1771).

“Atwell hath hired an English Workman, of exquisite Sill.”

In the fall of 1771, Amos Atwell took to the page of the Providence Gazette to let “the Town and Country” know that he “hath set up the CUTLERY BUSINESS, in all its Branches, at his Smith’s Shop.”  Residents of Providence and nearby towns knew Atwell as a blacksmith, so the “CUTLERY BUSINESS” was a new endeavor for him.  That being the case, he provided an overview of his goods and services to instill confidence that he was indeed prepared to expand his business.  Atwell carried “Case Knives and Forks, Carving Knives and Forks, Pocket and Pen Knives of various Kinds, Razors, Surgeons Instruments, &c. &c.”  Repeating “&c.” (the abbreviation for et cetera most commonly used in the eighteenth century) underscored the range of cutlery available at his shop.  In addition, customers could have “all Kinds of Cutlery Ware cleaned, ground, and put in the best Order.”

The blacksmith did not undertake these tasks himself.  Instead, this enterprise depended on acquiring qualified help, “for which Purpose said Atwell hath hired an English Workman.”  Atwell proclaimed that he “carries on the Blacksmith’s Business as usual,” so his new employee attended to the “CUTLERY BUSINESS, in all its Branches.”  Atwell declared that the cutler possessed “exquisite Skill” and promised that he “gives constant Attendance on the Business, and is always ready to receive and execute the Commands” of customers.  New to the town, the unnamed cutler had not yet established his own reputation among prospective clients.  That made his arrangement with Atwell mutually beneficial.  The blacksmith aimed to attract more customers now that he offered more services at his shop, while the cutler received an endorsement from an artisan well known in the community.  In their newspaper advertisements, blacksmiths and other artisans rarely mentioned the workers, free or enslaved, who labored in their shops.  These circumstances, however, demanded that Atwell acknowledge that even though he “hath set up the CUTLERY BUSINESS” that another artisan actually oversaw those services at his shop.

April 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (April 1, 1771).

“RD. SAUSE. CUTLER.”

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery … or a means of capitalizing on a competitor’s marketing efforts.  On March 4, 1771, Bailey and Youle, cutlers from Sheffield, ran a newspaper advertisement notable for a woodcut that included their names and depictions of more than a dozen items available at their shop.  Four weeks later, another cutler, Richard Sause, inserted a strikingly similar advertisement in the same newspaper, the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Like Bailey and Youle, his notice began with a woodcut that included his name and images of various items in his inventory.  He also listed those items and more, including “oyster knives, razors, scissors; pocket, pruning and pen knives; …[and] corkscrews.”  In addition to the assortment of merchandise represented in both image and text, Sause also stocked “sundry other things too tedious to mention.”

Sause further enhanced his woodcut by incorporating his name into the depictions of a table knife and a sword, a modification not present in Bailey and Youle’s image of their wares.  The table knife appeared in the upper left and the sword in the lower right, making it likely that viewers would encounter items branded with Sause’s name first and last as they glanced at the depictions of many kinds of cutlery.  Sause’s woodcut also featured a greater number of items, testifying to the many choices he offered to consumers.  In the copy that accompanied the image, he twice invoked variations of the phrase “other articles too tedious to mention,” deploying language not present in Bailey and Youle’s advertisement.  Using his competitor’s notice as a model, Sause devised improvement for his own.

It seems unlikely that Sause produced this advertisement without having seen the notice that Bailey and Youle placed in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Furthermore, whoever carved the original woodcut probably carved the second, given the similarities between several pieces of cutlery depicted in each.  Bailey and Youle continued running their advertisement when Sause’s notice first appeared, the similarities between the two all the more apparent because they were the only images that appeared anywhere in the April 1, 1771, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and its supplement, with the exception of the masthead.  When Bailey and Youle published an advertisement that increased their visibility in the marketplace, Sause took notice and shamelessly replicated their efforts.

Detail from Bailey and Youle’s advertisement, Supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (April 1, 1771).