Daniel Benezet

April 14

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

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

Pennsylvania Chronicle (April 12, 1773).

“A VERY great Variety of plain and changeable mantuas, both ½ ell and ¾ ell wide.”

Daniel Benezet’s extensive advertisement from the March 15, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Chronicle continued to run in subsequent issues of that newspaper, though the compositor made modifications to the format.  The advertisement featured the same copy, but the organization better fit the page.  The original version filled two columns and overflowed into a third, in part because it appeared on the first page and the masthead occupied a significant amount of space at the top of the page.  Upon moving the advertisement to other pages, the compositor gained space to confine it to two columns.  In another modification, the headline at the top of the advertisement and the nota bene that announced “BENEZET is leaving off Business” and, as a result, “determined to sell the above Goods on very low Terms” at the bottom both ran across multiple columns.  The new format looked like a handbill that could have been printed separately as well as an advertisement integrated into the pages of the Pennsylvania Chronicle.

Pennsylvania Gazette (April 14, 1773).

When it came to the visual appeal of the advertisement, the compositor made all the difference.  Benezet placed a notice with the same copy in the April 14 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, but it did not look like the same advertisement.  The compositor for the Pennsylvania Chronicle deployed generous amounts of white space to make Benezet’s advertisement easier for readers to navigate.  He did so by dividing each column into two columns and listing only one item or category of items on each line.  In contrast, the compositor for the Pennsylvania Gazette resorted to a much more crowded format, listing hundreds of items in a single paragraph that extended more than a column.  Readers almost certainly found it more difficult to navigate the dense text in the version of the advertisement that ran in the Pennsylvania Gazette, a feature that likely made it more difficult to engage prospective customers.

The variations in the format of Benezet’s advertisement demonstrate the division of labor that usually defined advertising in early American newspapers.  Advertisers composed and submitted copy, but compositors made decisions about format and other aspects of graphic design.  On occasion, consistency in design across advertisements placed in multiple newspapers suggests that advertisers made specific requests or even consulted directly with compositors.  That did not happen when Benezet submitted the advertising copy to the Pennsylvania Gazette.  He may have even provided the notice from the Pennsylvania Chronicle as reference, leaving it to the compositor to make final decisions about format while incorporating the copy in its entirety.

March 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Chronicle (March 15, 1773).

“A great variety of calicoes, whole and half chintzes, and printed cottons.”

It was not a full-page advertisement, but it came close.  Daniel Benezet’s advertisement in the March 15, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Chronicle filled the first column on the front page, extended throughout the second column, and overflowed into the final column.  Eight much shorter advertisements filled the remainder of the page.  As was often the case in eighteenth-century newspapers, news articles, letters, and editorials began on the second page.

Benezet announced that he recently imported a variety of goods from London, Bristol, and Holland.  To demonstrate the choices that he made available to consumers, he published an extensive catalog of his merchandise.  Benezet’s inventory included “Blue, green, scarlet, claret, brown, cinnamon, drab, copper and mixt coloured, middling and low priced broadcloths,” a “large assortment of men’s women’s and children’s Bath, white metal, steel, block tin, and pinchbeck shoe buckles,” “Best English hammered brass kettles,” and “Newest fashion’d snuff-boxes.”  He concluded with “&c. &c. &c.”  Repeating an abbreviation for et cetera suggested even more wonders available at his store on Arch Street in Philadelphia, too many to appear in the already lengthy newspaper advertisement.  In the first advertisement that followed Benezet’s notice, Peter Wikoff and Isaac Wikoff stated that they “joined both their stocks in trade together … and now have a very large and compleat assortment of dry goods on hand.”  The Wikoffs invited prospective customers to imagine their wares; in contrast, Benezet encouraged consumers to browse through his inventory in the pages of the public prints.  He likely believed that if readers spotted items they wanted or needed in his catalog of goods that they would be more likely to shop at his store.

To aid prospective customers in navigating the advertisement and discovering items that interested them, the compositor divided each column into two columns, ran a dividing line down the center, and listed only one item or category of items on each line.  In most instances, those descriptions required more than one line, with second and subsequent lines indented.  That created additional white space that made Benezet’s advertisement easier to read than notices that clustered merchandise together in paragraphs of dense text.  Benezet and the compositor leveraged graphic design in their efforts to engage readers of the Pennsylvania Chronicle and entice them to become customers.  The compositor apparently did not consider it sufficient to publish a lengthy advertisement, but instead believed that good design made it more effective.

Pennsylvania Chronicle (March 15, 1773).

September 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

Pennsylvania Chronicle (September 9, 1771).

“Lately imported from LONDON and BRISTOL, and to be Sold, on the cheapest Terms, by Daniel Benezet.”

Today, newspapers run the most consequential stories, the biggest news, on the front page.  Headlines provide brief summaries, prompting readers to learn more.  Images often accompany the articles.  That format has grown so familiar that it may seem strange to imagine other ways of organizing the content and delivering the news, yet the appearance of the modern newspaper has evolved significantly.  In the eighteenth century, printers made other choices about where content appeared in their newspapers.

Consider, for example, the September 9, 1771, edition of the Pennsylvania Chronicle.  Like other newspapers published throughout the colonies, it consisted of only four pages.  William Goddard printed two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folded it in half before distributing it to subscribers.  The first item on the first page, immediately below the masthead, was an extensive advertisement placed by Daniel Benezet to promote an assortment of goods he “Lately imported from LONDON and BRISTOL.”  The shopkeeper enumerated hundreds of items, his advertisement filling the entire first column and overflowing into the second.  Three shorter advertisements completed that column, with news first appearing in the final column.  The first page included updates received from Warsaw and London.  News from London continued on the second page, supplemented with news from Salem, Boston, and New York on the third page.  Goddard inserted some local news from Philadelphia, including the shipping news from the customs house, on the third page.  Half of that page as well as the entire final page consisted of advertising.  Readers seeking news spent most of the time perusing the inside pages; as they held their newspapers aloft, observers glimpsed the masthead and a lot of advertising and only a little bit of news.

Overall, slightly less than six of the twelve columns in that issue contained news.  Paid notices occupied the rest of the space in the newspaper, underscoring that publications like the Pennsylvania Chronicle, or, noting its full title, the Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser were delivery mechanisms for advertising in eighteenth century America.  Printers organized newspapers differently in the eighteenth century than publishers do today.  In turn, readers approached them with different strategies for extracting the information they wanted or needed.

Pennsylvania Chronicle (September 9, 1771).

February 12

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

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

Pennsylvania Chronicle (February 6, 1769).

“The following large assortment of GOODS.”

In January and February 1769, Daniel Benezet, John Benezet, and Thomas Bartow attempted to maximize exposure for their advertisement concerning a “large assortment of GOODS” by running it in multiple newspapers. Over the course of several weeks, they first inserted it in the Pennsylvania Journal and then the Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Gazette. The iterations in the Gazette and the Journal had strikingly similar appearances, almost as if the compositor for the former referred to an edition of the latter when setting type. The version in the Chronicle, however, looked quite different, even though it featured, for the most part, the same copy.

Rather than a lengthy paragraph of dense text that extended all or most of a column, the advertisement in the Chronicle treated each item separately. To achieve the necessary space for doing so, the compositor allowed the advertisement to extend more than one column. It filled two full columns and overflowed into a third. In addition, the compositor divided each column in half, thus giving the advertisement the appearance of running for four columns. That further underscored the appeal to consumer choice implicitly made within the advertisement, yet the format also made the contents easier to read. Prospective customers interested in particular kinds of merchandise could peruse the advertisement much more quickly and efficiently. The advertisement in the Chronicle left the order of the goods mostly intact, though instead of leading with “Blue, green, scarlet, claret, cinnamon, drab and copper coloured middling and low priced broadcloths” it instead moved “BEST bohea tea, by the chest” from the middle of the advertisement to become the first item.

This advertisement ran in the same issue that William Goddard, the printer, inserted a notice to subscribers and advertisers. In it, he informed advertisers that “due Care will be taken” that their notices would “appear in a correct, fair, and conspicuous Manner.” In addition, he asserted that since some advertisers were “unable to write in a proper Manner for the Press” that he “offers his Assistance gratis.” In other words, Goddard edited advertisements as a free service for his clients. Perhaps the familiar advertisement placed by the Benezets and Bartow demonstrates Goddard’s efforts in that regard. That could explain the significance differences in format when compared to the same advertisement in the Gazette and the Journal. Goddard may have also suggested listing tea first among their merchandise as a means of highlighting a popular product as well as making it immediately clear that the merchants carried grocery items as well as dry goods. Most evidence suggests that throughout the eighteenth century newspaper advertisers generally assumed responsibility for copy and compositors for format, but this advertisement considered in combination with Goddard’s notice suggests that sometimes printers took a more active role in designing advertisements to appeal to readers. In so doing, they anticipated an essential service provided by the advertising industry in the twentieth century.

February 9

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

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

“The following large assortment of GOODS.”

Pennsylvania Gazette (February 9, 1768).

Daniel Benezet, John Benezet, and Thomas Bartow placed an advertisement for a “large assortment of GOODS” that filled an entire column in the February 2, 1769, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal. Their advertisement did not appear in that publication the following week, but it did run in the Pennsylvania Chronicle on February 6 and in the Pennsylvania Gazette on February 9. The iteration in the Gazette featured the same copy as the original in the Journal, but the version in the Chronicle sported revisions to both content and format (which will be examined in a separate entry on February 12).

In addition to identical copy, the format of the advertisement in the Gazette replicated the notice that previously ran in the Journal in many ways. The two advertisements had the same headlines that introduced the merchants and instructed prospective customers where to find their store. Both advertisements concluded with the same nota bene that announced they expected to receive “a very large and compleat assortment of spring and summer GOODS” via vessels from England. The same words were capitalized in both advertisements. Beyond that both advertisements deployed italics for everything except the names of the merchants, even though most other advertisements on the page used italics sparingly, if at all. In the Journal, Philip Wilson’s list-style advertisement also used italics, suggesting that this may have been the format for that type of advertisement selected by the compositor. Alternately, either Wilson or the Benezets and Bartow may have specified that they wanted their advertisement in italics and the compositor chose to give the other the same treatment. Either way, the compositor for the Gazette copied the format from the Journal exactly, almost as if the Benezets and Bartow had cut their advertisement out of the Journal and submitted it to the Gazette. The line breaks were the only noticeable difference, with the Gazette squeezing more items onto each line. As a result, the version in the Gazette did not fill an entire column, but it very nearly did so.

This comparison suggests some likely printing practices when it came to advertisements, but does not present definitive evidence. What it does demonstrate for certain, especially when taken into consideration with the third advertisement in the Chronicle, is that some advertisers contemplated the significance of circulating their advertisements to as many readers and potential customers as possible. The Benezets and Bartow sought to maximize the number of colonists who would encounter their advertisement, so they moved it from newspaper to newspaper. Such a lengthy advertisement would have been a considerable investment. That being the case, the Benezets and Bartow chose not to run it for as many weeks as most other advertisements placed by merchants and shopkeepers appeared in the public prints. It ran once in both the Chronicle and Journal and twice in the Gazette. The Benezets and Bartow sacrificed the duration of their advertising campaign in favor of dissemination to the widest possible audience.

February 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (February 2, 1769).

“The following large assortment of GOODS.”

Merchants and shopkeepers frequently made appeals to consumer choice when promoting their merchandise in eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements. In addition to using words like “assortment” and “variety,” they demonstrated the multitude of choices available to customers by listing their inventory. In so doing, they published catalogs of their wares. Their extensive lists encouraged readers to imagine the array of choices they would encounter upon visiting the shops and stores featured in the public prints each week.

In an advertisement that filled half a column in the February 2, 1769, edition of the Pennsylvania Journal, Philip Wilson adopted that marketing strategy. He listed scores of textiles, accessories, and housewares in stock at his shop. His advertisement, however, paled in comparison to the one inserted by Daniel Benezet, John Benezet, and Thomas Bartow. Their list of the “large assortment of GOODS” on hand at their store at the corner of Arch and Second Streets filled an entire column. Given that the entire issue consisted of four pages with three columns each, their advertisement comprised a significant portion of the content of that issue. They commenced their catalog of goods with “BLUE, green, scarlet, claret, cinnamon, drab and copper coloured middling and low priced broadcloths,” making clear from the start that they did not merely carry some broadcloths. Instead, they offered several choices when it came to both color and price. Elsewhere in the advertisement they deployed the words “assortment” and “variety” to describe the choices associated with other merchandise, such as “a large assortment of common, London and Bristol shalloons” and “a great variety of low-priced striped and plain callimancoes.” Just in case their list of hundreds of items did not sufficiently entice prospective customers, they added “&c. &c. &c.” (the eighteenth-century abbreviation for “etc. etc. etc.”) to the end. Finally, they previewed the arrival of additional merchandise as a means of informing readers that they would continue to offer choices to suit all tastes and budgets. In a nota bene, they proclaimed that they expected “a very large and compleat assortment of spring and summer GOODS” in vessels that would soon arrive from England.

Even if they did not read the advertisement in its entirety, prospective customers could hardly have missed the appeal to consumer choice made by the Benezets and Bartow. Shoppers did not have to accept whatever may have been on the shelves. Instead, they could examine all sorts of different merchandise and make purchases according to their own tastes and desires.