Day of Publication

July 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (July 29, 1772).

“The Necessity of altering the Day of their weekly Publication.”

It last only two weeks.  On July 15, 1772, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford shifted the publication day of their weekly newspaper, the Pennsylvania Journal, from Thursdays to Wednesdays.  That meant they circulated the Pennsylvania Journal a day earlier than David Hall and William Sellers distributed the Pennsylvania Gazette.  In a notice on the first page, they explained that “A Great number of our friends, thinking that the publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public, have solicited us to alter ours from Thursday to Wednesday.”  Whether or not any friends played a role in the decision, the Bradfords aimed to scoop their competitor among both subscribers and advertisers.

They managed to do so for two weeks.  On July 29, Hall and Sellers altered their publication day, inserting a notice in their own newspaper to announce that the “Publishers of the PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE, being under the Necessity of altering the Day of their weekly Publication from Thursday to Wednesday, think it their Duty, on the Occasion, to express their grateful Acknowledgments of the public Favour and Encouragement, continued to them for so long a Series of Years past.”  The printers indicated that the Bradfords forced their hand, making it necessary to change “the Day of publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette to Wednesday, that they might have an equal Chance with the Printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, to avail themselves of the Intelligence by the Posts, and the other usual Channels of Conveyance.”  That was the only way for Hall and Sellers to “exert their utmost Abilities to merit [the public’s] Approbation” and serve their readers.

Did this change come to the attention of the Bradfords before Hall and Sellers distributed a new issue on a Wednesday instead of a Thursday?  Perhaps.  On July 22, they moved their notice about shifting the publication day to the third page, interspersing it among other advertisements, but on July 29, the day Hall and Sellers altered the schedule for the Pennsylvania Gazette, the Bradfords moved their notice back to the top of the first column on the first page of the Pennsylvania Journal.  If they had an inkling that the two newspapers once again appeared on the same day, they may have wished to underscore that their new publication day at least meant that they had not lost any ground to their competitor.  A week later, the Bradfords dropped their notice after the public witnessed the other newspaper follow their lead by adjusting the publication schedule.  Hall and Sellers continued publishing their announcement that the Pennsylvania Gazette matched the recent change by the Pennsylvania Journal.

July 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (July 22, 1772).

“We have determined to publish the PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL, or WEEKLY ADVERTISER, regularly every Wednesday.”

When William Bradford and Thomas Bradford shifted the weekly publication day of the Pennsylvania Journal from Thursdays to Wednesdays in July 1772, they inserted a notice at the top of the first column on the first page in the first issue published on a Wednesday.  That notice appeared in larger font than the news items that filled the rest of the page. The following week, they removed the notice from the first page, but not entirely from the newspaper.

The shift in the publication day was no longer breaking news, but the Bradfords wished to continue promoting both the change in particular and their newspaper in general.  The notice underscored the reason for shifting the publication day.  Both the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal had been published on Thursdays.  According to the Bradfords, a “Great number of our friends, thinking that the publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public, have solicited us to alter our from Thursday to Wednesday.”  The adjustment, they claimed, amounted to a public service.  In addition, the Bradfords pledged to continue to “make it our constant endeavour, to keep up the well-known spirit and impartiality of the paper” for the benefit of both subscribers and advertisers.  When addressing prospective advertisers, the Bradfords underscored that they published an “extensive paper” that attracted many readers.  They also made a bid for other business, promising that colonizers who “employ us un any other kind of printing” would have their jobs “done with care, punctuality, and dispatch.”

A compositor reset the type for this message “To the PUBLIC” and moved it from the first page to the third page in the July 22 edition, inserting it among the various advertisements published there.  Unfortunately for the Bradfords, that was their last opportunity to publish that notice.  A week later the printers of the Pennsylvania Gazette moved their publication day to Wednesdays in order to compete with the Pennsylvania Journal.

July 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Journal (July 15, 1772).

“The publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public.”

In the summer of 1772, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, altered their publication schedule, moving their weekly issues from Thursdays to Wednesdays.  They placed an announcement on the first page on July 15, explaining that a “Great number of our friends” convinced them to make the change because “the publication of two Papers on the same day was rather inconvenient to the public.”  They did not name the Pennsylvania Gazette, but residents of Philadelphia knew that new issues of both newspapers became available on Thursdays as well as new issues of the Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Packet on Mondays.  Heeding the advice of their friends, the Bradfords decided to publish the Pennsylvania Journal “regularly every Wednesday,” but assured readers that all other aspects of the newspaper remained the same.  They pledged that they “shall still make it our constant endeavour, to keep up the well-known spirit and impartiality of the paper” to serve subscribers and those who “chuse to have advertisements inserted in this extensive paper.”

Whether or not the publication of two newspapers on the same day was “inconvenient” for readers or advertisers, that remained the schedule for the Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Journal as well as the newspapers published in Boston.  In that city, all five newspapers clustered publication on just two days, the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy on Mondays and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and the Massachusetts Spy on Thursdays.  In New York, the printers of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and the New-York Journal distributed new issues on different days in 1772, but other newspapers previously competed with them.  In Charleston, the printers of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette, the South-Carolina Gazette, and the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal usually managed to publish new issues on different days of the week, but their schedules had significantly more variability than newspapers in other cities and towns.

The Bradfords may or may not have been counseled by a “Great number” of friends and patrons to publish the Pennsylvania Journal on a different day than their competitors published the Pennsylvania Gazette, but they certainly recognized an opportunity to promote the change to prospective subscribers and advertisers.  That change will have an impact on the advertisements featured on the Adverts 250 Project.  No other eighteenth-century newspapers that have been digitized were published on Wednesdays, making it necessary to necessary to select advertisements from newspapers published earlier in the week.  The change in the Pennsylvania Journal’s publication schedule means that the Adverts 250 Project will feature one of its advertisements once a week.  That has the benefit of giving readers access to an advertisement published 250 years ago that day, but the shortcoming of disproportionately representing content from the Pennsylvania Journal … at least “until” another eighteenth-century printer commences (commenced) publication of a newspaper on Wednesdays.

March 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Mar 6 - 3:4:1768 South-Carolina and American General Gazette
South-Carolina and American General Gazette (March 4, 1768).

“To be sold on Tuesday the 8th of March … A Very valuable PLANTATION.”

Regular visitors to the Adverts 250 Project have likely noticed that six days of the week the project features an advertisement originally published 250 years ago that day but once a week it instead features an advertisement from 250 years ago that week. This reflects the publication schedule for newspapers in the colonial era. With the exception of the occasional supplements and extraordinary issues, printers distributed their newspapers once a week. Printers, however, chose which day of the week to publish their newspapers. Nearly half chose Monday, with a fair number also opting for Thursday or Friday. The rest selected Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday, but none published their newspaper on Sunday.

That explains why the Adverts 250 Project sometimes examines an advertisement published 250 years ago that week, but only once a week. For the past two years such entries have fallen on Wednesdays because those were the days that corresponded to the dates (rather than days of the week) of publication. In other words, consider this chart:

  • A date that falls on a Wednesday in 2018 fell on a Sunday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Thursday in 2018 fell on a Monday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Friday in 2018 fell on a Tuesday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Saturday in 2018 fell on a Wednesday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Sunday in 2018 fell on a Thursday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Monday in 2018 fell on a Friday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Tuesday in 2018 fell on a Saturday in 1768.

This held true for the first two months of 2018, but not after March 1. Why not? The year 1768 was a leap year. It included an extra day, February 29, that does not occur in 2018. Since February 28, 1768, fell on a Sunday, the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project conveniently treated February 28 and February 29 as a single day last week. Today is the first day that the shift caused by the leap day becomes readily apparent, especially for the Slavery Adverts 250 Project since it will no longer republish advertisements on Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays. Starting today, the revised publication chart looks like this:

  • A date that falls on a Tuesday in 2018 fell on a Sunday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Wednesday in 2018 fell on a Monday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Thursday in 2018 fell on a Tuesday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Friday in 2018 fell on a Wednesday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Saturday in 2018 fell on a Thursday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Sunday in 2018 fell on a Friday in 1768.
  • A date that falls on a Monday in 2018 fell on a Saturday in 1768.

This version will be accurate for the next two years. At the end of February 2020, however, it will need to be updated again. Actually, it will revert to the previous chart since 2020 will be a leap year. February 2020 will have a leap day that February 1770 did not, causing the shift to move one day in the other direction.

Both charts make it clear that the Adverts 250 Project is an On This Date project rather than an On This Day project. The analysis of the advertisements only occasionally acknowledges the day of the week that they were originally published, usually to provide context concerning eighteenth-century printing practices. This consideration of the distinction between the date and the day demonstrates yet another way that modern readers do not experience eighteenth-century newspapers in the same way as the original readers since any association with a particular day of the week has been largely removed in most instances. A unit of time that seems quite natural in 2018 – such as Sunday, March 4 through Saturday, March 10 – would have been deemed completely artificial in 1768 – Friday, March 4 through Thursday, March 10. That being said, such a week would have made perfect sense to the printers of the Connecticut Journal, the New-Hampshire Gazette, the New-London Gazette, and the South-Carolina and American General Gazette since they published their newspapers on Fridays. For almost everyone else, a week that ran Friday through Thursday would have seemed arbitrary. Most colonial newspapers included both the day and date of publication in their mastheads, but the former disappears from most citation practices. The day of publication is not imperative in creating a unique temporal identifier for specific issues of newspapers, but overlooking it completely does erase part of the experience of producing and reading newspapers in eighteenth-century America.