Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet

February 19

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

GUEST CURATOR:  Michael “OB” O’Brien

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (February 19, 1776).

“Rattinets and buttons; shalloons and durants.”

When I first examined George Bartram’s advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet on February 19, 1776, I noticed how crowded it was with imported fabrics and fashionable goods. Bartram listed “New fashioned jacket patterns,” a “general assortment of mens, womens, boys and girls ribbed and plain worsted stockings,” silk gloves, and numerous types of cloth (such as rattinets, shalloons, and durants), all meant to appeal to customers looking for style and choice. His shop offered more than just the necessities. He encouraged customers to browse, compare, and imagine new possibilities of how they might dress. In The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, T.H. Breen states that “as the index of choice expanded, so too the dreams of possession flourished.”[1]  Bartram’s advertisement reflected exactly that expanding world of choice. The abundance of fabrics and fashionable goods available in his Philadelphia shop shows how deeply colonists participated in the marketplace even on the brink of the American Revolution.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

Nearly a year after George Bartram announced in the Pennsylvania Evening Post that he “resolved to decline his Retail Trade,” he once again ran an advertisement about “SELLING OFF” the inventory at his “Woollen Drapery and Hosiery Ware-house” in Philadelphia.  He offered his wares “wholesale and retail,” indicating that he had neither gone out of business nor became a merchant who dealt solely in wholesale transactions.  As Michael notes, Bartram stocked a wide array of imported goods.  He conveniently did not mention whether his merchandise arrived in Philadelphia before the Continental Association went into effect.

By the time he ran his advertisement in February 1776, Bartram’s warehouse on Second Street between Chestnut Street and Walnut Street was a landmark familiar to residents of Philadelphia.  In 1767, he opened his “new Shop at the Sign of the Naked Boy.”  His advertisements in the Pennsylvania Chronicle featured a woodcut depicting that sign.  In a cartouche in the center, a naked boy unfurled a length of fabric.  Bolts of textile flanked the cartouche with Bartram’s name appearing beneath them.  Replicating his shop sign in the public prints likely improved Bartram’s visibility in the busy port city.  He continued publishing advertisements with that image for several years.

Yet Bartram eventually abandoned the device that marked his location for so long in favor of rebranding his store as “GEORGE BARTRAM’s WOOLLEN DRAPERY AND HOSIERY WARE-HOUSE, At the Sign of the GOLDEN FLEECE’S HEAD,” though he remained at the same location on Second Street.  His new advertisements sometimes featured a woodcut depicting his new device, though on other occasions he opted for no decorative elements or a border comprised of printing ornaments rather than the image of “the Sign of the GOLDEN FLEECE’S HEAD.”  His advertisements did not reveal why he opted for a new sign to mark his location and identify his business.

In subsequent advertisements, Bartram proclaimed that he was “SELLING OFF” his inventory and leaving the “Retail Trade.”  He made such pronouncements in March 1775 and September 1775, though in the latter he clarified that he would cease retail operations “so soon as the trade is open between Britain and America.”  Once the war that started in April 1775 became a revolution, the resumption of trade became even more uncertain.  For the moment, Bartram continued “SEELING OFF” his inventory “at the most reasonable rates,” making him a precursor to modern businesses that constantly promote sales to draw customers.  The marketing tried to create a sense of urgency by suggesting a limited-time offer, yet savvy consumers likely realized that one sale followed another at Bartram’s “Woollen Drapery and Hosiery Ware-house.”

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[1] T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 58.

January 1

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (January 1, 1776).

“A CORRECT MAP … in which may be seen the march of Col. Arnold.”

On January 1, 1776, Robert Aitken, a printer and bookseller, advertised that he had for sale a “CORRECT MAP of the great river St. Lawrence, Nova-Scotia, Newfoundland, and that part of New-England, in which may be seen the march of Co. Arnold, from Casco-Bay to Quebec, by wat of Kennebec river.”  The map featured insets depicting the “plains of Quebec, the town of Halifax and its harbour, and a small perspective view of the city of Boston.”  Like several other maps and prints advertised in the months following the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, this map supplemented the news that colonizers read in the newspapers and heard when they discussed current events.

This “CORRECT MAP” aided in understanding the dual-pronged American invasion of Quebec that commenced near the end of August.  General Richard Montgomery and 1200 soldiers headed from Fort Ticonderoga, New York, recently captured from the British, toward Montreal.  That city surrendered to Montogomery on November 13.  Meanwhile, Colonel Benedict Arnold and 1100 soldiers sailed from Newburyport, Massachusetts, to the mouth of the Kennebec River on September 15.  They made a harrowing trek through the wilderness of northern New England, losing nearly half their number to death or desertion, before reaching Quebec City on November 14.  Arnold and his soldiers besieged the city, eventually supported by Montgomery and reinforcements on December 2.  The enlistments for many of the American soldiers ended on December 31, prompting Montgomery and Arnold to attack the city during a snowstorm.  The weather did not work to their advantage.  Montgomery was killed, Arnold wounded, and four hundred American soldiers captured.  Arnold assumed command and continued the siege, realizing that British reinforcements would arrive when the St. Lawrence River became navigable again in the spring.  When General John Burgoyne arrived in May, Arnold led a retreat to upstate New York.  Ultimately, the American invasion of Canada failed.

When they saw Aitken’s advertisement for a “CORRECT MAP … in which may be seen the march of Col. Arnold” in the January 1 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, they had no way of knowing about the failed attack that occurred the previous day.  Supporters of the American cause still hoped that Montgomery and Arnold would capture Quebec City, dealing a significant blow to the British.  Along with newspaper coverage, the map chronicled what readers knew about the invasion of Canada, including the hardships endured by Arnold and the soldiers under his command who endured so many hardships in the wilderness of northern New England.

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For more information about the Quebec Campaign, see Nathan Wuertenberg’s more comprehensive overview.

October 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (October 9, 1775).

“ON July last, twenty-first day, / My servant, JOHN SMITH, ran away.”

Advertisements about indentured servants who ran away before completing their contracts appeared regularly in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet in the 1770s.  In “Reading the Runaways,” David Waldstreicher demonstrates that similar advertisements ran in newspapers throughout the Middle Atlantic colonies during the era of the American Revolution.[1]  As I have examined newspapers from New England to Georgia for the Adverts 250 Project, I have encountered advertisements describing runaway servants and offering rewards for detaining and returning them in newspapers in every region.  They were so common that many issues featured multiple advertisements, some of them concerning two or more indentured servants that made a getaway together.

Given the ubiquity of those advertisements, John Whitehill wanted to increase the chances that readers noticed, read, and remembered his advertisement.  Rather than write formulaic copy, he composed a poem of more than a dozen rhyming couplets.  “ON July last, twenty-first day,” the first two lines read, “My servant, JOHN SMITH, ran away.”  The poem was easy to spot on the page of the October 9, 1775, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  The compositor indented each line, creating white space that distinguished the advertisement from other content.  The irregular lengths of each line of the poem meant even more white space on the right.  On a page of news and advertisements printed in orderly columns, justified on the left and on the right, the significant amount of white space in Whitehill’s advertisement made it easy to spot.

Once readers looked more closely, the opening couplet may have inspired even more curiosity.  “Age twenty-five years, and no more,” Whitehill’s poem continued, “I think his heighth is five feet four; / Black curled hair, and slender made, / And is a weaver by his trade.”  Additional couplets described Smith’s clothing, the items he took with him to set up trade somewhere else, and his arrival from Newry on the Renown the previous fall.  One couplet warned others not to aid Smith: “Should any persons him conceal, / No doubt with them I think to deal.”  The final couplets offered a reward and named the aggrieved master: “SIX LAWFUL DOLLARS I will pay; / I live in Salsbury, Pequea, / And further to oblige you still, / My name is junior JOHN WHITEHILL.”  The reward and the names of the servant and the advertiser were the only part of the poem in all capitals, likely intended to draw attention to the incentive for reading the advertisement and assisting Whitehill.

The poem certainly was not Milton nor Shakespeare, but the format of Whitehill’s runaway advertisement made it different (and more entertaining) than any of the other five notices placed for the same purposes in that issue of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  The attention it garnered may very well have been worth the time and effort that Whitehill invested in writing the poem.  For other examples of masters adopting this strategy, see James Gibbons’s advertisement about Catherine Waterson in the December 21, 1769, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette and John McGoun’s advertisement about John Hunter in the October 26, 1774, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

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[1] David Waldstreicher, “Reading the Runaways: Self-Fashioning, Print Culture, and Confidence in Slavery in the Eighteenth-Century Mid-Atlantic,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 56, no. 2 (April 1999): 243-272.

October 2

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (October 2, 1775).

“THE SPEECH of EDMUND BURKE, Esq; on moving his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies.”

Interest in current events continued to influence some of the products advertised to colonial consumers in the October 2, 1775, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  Robert Aitken once again ran his advertisement promoting a “neat and correct VIEW of the late BATTLE at CHARLESTOWN,” now known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Subscribers to the Pennsylvania Magazine would receive the print as a premium, while others could purchase it separately.

Immediately below Aitken’s advertisement, James Humphreys, Jr., announced that he sold “THE SPEECH of EDMUND BURKE, Esq; on moving his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies, March 22, 1775.”  In that speech, delivered less than a month before the battles at Lexington and Concord, Burke presented peace and strengthening ties with the colonies as preferable to war.  The colonies, after all, were an important market for British goods.  Burke proposed allowing the colonies to elect their own representatives to send to Parliament as well as establishing a General Assembly with the authority to regulate taxes that would meet in the colonies.  By that time, colonizers already recognized Burke as a friend and advocate for their cause.  In April 1774, he had delivered a speech in favor of repealing duties on tea.

Humphreys also advertised a collection of speeches made “in the last session of the present Parliament” by “Governor Johnston; Mr. Cruger; the Hon. Capt. Lutterell; Col. Ackland,” and several others.  That anthology included another speech by Burke, that one “in favour of the Protestant Dissenters” and religious liberty from 1773 during “the second Parliament of George III.”  In addition, Humphreys stocked an “Appeal to the Justice and Interests of the People of Great Britain in the present dispute with America” by Arthur Lee, born in Virginia yet serving as an agent for Massachusetts in London in 1775.  Humphreys concluded with a note that he also sold “several other valuable pamphlets on American affairs.”  He most likely marketed American editions published by James Rivington, the printer of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer often derided as a Tory who supported Parliament.  Yet Rivington printed, advertised, and disseminated pamphlets representing a range of views, considering each of them opportunities to generate revenue.  Among the “valuable pamphlets” that Humphreys named in his advertisement, he selected only those that supported the American cause, though he may have made a broader range of perspectives available without listing them in the public prints.  Whatever the case, he anticipated that pamphlets about current events would attract customers.

August 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (August 7, 1775).

“To the SPINNERS in this CITY and the SUBURBS, YOUR services are now wanted to promote the American Manufactory.”

The proprietors of the American Manufactory in Philadelphia published a recruiting notice that first appeared in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet on August 7, 1775, and then in other newspapers printed in the city for several weeks.  They had previously advertised an organizing meeting to gain subscribers (or investors) in the enterprise in March.  A month later, the same day as the battles at Lexington and Concord, they ran a notice seeking a “Quantity of WOOL, COTTON, FLAX, and HEMP.”  That advertisement also advised that “a number of spinners and flax dressers may meet with employment.”  Their latest advertisement devoted significantly more effort to recruiting the “SPINNERS in this CITY and theSUBURBS” to work at the American Manufactory.

“YOUR services are now wanted to promote” the enterprise, the proprietors proclaimed, though they did not plan to hire everyone who presented themselves.  Instead, they followed the eighteenth-century version of letters of recommendation and checking references, instructing that “strangers who apply are desired to bring a few lines by way of recommendation from some respectable person in their neighborbood.”  Working at the American Manufactory offered women “an opportunity not only to help to sustain your families, but likewise to cast your mite into the treasure of the public good” during a “time of public distress.”  They expected that readers would recognize the reference to a story that Jesus told in Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4 about a poor widow who donated two coins, called mites, to the temple.  Her small donation, being all she had, far overshadowed much larger donations by the wealthy who could have given much more.  “The most feeble effort to help to save the state from ruin, when it is all you can do,” the proprietors of the American Manufactory explained, “is as the Widow’s mite, entitled to the same reward as they who of their abundant abilities have cast in much.”  Working as a spinner at the American Manufactory, therefore, amounted to service to the American cause by “excellent wom[e]n,” service just as important as that undertaken by the men who participated in local meetings, provincial congresses, and the Second Continental Congress or mustered to defend their liberties.  Women’s work had political meaning during the era of the American Revolution.

July 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (July 31, 1775).

“… that we may not now, nor hereafter, have any occasion to import from our ministerial enemies in Great-Britain.”

Charles Maise, a “MUSTARD and CHOCOLATE MAKER” in Philadelphia, took to the pages of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet to promote his business at the end of July 1775.  First, he needed supplies, offering “Forty shillings per bushel for any quantity of good clean Mustard-seed.”  Yet Maise wanted readers to think bigger about his business and their role as both suppliers and consumers given the imperial crisis experienced in the colonies over the last decade.  He expressed his hope that “farmers and others will use their best endeavours to encourage this valuable manufactory, by cultivating and improving the growth of so valuable an article, that we may not now, nor hereafter, have any occasion to import from our ministerial enemies in Great-Britain.”  Such sentiments certainly resonated with the Continental Association, a nonimportant agreement devised by the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774 in response to the Coercive Acts. The eight article called on colonizers “in our several Stations,” including mustard and chocolate makers, to “encourage Frugality, Economy, and Industry; and promote Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country.”

Producers had a part to play in making available alternatives to imported goods, but the Continental Association did not depend on their efforts alone.  Consumers also had to make choices aligned with their political principles.  That meant purchasing “domestic manufactures,” goods produced in the colonies.  Maise stood ready to partner with consumers in pursuing their common cause.  In a nota bene, he announced that he “stands in the market on market days, opposite the London Coffee-house.”  Customers could find him there.  He extended “thanks to his former customers,” stating that he “hopes for a continuance of their favours, and doubts not but to merit their esteem.”  Of course, Maise also intended for his advertisement to reach new customers and wanted them to join existing customers in supporting both his business and the American cause by purchasing mustard produced locally from mustard seeds grown in the colonies.  Mustard gained political significance when taking into consideration “our ministerial enemies in Great-Britain,” especially in the wake of recent news of hostilities commencing at Lexington and Concord, the siege of Boston, and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

June 19

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

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

Postscript to Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (June 19, 1775).

“A NEW AMERICAN MANUFACTORY.”

As summer arrived in 1775, Ryves and Fletcher took to the pages of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet to inform the public that they established a “NEW AMERICAN MANUFACTORY” where they made and sold “all kinds of PAPER HANGINGS” (better known as wallpaper today).  The eighth article of the Continental Association, the nonimportation pact devised by the First Continental Congress in the fall of 1774, called for “promot[ing] Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country” as alternatives to imported goods.  That charge had even greater urgency following once colonizers heard about the battles at Lexington and Concord and the ensuing siege of Boston.  When Ryves and Fletcher ran their advertisement two days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, word of that engagement had not yet arrived in Philadelphia.  When it appeared again in July, readers had even more information about momentous events in Massachusetts that likely shaped how they reacted to Ryes and Fletcher marketing paper hangings made in America.

The “PAPER STAINERS,” as Ryves and Fletcher described themselves, asserted that they “are the first who have attempted that manufacture on this continent.”  Perhaps they were not aware that Plunket Fleeson made, advertised, and sold “AMERICAN PAPER HANGINGS” in Philadelphia in 1769, though they may have conveniently overlooked that enterprise in their efforts to promote their own.  Ryves and Fletcher made significant investment in procuring both workers and materials, noting in particular that their undertaking “consumes a large quantity of the paper of this country.”  In return for their dedication to the patriot cause, they “are therefore induced to hope for the countenance and protection of all well wishers to the infant manufacturers of America.”  They did their duty as producers, but that was not enough; consumers now had an obligation to purchase the paper hangings that Ryves and Fletcher made.  The paper stainers launched a “Buy American” campaign at the beginning of the Revolutionary War.  As part of their marketing efforts, they emphasized quality, extolling the “neatness of patterns and elegance of colour,” and price, pledging that “they will sell on much more reasonable terms than any paper can be disposed of which is imported into America.”  Ryves and Fletcher were among the first to produce and market paper hangings made in America, helping establish a new industry during the era of the American Revolution.

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I provide a brief case study of patriotic advertisements for paper hangings in Carl Robert Keyes, “A Revolution in Advertising: ‘Buy American’ Campaigns in the Late Eighteenth Century,” in Creating Advertising Culture:  Beginnings to the 1930s, vol. 1, We Are What We Sell:  How Advertising Shapes American Life … And Always Has, eds. Danielle Coombs and Bob Batchelor (New York:  Praeger, 2013), 1-25.

March 20

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 20, 1775).

“The Proprietors being unwilling to deprive such as are desirous of seeing the factory, from the gratification of their curiosity.”

John Elliott and Company advertised items made at the “AMERICAN GLASS WARE-HOUSE” in Kensington, Philadelphia, as soon as the Continental Association went into effect in December 1774.  Nearly four months later, the company ran another advertisement that listed a variety of glassware – including “wine glasses of various sorts,” “tumblers of all sizes,” “hour glasses,” “tubes for thermometers,” “mustard pots,” and “lamps for halls, streets, chambers, shops, [and] weavers” – that “shop keepers and others in town or country” could purchase “as cheap [as] those imported.”  Some items were “much cheaper.”  Colonizers who abided by the nonimportation agreement did not have to pay more to acquire glassware made in the colonies; instead, they got a bargain!  Elliott and Company also informed apothecaries and others that they accepted orders and would follow patterns “left at the aforesaid Ware-house.”

Yet this enterprise did more than manufacture glassware.  Elliott and Company’s operation became a destination for the curious who wanted to witness the production of “AMERICAN GLASS” for themselves.  That had the potential to become disruptive, so the proprietors devoted the final paragraph of their advertisement to instructions for visiting.  They explained that they struck a compromise, “being unwilling to deprive such as are desirous of seeing the factory, from the gratification of their curiosity, but at the same time finding it necessary to endeavour, in some measure, to save the works from the disadvantage which must and does actually arise from the great resort of spectators.”  Accordingly, Elliott and Company charged “two shillings for each person’s admittance, expected at the gate.”  Even that fee, they claimed, “is very inadequate to the hinderance occasioned thereby,” yet, once again, the company offered a bargain.  In the process, Elliott and Company monetized visits to their production facility.  Perhaps it had not been as popular a destination as they implied.  Perhaps they exaggerated in hopes of drumming up interest in such a novelty, especially as the imperial crisis intensified and the Continental Association became even more meaningful to many colonizers.  An advertisement with instructions for visiting the factory, no matter how many people had previously been there, gave readers ideas about an outing they could make themselves.  Attracting visitors to see the works, after all, would likely translate into additional sales.

March 13

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (March 13, 1775).

“LINEN PRINTING … at their Manufactory … on Germantown Road.”

When the Continental Association prohibited importing goods from Great Britain it called on colonizers “in our several Stations, [to] encourage Frugality, Economy, and Industry; and promote Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country.”  John Walters and Thomas Bedwell answered the call to give consumers alternatives to imported textiles.  In an advertisement in the March 13, 1775, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, those entrepreneurs announced that they undertook “LINEN PRINTING, In all its Branches … at their Manufactory … on Germantown Road.”

Walters and Bedwell targeted “Ladies,” declaring that they “may have linens and muslins of all kinds printed for gowns, curtains, carpets, bed furniture, chair bottoms, covers for dressing-tables, handkerchiefs, and shapes for men’s waistcoats.”  Perhaps the men who would wear those vests were just as interested in how they would maintain appearances while the Continental Association remained in effect, but discourse in the public prints often associated women with consumption even though men participated in the marketplace just as actively.  No job was too small for Walters and Bedwell.  “Any Lady having patterns of her own, which she may particularly fancy” they declared, “may have them done, tho’ but for a single gown.”  They hoped such attention to even the smallest order would gain the approval of prospective customers.

In addition, Walters and Bedwell attempted to leverage their investment in their business to convince consumers that they had a responsibility to support their endeavor.  They “have been at great expence in bringing this manufactory to America” for domestic production as an alternative to importing printed linens.  Accordingly, they “hope they shall meet with encouragement” from customers who considered it their duty to put their political principles into practice in the marketplace.  They also sought to entice “Ladies” (and gentlemen as well) with promises that “the prices they print for will make what they do come considerably cheaper than what comes from Europe.”  Walters and Bedwell did their part for the American cause in establishing their “manufactory.”  Now they needed consumers to rise to the occasion “to perpetuate the business in this country.”  Adhering to the Continental Association created opportunities for both producers and consumers.

February 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR:  Gabriela Vargas

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (February 20, 1775).

“A WOMAN with a good breast of milk, would be glad to take in a child to nurse.”

On February 20, 1775, an anonymous woman placed an advertisement offering her services as a wet nurse in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet. In colonial and revolutionary America, women advertised their services as wet nurses while families often placed advertisements seeking wet nurses. Mothers who could not supply their own breast milk due to health issues acquired wet nurses. Families who lost mothers during childbirth also needed wet nurses. This was a common practice in the eighteenth century.

According to Janet Golden, some English physicians advised against wet nurses because they might be “sick or ill-tempered.”[1]  William Buchan, for instance, advised looking for a “healthy woman, … one with an abundant supply of milk, healthy children, clean habits and a sound temperament.”[2] Those physicians looked down on women not breastfeeding their own children but doing it for others. In general, wet nursing caused an increase in infant mortality rate. Golden states, “Nearly every European commentator knew that wet nursing increased infant mortality. Wet-nursed infants were more likely to die than were infants suckled by their mothers, and the wet nursing system itself contributed to infant mortality by inducing poor women to abandon their own offspring in order to find employment suckling the children of others.”[3]

For women who were hired as wet nurses in colonial America, their earnings belonged to their husbands by law.[4] Wet nursing was not always a paid arrangement. Instead, neighbors sometimes helped their communities by nursing the babies of mothers who could not breastfeed due to postpartum ailments.[5] Some families felt more comfortable with a neighbor rather than a stranger. Mothers or their families would often look for neighbors or friends to breastfeed their babies, but that was not always possible. That created a market for other women to offer their services, which they would advertise in early American newspapers.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

Even though the prescriptive literature authored by English physicians sometimes cautioned against entrusting infants to wet nurses, colonizers sometimes heeded those concerns and other times developed their own practices embedded in local circumstances in the eighteenth century.  As Gabriela indicates, neighbors participated in communal wet nursing as one way of contributing to their communities.

Some also went against the prescriptive literature that condemned wealthy women for hiring wet nurses instead of fulfilling what the physicians considered their maternal obligations.  Sending infants to foster with wet nurses in the countryside became a popular practice among many affluent families in Boston and other cities.  “Some urban families,” Golden explains,” assumed that the city was an unhealthy environment, rife with both epidemic and endemic diseases.  The countryside, many believed, provided a more salubrious setting, especially in the early months of life.”[6]  Note that the anonymous “WOMAN with a good breast of milk” in the advertisement Gabriela selected emphasized that she resided about four miles from Philadelphia, near the busy port yet removed from the largest city in the colonies.  Other women took a similar approach.  According to Golden, “advertisements placed by women looking for babies to wet nurse reported their distance from the city.”[7]

In four short lines, the woman who placed today’s featured advertisement addressed several common concerns.  She commented on her own health and the nourishment she could provide for an infant, asserting that she had a “good breast of milk.”  Yet she did not ask prospective clients to take her word for it.  Instead, she stated that she “can be well recommended,” presumably both for her character and for her health.  At the same time, she testified to the healthiness of the environment where she provided her services, highlighting that she resided outside the city.  The anonymous woman intended for each of those appeals to resonate with mothers and their families.

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[1] Janet Golden, A Social History of Wet Nursing in America: From Breast to Bottle (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 15.

[2] Golden, Social History of Wet Nursing, 16.

[3] Golden, Social History of Wet Nursing, 14.

[4] Golden, Social History of Wet Nursing, 17.

[5] Golden, Social History of Wet Nursing, 20.

[6] Golden, Social History of Wet Nursing, 22.

[7] Golden, Social History of Wet Nursing, 22.