East Greenwich

May 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (May 9, 1772).

“Ladies and Gentlemen … will be used in the most genteel Manner.”

When Richard Mathewson of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, “opened a House … for entertaining Gentlemen,” he placed an advertisement in the April 4, 1772, edition of the Providence Gazette.  He also stabled horses and “carries on the Baker’s Business,” offering those “and other Conveniences” for entertaining “in the best Manner.”  One of his competitors, William Arnold, saw in that advertisement an opportunity.  Three weeks later, he began running his own notices that made explicit reference to Mathewson’s advertisement.  “WHEREAS in the Providence Gazette, of April 4,” Arnold declared, “we find an Advertisement setting forth, that Richard Mathewson … will entertain Horses and Men; I therefore, in Compassion to the tender and delicate Constitutions of the fair Sex, have opened the Doors of my House to both Ladies and Gentlemen.”  He pledged that all customers “may depend they will be used in the most genteel Manner” as they enjoyed the amenities at “one of the most convenient Houses, well fitted with Lodgings, and stored with Provisions of the best Kind.”

Only on rare occasions did eighteenth-century advertisers make direct mention of their competitors.  They frequently made generalizations about offering the lowest prices, stocking the most extensive inventory, or providing the best customer service relative to what consumers would find elsewhere in town, but very rarely did they name their competitors or make direct comparisons between their goods and services.  Arnold decided that such a comparison would serve him well in his marketing efforts, distinguishing his public house and inn from the one operated by Mathewson.  In making his business accessible to “the fair Sex,” he implied that he cultivated a more genteel atmosphere than Mathewson managed for “Gentlemen, and their Horses” at his establishment.  Arnold suggested that the presence of “both Ladies and Gentlemen” meant that his customers could expect a more refined environment than they would experience at Mathewson’s “House … for entertaining Gentlemen.”  Taverns and coffeehouses often tended to be masculine homosocial spaces in early America, but Arnold surmised that running an appropriately “genteel” house of entertainment could attract patrons less interested in visiting one that marketed itself as catering primarily to “Gentlemen, and their Horses.”

December 23

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

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

Dec 23 - 12:23:1769 Providence Gazette
Providence Gazette (December 23, 1769).

“His Store in East-Greenwich.”

On December 23, 1769, Richard Matthewson published a newspaper advertisement promoting the “Neat Assortment of English and West-India Goods” he sold at his store near the courthouse in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. On the same day, James Mitchell Varnum also published a newspaper advertisement, that one informing the public that he “hath lately opened an Office … in the Character of Attorney at Law” in the town of East Greenwich. Both advertisements ran in the Providence Gazette. They demonstrate the widespread circulation of colonial newspapers.

For Matthewson and Varnum, the Providence Gazette, printed twenty miles distant from East Greenwich, was their local newspaper. In 1769, only two newspapers were printed in Rhode Island, the Newport Mercury by Solomon Southwick and the Providence Gazette by John Carter. Each served as clearinghouses for advertisements from beyond the busy ports where the printing offices were located. Matthewson expected that customers in East Greenwich and the surrounding villages would read the Providence Gazette and encounter his notice. Otherwise he would not have placed it. Similarly, Varnum anticipated that investing in an advertisement in the Providence Gazette would generate clients for his law office.

An explosion of printing occurred after the American Revolution. Printers established newspapers in smaller towns throughout the new United States in the final decades of the eighteenth century and even more as the nineteenth century progressed. In the period before the American Revolution, however, colonists had access to far fewer newspapers. Several newspapers emanated from the largest port cities, but they often served an entire colony or an even larger region. Some colonies had only one newspaper, such as the Georgia Gazette published in Savannah and the New-Hampshire Gazette published in Portsmouth. Their mastheads bore the name of the colony rather than the town where they were published. Only in New England were some newspapers named for cities and towns, suggesting a greater concentration of print in that region. (Newspapers published in New York served the entire colony, not just the bustling port.) Even when named for a town, however, newspapers like the Providence Gazette circulated throughout an entire colony and beyond. That made the Providence Gazette the local newspaper and appropriate place to advertise for Matthewson, Varnum, and others who lived in other parts of the colony.