What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 13, 1776).
“LINEN to be SOLD at the Manufactory in Union-street.”
Nearly a year after the battles at Lexington and Concord, many colonizers continued to support the American cause through the decisions they made in the marketplace. Such efforts began before the Revolutionary War. Colonizers attempted to use commerce as political leverage, departing from the imperial system they previously embraced. They experienced a British Empire defined by commerce rather than conquest, one in which England produced goods and the colonies consumed them. When Parliament enacted new commercial regulations and other measures the colonies found oppressive in the 1760s and 1770s, they enacted nonimportation agreements. Simultaneously, they encouraged “domestic manufactures” in the colonies as alternatives to imported goods.
That movement led to the establishment of “the Manufactory in Union-street” in Philadelphia. In the April 13, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the proprietors advertised “LINEN to be SOLD” there. They also informed the public that they sought to hire two or three journeymen weavers who would enjoy “an advantageous seat of work.” Yet “domestic manufactures” did not solely refer to goods produced in the colonies as opposed to those made elsewhere. “Domestic manufactures” could also mean goods produced in homes, in domestic spaces, often by women. Although not as fine as imported fabrics, wearing “homespun” cloth became a mark of distinction because of the political principles at play. In addition to the journeymen to be employed “at the said factory,” the proprietors announced, “Weavers that have got looms in their own houses … will meet with good encouragement, the best prices, and constant employment.” The “Manufactory in Union-street” served as a clearinghouse for textiles produced on site and in homes in and near Philadelphia. It provided employment for local men and women and merchandise for consumers, allowing everyone involved to support the American cause as more and more colonizers considered the possibility of declaring independence rather than a redress of their grievances and a return to how the empire operated before the imperial crisis.
“I WILL give good wages for a journeyman SHOEMAKER.”
In this advertisement in the Virginia Gazette, Francis Moreland searched for a “journeyman SHOEMAKER.” The specificity of a journeyman implies that Moreland wanted to hire a shoemaker who was quite skilled rather than a young apprentice who still had much to learn. In eighteenth-century America, according to Patrick Grubbs, there was a difference in the levels of craftsmanship. The master oversaw production, owned the shops, and trained journeymen and apprentices. The journeyman was a skilled worker who had finished an apprenticeship, but did not have master status. An apprentice was a beginner learning the trade under a master.
To help us better understand a shoemaker’s shop, Thomas Ford provides an image in The Leatherworker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg. In this image we see the inner workings of the customer-shoemaker relationship. Shoemaking as a craft grew across the colonies during the eighteenth century, not just in Virginia. In Philadelphia, Grubbs explains, the occupation grew from a handful in 1680 to over three hundred in 1774, due to a rise in demand and the colonists deciding it would be better to shop domestically for shoes. Craftsmanship was important in the eighteenth century, including in the market for shoes. Although some shoemakers made large quantities of shoes, colonists did not have access to mass produced shoes in the same way that modern consumers purchase Nike and Adidas, so they often relied on their local shoemakers to meet their needs.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes
When I asked students in my senior capstone research seminar about advertising and consumer culture in early America to choose advertisements about consumer goods and services for the portfolios they created throughout the semester, I did not necessarily have employments advertisements in mind, but I allow for flexibility and creativity in selecting and interpreting newspaper notices for their portfolios and for publication via the Adverts 250 Project. As I have written on other occasions, one of my favorite parts of enlisting my students as junior colleagues in the production of this digital humanities work is the opportunity to see sources that are so familiar to me through new eyes. I likely would have passed over Moreland’s advertisement, but Massimo demonstrated its relevance to our readings and discussions about colonizers participating in consumer culture. Consumption, after all, occurs in a reciprocal relationship with production and distribution of goods, as T.H. Breen highlights in The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, a book we read and discussed in our seminar.
Massimo chose one of three employment advertisements in the March 8, 1776, edition of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette. In another notice, Thomas Warren sought a “BRICKLAYER, who is a good workman,” for the next season. He limited his search to those “coming well recommended.” Robert Anderson also wanted “well recommended” applicants to respond to his advertisement for a “GOOD HOSTLER” to care for horses. The “journeyman SHOEMAKER” would have been the only one of the three who served an apprenticeship and may have worked more closely with customers than the bricklayer and the hostler. On the other hand, Moreland may have had other plans for a new employee. In another advertisement in that issue, William Aylett informed the public that he “WANTED, for the army, a large number of SHOES.” Moreland may have had his journeyman shoemaker craft shoes for individual clients or he may have tasked him with producing a quantity of shoes to supply the army, a precursor to modern mass production.
What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 16, 1775).
“The Managers of the American Manufactory … wish to employ every good spinner that can apply.”
The proprietors of the American Manufactory in Philadelphia periodically took to the public prints to encourage the public to support their enterprise. In the March 1775, they called a general meeting at Carpenters’ Hall, the site where the First Continental Congress held its meetings the previous fall. They invited prospective investors to attend as well as sign subscription papers already circulating. A month later, the proprietors ran a brief advertisement, that one seeking both materials (“A Quantity of WOOL, COTTON, FLAX, and HEMP”) and workers “(a number of spinners and flax dressers”). That notice happened to appear in the Pennsylvania Journal on April 19, 1775, the day of the battles at Lexington and Concord, though it would take a while for residents of Philadelphia to learn about the outbreak of hostilities near Boston. The mission of the American Manufactory to produce an alternative to imported textiles became even more urgent. In August, the proprietors once again sought workers, publishing an address “To the SPINNERS in thisCITY and the SUBURBS.” They offered women an opportunity to participate in politics and “help to save the state from ruin.”
In November 1775, the proprietors or “Managers of the American Manufactory” made another appeal “To the GOOD WOMEN of this PROVINCE.” They explained that “the spinning of year is a great part of the business in cloth manufactories” and “in those countries where they are carried on extensively, and to the best advantage, the women of the whole country are employed as much as possible.” Having already engaged women “in this CITY and the SUBURBS” who responded to their previous advertisement and apparently needing even more yarn to make into textiles, the managers found themselves “desirous to extend the circle … to employ every good spinner than can apply, however remote from the Factory.” They believed that women in the countryside “may supply themselves with the materials there” and had “leisure to spin considerable quantities.” They may have been right on the first count, but perhaps overestimated how many other responsibilities wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters had in their households. For those who made the time, the managers offered “ready money … for any parcel, either great or small, of hemp, flax, or woollen yarn.”
The managers also lauded the contributions of “those industrious women who are now employed in spinning for the Factory,” declaring that “the skill and diligence of many entitles them to the public acknowledgement.” They served the American cause in their own way according to their own abilities, just as the delegates to the Second Continental Congress did and just as the soldiers and officers participating in the siege of Boston did. “We hope as you have begun,” the managers encouraged, “so you will go on, and never be weary in well doing.”
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.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Connecticut Journal (October 28, 1774).
“When a boat shall set off from either side, a boat shall immediately put off from the other.”
Jesse Leavenworth had two years of experience of operating a ferry “to and from East Haven, on the lower road,” but they had not been easy years. In an advertisement he placed in the October 28, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Journal, he explained that the “hounourable General Assembly … thought fit to establish under his care and direction” the ferry in October 1772. He accepted the charge, seeking to support “himself and a numerous family.” That site, however, possessed “many difficulties” due to the “flats and openness of the place to sea” that had previously made it “insurmountable by all those who have heretofore attempted” a similar venture. At a “vast expence,” Leavenworth “furnished himself with a number of large & sufficient boats.” Whether they ran ferries or stagecoaches, entrepreneurs who provided transportation frequently underscored the financial investments they made in their businesses. Leavenworth kept at least two boats on each side and hired staff to give “suitable attendance.”
Despite the obstacles, Leavenworth met with success. He asserted that he “gain’d the approbation and custom of the public beyond his most sanguine expectations, which he gratefully acknowledges.” The ferry was so successful that the operator prepared to introduce another innovation to the service. Three weeks later, he planned that “when a boat shall set off from either side” that another boat “shall immediately put off from the other, to supply its place.” The companion boat would go whether or not it had passengers or freight. That way the ferry would maintain two boats on each side “to oblige his customers and prevent all suggestions of nonattendance on either side.” Patrons would face less inconvenience in waiting if they happened to arrive when the ferry was in use. Leavenworth concluded by noting that “this will be an additional expense” so he “hopes for the countenance of the public, and a continuance of their custom.” Again, he suggested that prospective customers should recognize his investment and choose to hire his services because of it.
Following his signature, Leavenworth added a brief note aimed at recruiting an employee, a “hardy stout Man … who can be well recommended (for honesty, sobriety, and good nature). A month earlier, he had advertised that a “negro man” who “speaks the Portuguese language, and bit little English” had “let himself to me.” Suspecting that his new employee may have been an enslaved man who fled from his enslaver, Leavenworth placed a notice in the public prints. Not long after that, an advertisement about just such a man in the Connecticut Courant featured an observation that a “Negro answering the above Discription has let himself to Mr. Jesse Leavenworth of New-Haven.” The forthcoming innovation in his ferry service may not have been the only reason Leavenworth sought a new employee. The Black man that he hired as he planned to launch the next stage of his business may have been captured and returned to his enslaver.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Journal (March 9, 1774).
“A LIBRARIAN IS wanted by the LIBRARY COMPANY of Philadelphia.”
What caught my eye about this advertisement was the need for a librarian at the Library Company of Philadelphia, as I have been working with Laura Wasowicz, the curator of children’s literature at the American Antiquarian Society, for my independent research project for my capstone history seminar. I was interested in what the Library Company of Philadelphia was in the eighteenth century and I was excited to find out the Library Company, sometimes known as the LCP, is still alive and well today! According to their website, the LCP is America’s “first successful lending library and oldest cultural institution,” founded by Benjamin Franklin and the members of the Junto in 1731. The Junto Club was a collection of friends, including Benjamin Franklin, who met on Friday evenings to discuss different issues regarding morals, politics, or philosophy. These men were a collection of tradesmen and artisans who were interested in the common good for themselves and their society and were dedicated to finding ways to bring improvements to both. Members of the Junto were devoted readers and believed that if more people in their community had access to books they were reading, it would motivate those people to think and learn on their own, which could improve society.
Franklin wanted the public to have easy access to books since, at this time, books were not readily available and if available were extremely expensive. The members of the Junto themselves, most of them artisans, were not able to afford these books on their own either. Franklin and fifty other shareholders decided to collaborate and contribute forty shillings to buy the original collection of books and ten shillings every year to grow the library’s collection. The Junto was a catalyst for many public projects including this first lending library, the Library Company of Philadelphia.
The collection has grown throughout many different eras of American society and remains open to a variety of readers, from high school students to senior scholars. The Library Company of Philadelphia serves as a library full of resources that focus on American society and culture from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century. Their mission is to increase the public understanding of American history by preserving and sharing the materials in their collection.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes
The edition of the Pennsylvania Journal that first carried the Library Company of Philadelphia’s advertisement seeking a librarian also carried several advertisements for books, some of them available from printers and booksellers, others in the press, and some proposed for publication if enough subscribers reserved copies. Throughout the colonies, printers and other members of the book trade sometimes placed a disproportionate amount of advertising in newspapers.
Subscription proposals outnumbered other advertisements for books in that issue of the Pennsylvania Journal. One presented to the “GENTLEMEN and LADIES of America. PROPOALS For PRINTING by SUBSCRIPTION, THE History of the Life and Adventures OF Mr. DUNCAN CAMPBELL, (Born DEAF and DUMB).” It would go to press “as soon as a sufficient number of SUBSCRIBERS offer.” To entice them, the proposals promised “a curious well engraven PLATE, shewing the method how the deaf and dumb may obtain the knowledge, and be taught to read and write any language.” For booksellers and shopkeepers who might be inclined to purchase by volume for retail, “Those who subscribe for twelve Books [would] have a thirteenth gratis.” Another subscription proposal offered “THE CELEBRATED American EDITION OF THE WORKS OF FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS.” Those who chose to have their volumes bound “shall have their names at large on the inside of the cover, done in Gold Letters.” In addition, James Rivington promoted his edition of “NEW VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD,” detailing Captain James Cook’s voyage on the Endeavour from 1768 through 1771.
By way of updating subscribers, James Humhreys, Jr., informed them that “STERNE’s WORKS” had been delayed due to “an unlucky accident, by which he has been confined and disabled from work for some weeks past.” He pledged that the first volume was “now almost finished, and will be published in a few weeks, embellished with an elegant copper-plate Frontispiece.” The printer also hawked a “New Edition of Whittenhall’s Latin Grammar” and “several other School Books.” Elsewhere in that issue of Pennsylvania Journal, Robert Bell announced an “EXHIBITION of NEW and OLD BOOKS BY AUCTION.” He anticipated the sale would last “eight or ten evenings.” Readers could bid and acquire books from various genres, including “Arts, Sciences, History, Divinity, Biography, … Poetry, Classics, Voyages, Travels, [and] Novels.” One advertisement even discouraged readers from purchasing a book. Thomas Say once again ran his notice pleading with the public to refrain from buying William Mentz’s unauthorized edition of “The Vision of Thomas Say.”
Perhaps some of these books eventually found their way into the collections of the Library Company of Philadelphia, either in the eighteenth century when printers originally published and sold them or in subsequent years as the Library Company collected early American imprints and became a major research library. Advertisements placed by printers, the Library Company, and even the aggrieved Thomas Say all testified to the contours of print culture in the largest city in the colonies on the eve of the American Revolution.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Providence Gazette (January 15, 1774).
“Clothiers Press-Papers … much superior to any imported from Europe.”
John Waterman sought a clothier, “well experienced in all Parts of the Business,” to work at “the new and most compleat Works in the Colony” of Rhode Island, recently established at “the Paper-Mills in Providence.” According to the advertisement he placed in the January 15, 1774, edition of the Providence Gazette, candidates for the position would have “good Encouragement” if they could produce recommendations for their “Diligence, Steadiness, Activity and Integrity.” Waterman instructed “Any Person with the above Qualifications” to apply at the clothier works at the paper mill.
In addition to seeking an employee, Waterman used his advertisement for another purpose. He inserted a nota bene under his signature, advising the public that he sold “Clothier Press-Papers made by said WATERMAN, as good as any manufactured in America, and much superior to any imported from Europe.” He had deployed the same marketing strategy the previous summer, declaring that his “Clothier Press-Papers” were “equal to any made in America, and far superior to any imported from Europe.” In that advertisement, Waterman listed local agents in Providence, East Greenwich, and Newport, who also sold his product.
Throughout the imperial crisis, many advertisers made “buy American” appeals to consumers. They did so more frequently when relations with Parliament became more strained, but even in times of relative calm some still asserted that colonizers should purchase “domestic manufactures” instead of imported goods. Waterman did not make an explicitly political argument to readers of the Providence Gazette, though they certainly understood the context in which he proclaimed his “Clothiers Press-Papers” were “much superior to any imported from Europe.” Along with the politics, Waterman and others aimed to convince American consumers that they did not have to accept inferior products when they bought goods produced in the colonies. Waterman emphasized quality in his advertisement, likely trusting that readers would reach their own conclusions about other advantages of supporting his enterprise rather than purchasing similar items imported from Europe.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Boston Evening-Post (May 24, 1773).
“A sprightly, active BOY … not much inclined to Macaronism, is wanted as an Apprentice.”
Thomas Fleet and John Fleet sought an apprentice to assist in their printing office at the Heart and Crown in Boston. On May 24, 1773, the printers placed a notice in their own newspaper, the Boston Evening-Post, to advise readers that a “sprightly, active BOY, that can read and write, & not much inclined to Macaronism, is wanted as an Apprentice to the Printing Business.”
Most of those credentials make sense to modern readers. The work undertaken in a printing office was physically demanding, so the Fleets needed a “sprightly, active” apprentice who was up to the challenge. That apprentice would also assist in setting type and perhaps with some of the bookkeeping, making the ability to read and write almost essential (though some apprentices did learn to read in the process of setting type). But what about a prospective apprentice “not much inclined to Macaronism”?
In that instance, the Fleets used a slang term recognized by eighteenth-century readers. They did not seek a “Macaroni” or, as the Oxford English Dictionary explains, a “dandy or fop [who] extravagantly imitated Continental tastes and fashions.” The OED also includes an example of “Macaroni” in use in 1770, revealing the derision bestowed on the young men who adopted the style: “There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up amongst us. It is called a Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exercise, it wenches without passion.” In the colonies as in Britain, Macaronis participated in the consumer revolution to excess, wallowing in luxury and vice.
Such a character would not do in a printing office … and the Fleets did not want their business to become the venue for parents to attempt to correct such behaviors demonstrated by sons of an appropriate age to enter into apprenticeship agreements. Many other employment advertisements of the era included “sober” (or, turning to the OED once again, “moderate in demeanour … indicating or implying a serious mind or purpose”) as one of the credentials. The Fleets could have included “sober” in their notice, but perhaps they had recent encounters with Macaronis that made them particularly cautious about bringing an apprentice with such proclivities into their printing office. They made it clear that Macaronis need not apply at the Heart and Crown.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Providence Gazette (March 20, 1773).
“WANTED immediately, A SCHOOLMASTER.”
Dr. Jonathan Arnold needed an instructor “to take Charge of the School at Whipple Hall, Providence, North End” in March 1773. Even though he wished to hire a schoolmaster immediately because he had “a large Number of Scholars being now ready to enter” the school, Arnold refused to settle for just anyone who could teach reading, writing, and other subjects. Instead, any prospective schoolmaster had to be “temperate and exemplary, in Life and Manners,” in addition to possessing “Ability in his Profession.” In the era of the American Revolution, advertisements seeking schoolmasters as well as those placed by schoolmasters and -mistresses emphasized manners and morals as much as they did classroom instruction.
Arnold underscored that he was serious about screening applicants. In a nota bene, he declared, “It is expected, that whoever applies will produce sufficient Testimonials of his Qualifications as above, from Persons of undoubted Credit and Character.” To make the point even more clear, he added, “None but such need apply.” Arnold demanded references. The “Testimonials” that they provided had to cover all of a prospective schoolmaster’s qualifications, including his skill and experience in the classroom and his morals and demeanor. Furthermore, those giving recommendations had to be beyond reproach themselves.
Although Arnold aimed to hire a suitable instructor as quickly as possible, his advertisement had audiences other than prospective candidates for the position. He indirectly addressed parents and guardians of current and prospective pupils as well as the entire community. Arnold made clear that he did not entrust any of the children and youth under his charge to just any schoolmaster. Parents and the general public could depend on him recruiting instructors who were both effective teachers and good role models. The notice served an immediate purpose, filling an opening at the school, while also fulfilling a secondary purpose of informing the public, especially parents and guardians of the “Scholars,” about the standards maintained at the school.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Pennsylvania Journal (November 11, 1772).
“Would be much obliged to any merchant or others for employment.”
Employment advertisements regularly appeared among advertisements for consumer goods and services, legal notices, and other advertisements in early American newspapers. Colonizers placed notices seeking work while prospective employers alerted readers about opportunities. On November 11, 1772, for instance, the Pennsylvania Journal carried both sorts of notices.
One had a headline that proclaimed “WANTED” in larger font. The anonymous advertiser sought a “Single man, that understands driving a carriage and taking care of horses.” Any candidate “must be well recommended for his honesty and sobriety, as none other need apply.” To learn more, including the identity of the potential employer, the advertisement instructed readers to “enquire of the Printers” of the Pennsylvania Journal or “at the Bar of the London Coffee-House.” Both places served as clearinghouses for information that did not appear in the public prints.
A notice placed by a “YOUNG MAN” who “WANTS EMPLOYMENT” advised that the advertiser considered himself qualified for various positions, including “an assistant in a store, bar-keeper, or steward of a ship.” He boasted that he was “well acquainted with Arithmetick” and “can be well recommended for his honesty and sobriety.” The young man requested that anyone interested in hiring him contact “Mr. Allen Moore, tavern-keeper, Mr. Fegan, store-keeper, store-keeper in Water-Street, Mr. John Cunningham, at the Center-House, on the Commons, or the Printers of this paper.” In so doing, he did the eighteenth-century equivalent of listing his references.
The most extensive of the employment advertisements attempted to play on the sympathy of prospective employers. An anonymous “PERSON residing in this city” reported that he “lately met with real and unavoidable misfortunes.” Furthermore, he had “a large family to support,” compounding his difficulties. To meet his responsibilities, he would be willing to “travel to any part of the continent, or even to the West-Indies, to settle accompts, collect money, &c. &c. for the sake of his family.” The advertiser claimed that he had experience “serv[ing]a respectable body of merchants” in Philadelphia “as their clerk” for several years. He also offered to provide references, declaring that he could “bring sufficient testimonials for his integrity and abilities from some of the first merchants in the city.” He demonstrated his familiarity with how merchants conducted business by instructing prospective employers to “Enquire at the bar of the Coffee-House.” His advertisement, longer than the others, reflected his experience and, likely, his anxiety to secure a position in order to provide for his family.
