George Ball

July 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (July 27, 1775).

“Iron utensils, so much recommended by physicians for their safety.”

As July 1775 came to a close, George Ball advertised an “assortment of China, Glass, Earthen, Delft, and Stone Ware of all Kinds” in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer.  He conveniently did not mention when he acquired his merchandise, whether it arrived in the colonies before the Continental Association went into effect, though the headline did proclaim “IMPORTED BY GEORGE BALL” rather than “JUST IMPORTED BY GEORGE BALL.”

Most of Ball’s advertisement consisted of a list of the various items he stocked, divided into categories that included “Burnt China,” “Blue and white China,” “Pencil’d China,” “Glass, very neat,” “Flower’d Glass,” and “Green Glass.”  In the final third of the advertisement, however, Ball highlighted “iron utensils” and made a pitch to convince consumers to demand iron tea kettles, iron pots, iron saucepans, iron pie pans, and iron stew pans with iron covers instead of copper ones.  Those “useful and wholesome iron utensils,” Ball asserted, were “so much recommended by physicians for their safety” and, accordingly, “so generally and justly prefered to copper, by all the house keepers in England.”  Ball made health and safety the centerpiece of his marketing, citing “the best reasons in the world.”  He emphasized that cookware made of iron was “entirely free from that dangerous, poisonous property, from whence so many fatal accidents have been known to arise amongst those who use copper vessels.”  As a bonus, consumers could save money over time since “iron utensils” did not need the same maintenance: “they never want tinning as copper vessels do.”  In addition to the “house keepers” of New York, Ball promoted his wares to readers responsible for outfitting ships.  “For cabbin use on board shipping,” he declared, iron items “are by far preferable to copper, as no danger (however careless the cook, or long the voyage) can possibly happen from using them, as too often has through those causes, from the use of copper.”  Ball concluded by noting that his “iron utensils” were “all wrought according to the most approved patterns now in use in London,” but that nod to fashion and taste merely supplemented his primary marketing strategy.  For consumers concerned about health and safety in the kitchen, he carried the cookware that they needed to use instead of taking chances with copper kettles, pots, and pans.

May 10

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

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

May 10 - 5:10:1770 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (May 10, 1770).

“Pencill’d China,” “Burnt Image China,” “Blue and white China.”

Like many other colonial shopkeepers, George Ball published an extensive list of his merchandise in an advertisement he placed in the May 10, 1770, edition of the New-York Journal.  Most advertisers who resorted to similar lists grouped all of their wares together into dense paragraphs of text.  A smaller number, like Ball, used graphic design to aid prospective customers in differentiating among their goods as they perused their advertisements.  Ball formatted his advertisement in columns with only one, two, or three items per line, just as Abeel and Byvanck, John Keating, and Jarvis Roebuck did elsewhere in the same issue.  Ball, however, instituted a further refinement that distinguished his notice from the others.  He cataloged his merchandise and inserted headers for the benefit of consumers.

Ball offered several categories of merchandise:  “Pencill’d China,” “Burnt Image China,” “Blue and white China,” “Brown China,” “White China,” “White Stone Ware,” “Delph Ware,” “Plain Glass Ware,” “Flower’d Glass,” “Iron Ware from England,” and “Queen Pattern Lamps.”  These headers appeared in italics and centered within their respective columns to set them apart from the rest of the list.  The goods that followed them elaborated on what Ball had in stock, allowing prospective customers to more easily locate items of interest or simply assess the range of goods Ball offered for sale.  His method could have benefited from further refinement.  The items that followed “Queen Pattern Lamps” were actually a miscellany that did not belong in any of the other categories.  Ball might have opted for “Other Goods” as a header instead.  Still, his attempt to catalog his merchandise at all constituted an innovation over the methods of other advertisers.

In most instances, eighteenth-century advertisers submitted copy and compositors determined the layout.  However, advertisements broken into columns suggest some level of consultation between advertisers and compositors, at the very least a request or simple instructions from one to the other.  Ball’s advertisement likely required an even greater degree of collaboration between advertiser and compositor.