Gifts

January 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer (December 30, 1773).

“NEW-YEAR’S PRESENTS.”

Rarely did retailers associate Christmas and consumption in newspaper advertisements they published in the 1760s and 1770s.  They were just as likely to identify the new year as a time to give presents, though relatively few adopted that strategy either.  James Rivington, a bookseller, stationer, and printer of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, was among those who suggested to consumers that they should purchase presents to commemorate the occasion.  His advertisements filled an entire column in the December 30, 1773, edition of his newspaper.

As the first day of the new year approached, Rivington advised that he stocked “[t]he following which may be thought proper calculated for New-Year’s Presents.”  He listed a variety of items, including “ELEGANT silver and double gilt Pinchbeck buckles for ladies and gentlemen, a fine assortment,” “snuff boxes, vastly handsome,” “ladies dressing boxes for their toilets,” and “pocket-books for ladies and gentlemen.”  Rivington made clear that both women and men could be recipients of these “New-Year’s Presents,” even though editorials and other commentary often depicted women as the perpetrators of conspicuous, frivolous, or unnecessary consumption.

Rivington also presented a catalog of books as “Useful, improving, and entertaining articles, proper for New Year’s Presents,” most of them suitable for recipients of either sex.  He described the books as “very neatly bound, gilt, and lettered, most of them adapted to the Lady’s as well as to the Gentleman’s Library.”  They included “Pope’s Works with cuts” (or illustrations), “Dr. Goldsmith’s History of England,” “Paradise Lost,” “Mrs. Montague’s Essay on the Genius, &c. of Shakespeare,” “The charming Letters of Madame Pompadour,” and “Gray’s Odes, Elegy in a Church-yard.”  Unlike most book catalogs published as newspaper advertisements, this one included the prices for each volume.  Those contemplating giving them as gifts could take into account their budget and their relationship to the recipient when considering their purchases.  Rivington also encouraged readers living beyond New York to give books as gifts for the new year, declaring that “Orders from persons at a distance shall be immediately complied with.”  Those in Philadelphia, he directed, could “immediately” acquire any of the books “by applying to the Penny Post in that city.”

In addition to gifts for adults, Rivington also marketed “NEW-YEAR’S PRESENTS For the JUNIOR GENTRY.”  He sold books for children, “Liliputian volumes,” as well as “Play-Things.”  The toys included “CUPS and balls,” “Ivory alphabets, A, B, C,” “Bones rattles and knockers,” “Humming tops,” and “Toy pails.”  Once again, he listed prices so prospective customers could assess how much they wished to spend on gifts.

Rivington concluded that advertisement with a list of “MISCELLEANOUS MATTERS” that he apparently did not consider as appropriate for giving as presents.  In a final advertisement in that column, he promoted a “new and corrected edition” of “Rivington’s Gentleman and Ladys Pocket Almanack.”  Although he did not suggest giving the almanac as a gift, the printer considered it “Necessary to every one, in and out of Business, and useful in every Colony upon the Continent.”  A couple of days before the new year was the perfect time to purchase an almanac and, according to Rivington, items that customers might not otherwise have purchased but would give as gifts.

December 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (December 27, 1770).

“NEW-YEARS PRESENTS.”

In the late colonial period, most advertisers did not prompt prospective customers to think of their merchandise in association with Christmas gifts.  In the late 1760s, bookseller and stationer Garrat Noel of New York did place advertisements in which he listed books that he considered “proper for Christmas Presents and New-Year’s Gifts,” though he was usually alone in his efforts to establish a connection between those holidays and consumption in the public prints.  The appropriately-named Noel addressed “those who are willing to be generous on the Occasion.”  He encouraged that generosity by charging “extraordinary low Prices” for items he envisioned as gifts.  He ran what has become familiar as a holiday sale long before other retailers adopted the custom.  In the late 1760s, Noel was often the only advertiser from New England to Georgia who made an explicit connection between Christmas and giving gifts.

Although Noel placed newspaper advertisements in December 1770, he did not mention Christmas or encourage giving the books he sold as gifts.  One of his competitors, however, seized the opportunity to market “NEW-YEARS PRESENTS” in the December 27 edition of the New-York Journal.  James Rivington was best known as a bookseller, but, like many others in his occupation, he stocked a variety of other merchandise as well.  He published an extensive list of items “which may be thought proper Presents to and from Ladies and Gentlemen at this Season, when the Heart is more peculiarly enlarged.”  He offered everything from “NECKLACES, ear-rings, and hair pins” to “Beautiful polished leather snuff boxes” to “Siler plated tea urns” to “Dress swords and belts of all kinds.”  For some items, Rivington made appeals to sentimentality, such as “Lockets for the custody of the dear creature’s hair.”  He also advised prospective customers that he stocked items at various prices to fit their budgets.  For instance, he charged “from six shillings to £10” for tooth pick cases and snuff boxes” and “from 7 shillings to seven dollars” for lockets.  Rivington concluded his advertisement with a promise that he also carried “a myriad of other articles,” suggesting to consumers that they could find just the right “NEW-YEARS PRESENTS” when they visited his shop facing the Coffee-House Bridge.

The Christmas and New Year holidays did not animate a season of advertising associated with purchasing and exchanging gifts in the late colonial period.  Such marketing strategies were largely absent, but not completely unknown.  A small number of retailers experimented with making explicit connections between their merchandise and celebrating the holidays.  In the process, they emphasized prices that facilitated generosity.  They also encouraged sentimentality among consumers.  Although subdued by today’s standards, their efforts to market the holidays could be seen as precursors to more extensive advertising campaigns in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

January 8

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

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

jan-8-181767-massachusetts-gazette
Massachusetts Gazette (January 8, 1767).

“Books for Children, very proper for Christmas and New Year’s Gifts.”

John Mein made a fairly unique appeal to potential customers when he advertised “A Large Assortment of entertaining and instructive Books for Children, very proper for Christmas and New Year’s Gifts.” The bookseller tied consumerism to the holidays in a way that few other advertisers did in late 1766 and early 1767, which differs significantly from marketing practices in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Very few advertisers acknowledged Christmas as a holiday, much less used it to promote purchases from their shops. Recognition of the new year manifested itself in advertising mostly through calls for those who previously bought on credit to settle accounts. Indeed, only a handful of advertisers linked the holidays to making purchases and giving gifts.

As with many other aspects of marketing, members of the book trade seemed to be at the forefront of this innovation. Throughout all of the advertisements placed in newspapers during December 1766 and early January 1767, booksellers alone encouraged customers to think of their wares as gifts for others. In an advertisement in the January 8, 1767, issue of the New-York Journal bookseller Garrat Noel listed “A very large Parcel of Mr. Newberry’s beautiful gilt Picture Books, for the Entertainment of his old Friends the pretty Masters and Misses of New-York, at Christmas and New-York.” The appropriately named Noel was a veteran of promoting holiday gifts, having noted in his advertisements a year earlier that it was “his annual Custom … to offer to the Public, the following List of Books, as proper for Christmas Presents and New-Year’s Gifts.”

John Mein further advanced this innovation, anticipating marketing strategies of the late nineteenth century and beyond. He announced that potential customers could pick up free “Printed Catalogues” listing the books he considered especially suited to be given as gifts. Retailers of all sorts eventually resorted to catalogs, especially Christmas catalogs, to drive sales during a season increasingly associated with consumerism.

In the 1760s, however, the media – both printers and advertisers – took little notice of the Christmas season. On the same day that Mein’s advertisement appeared in Boston and Noel’s in New York, the first page of the Virginia Gazette featured “An ODE upon CHRISTMAS” on the front page. It was dated December 4, 1766, but the printers did not consider it pressing enough to make room for it in their newspaper until five weeks later. The Christmas holiday did not dominate December in the 1760s to the extent it does in modern America.