Grocer

April 18

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (April 18, 1776).

“The Sign of the THREE SUGAR LOAVES.”

George Webster, a grocer, kept shop “At the Sign of the THREE SUGAR LOAVES, in Leary-street,” in New York during the era of the American Revolution.  In an advertisement in the April 18, 1776, edition of the New-York Journal, he listed a variety of items, including “Best green citron, West-India sweet meats and pickles, a quantity of cloves, Ground ginger and Cayanne pepper, French and Italian olives and capers, [and] anchovies of a peculiar quality.”  He also stocked some housewares, such as “China bowls of different sizes, Chinas cups and saucers of various colours and sizes, with or without handles, [and] A few sets of tea table china complete, which he will sell lower than any in town by ten shillings on the set.”  That was a bargain for a tea seat, though colonizers were supposedly abstaining from drinking tea in protest of the Intolerable Acts.

The “Sign of the THREE SUGAR LOAVES” must have been a familiar sight for many residents of New York.  It had marked Webster’s location on Leary Street for several years.  In addition, the grocer commissioned a woodcut that depicted his sign to adorn some of his newspaper advertisements.  It featured a taller sugar loaf in the center, flanked by two shorter sugar loaves, all enclosed in a thin border with scalloped corners.  It may have replicated the sign that marked Webster’s location, creating a visual identity or brand through the consistency.  Webster used the woodcut in his advertisements in the fall of 1772 and then discontinued it for a few years before using it again in his advertisements in the spring of 1776.  Perhaps he retrieved it from the printing office and tucked it away at his shop, though he could have left it in the care of the printer during that time.  After all, the image was so tied to his business that it would not have been of much use to other advertisers.  Unlike some entrepreneurs who commissioned woodcuts and advertised in multiple newspapers, Webster did not collect his woodcut from one printing office and deliver it to another.  His advertisements in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer in the fall of 1773 featured a decorative border and gave his location as “the THREE SUGAR LOAVES, In LEARY-STREET,” but did not include the woodcut.  When he revived the image, it helped distinguish his advertisement from others in the New-York Journal.  In the April 18 edition for instance, only one other advertisement included a woodcut.  A stock image of a horse, a fraction of the size of Webster’s woodcut, appeared in an advertisement offering the stud services of True Briton.  The “Sign of the THREE SUGAR LOAVES” at the top of Webster’s advertisement no doubt helped draw attention to it.

November 5

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

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

New-York Journal (November 5, 1772).

“At the Sign of the Three Sugar Loaves.”

In the fall of 1772, George Webster joined the ranks of advertisers who attempted to draw more attention to their newspaper notices by adorning them with images related to their businesses.  Webster, a grocer, kept shop “at the Sign of the Three Sugar Loaves” on Leary Street in New York.  A woodcut at the top of his advertisement depicted three sugar loaves, a tall one flanked by two shorter ones.  The border that surrounded the sugar loaves suggested that the image replicated the sign that marked Webster’s location.

Throughout the colonies, entrepreneurs who placed notices in the public prints sometimes incorporated such images, but the use of images in advertising was not a standard practice in the eighteenth century.  When Webster first used his woodcut in the October 22, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal, it was one of only three images in the entire issue.  As usual, the lion and unicorn appeared on either side of a crown and shield in the masthead on the front page.  Elsewhere in the issue, Nesbitt Deane’s image of a tricorn hat and a banner bearing his name once again took up as much space as the copy it introduced.  The remainder of the advertisements, dozens of them filling fourteen of the eighteen columns in the six-page edition, did not have images.  That made Webster’s new woodcut depicting the Sign of the Three Sugar Loaves all the more noteworthy.  The following week, his image appeared once again, this time alongside two advertisements that featured stock images provided by the printer, a ship and a horse.  Neither of those familiar images had been crested for the exclusive use of any particular advertisers.  Webster, like Deane, made an additional investment in commissioning a woodcut so closely associated with some aspect of his own business.

By the time that the image appeared in Webster’s advertisement on November 5, regular readers would have recognized it, but that does not necessarily mean that the novelty had dissipated.  The woodcut continued to distinguish the grocer’s notice from the dozens of others in that issue.  Its mere presence demanded attention on a page that lacked other images in a newspaper with only four other images distributed across all six pages.  It likely also helped to encourage brand recognition as both image and text in Webster’s newspaper advertisement corresponded to the sign that colonizers glimpsed when they visited or passed his shop.