Hall and Metcalf

May 18

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

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

Providence Gazette (May 18, 1776).

“ONCE MORE!”

Levi Hall and John Foster wanted the headline for their advertisement in the May 18, 1776, edition of the Providence Gazette to catch the attention of readers.  Every advertiser certainly wanted their notice to reach the public, but crafting a catchy headline was not a standard practice in the eighteenth century.  Some advertisements did not have headlines at all.  Others gave a generic summary of the purpose of the notice, such as “WANTED,” “FOUND,” and “TO BE SOLD.”  Some named items offered for sale, like “WRITING PAPER,” and others gave the name of the advertiser, including “NATHANIEL GREENE,” “CLARK and NIGHTGALE,” and “ELIHU ROBINSON, Hatter.”  John Sebring, the “saddler and Cap-Maker, from London,” once again deployed his mononym, “SEBRING,” as the headline for an advertisement.  Weel after week, similar headlines for paid notices appeared in the Providence Gazette.

That made “ONCE MORE!” stand out.  Its distinctiveness may have enticed readers to look more closely at the rest of the advertisement.  When they did, they learned that Hall and Metcalf called on those “indebted to the late Company of HALL and METCALF … to pay their respective Debts.”  Hall placed the notice as the “surviving Partner of said Company,” while Foster did so as the “Attorney to Desire Metcalf, Executrix to Nathaniel Metcalf, deceased.”  Tyey reported that a “Settlement of the Company’s Affairs [was] immediately demanded,” warning that “those who neglect this last friendly Notice, must expect to be sued, without Distinction.”  In other words, neither social status nor customer loyalty nor any other factor would prevent Hall and Foster from taking to court those who refused to settle accounts.  Hall and Metcalf’s widow had placed a similar advertisement nearly a year earlier on July 29, 1775, so it was not the first time that such a notice appeared in the Providence Gazette, but it would be the last, especially considering that an attorney rather Desire Metcalf signed the notice.  “ONCE MORE!” signaled some frustration, even though Hall and Foster asked readers to think of the advertisement as a “friendly Notice.”  The headline underscored that they were running out of patience.

In both advertisements, Hall, the “surviving Partner,” added a nota bene to inform the public that he “continues to sell the best dressed Leather of all kinds” and made “Leather Breeches, at the most reasonable Rates, and on very short Notice.”  Although the partnership had been dissolved upon the death of Metcalf, Hall continued the business “at the Sign of the Buck, opposite the Church,” hoping that years of experience serving the residents of Providence would help him gain and maintain his clientele.

December 2

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

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

Dec 2 - 12:2:1769 Providence Gazette
Providence Gazette (December 2, 1769).

“The Shop of the Subscribers was broke open, and sundry Things stolen.”

Several advertisements relayed stories of theft in the December 2, 1769, edition of the Providence Gazette.  Each had previously appeared, but the thieves had not been captured nor had the stolen goods been recovered.  In a notice dated October 17, Stephen Hopkins reported the theft of a cloak and wig.  Hall and Metcalf placed their own notice, dated November 4, to report that their shop “was broke open, and sundry Things stolen from thence.”  Jabez Bowen, Sr., even deployed a headline for his advertisement: “A THEFT.”  Dated November 11, Bowen’s notice listed several items of clothing stolen when his house was “broke open.”  By December 2, the stories in these advertisements became familiar to readers of the Providence Gazette.

The thefts in these advertisements may have helped to shape the contents of other parts of the newspaper. The December 2 edition began with an item addressed to the printer of the Providence Gazette.  “At a Time when Houses, Shops and Warehouses, are so frequently broke open,” an unnamed correspondent proclaimed, “and so many Thefts and Robberies are committed, both in Town and Country, by wicked vagrant Persons, unlawfully strolling about from Place to Place, perhaps it may tend to the public Good … in your next Paper to insert the following LAW concerning VAGRANTS, that it may be more generally known.”  A statute then filled the remainder of the column, excepting two lines announcing that the printer sold blanks.

Not only did advertisements seem to influence coverage of the news, the inclusion of this law helped establish a theme that ran through the entire issue.  Readers who perused it from start to finish first encountered the statute on the first page, Bowen’s notice and Hopkins’s notice on the third page, and Hall and Metcalf’s notice on the final page.  Even if they passed over the statute quickly, encountering the advertisements about thefts may have prompted some readers to return to the first page to read the statute more carefully.  The featured advertisements often demonstrate that news items and advertisements informed each other when it came to the imperial crisis and nonimportation agreements; however, those were not the only instances of advertisements relaying news or working in tandem with news.  Other sorts of current events inspired coverage that moved back and forth between news and advertising in colonial newspapers.