Handbill

May 13

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

What might have been advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Handbill (recto) perhaps distributed with the South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 13, 1774).

“WELLS’S REGISTER: TOGETHER WITH AN ALMANACK … For the Year of our LORD, 1774.”

Most colonial newspapers consisted of four pages created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and folding it in half.  On occasion, printers issued supplements, postscripts, or extraordinaries, sometimes just two pages on a half sheet and other times another four pages.  Robert Wells, the printer of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette, took a different approach when he distributed additional content.  He printed additional pages without a masthead that designated them as part of a supplement.  Instead, they featured continuous numbering with the other pages in the issue, which continued the numbering from the previous edition, and no indication that they were not part of the standard issue for that week.  The May 13, 1774, edition of the South-Carolina and American General Gazetteincluded two extra pages, numbered 129 and 130.  When delivering the newspaper to subscribers, that additional half sheet would have been tucked inside the broadsheet portion, between pages 126 and 127.  Eighteenth-century readers understood the system for navigating such issues.

A broadsheet or handbill, likely printed on a smaller sheet, may have also accompanied that edition of the newspaper.  Accessible Archives, the database that provides the most complete coverage of newspapers from colonial South Carolina, includes an advertisement for “WELLS’S REGISTER: TOGETHER WITH AN ALMANACK … For the Year of our LORD, 1774.”  What seems certain is that the archive with the run of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette originally photographed for greater accessibility and eventually digitized by Accessible Archives has that handbill in its collection.  If the newspaper had been bound into a volume with other newspapers, by Wells or a subscriber or a collector, then the handbill was bound between the May 13 and May 20 issues.  Sometimes the binding is so tight that it distorts the image of the newspaper, especially the column nearest the binding.  While the images of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette in Accessible Archives suggest that the individual issues were part of a bound volume, they have been cropped in such a way as to hide the binding.  If the pages are indeed in a bound volume, the binding is not so tight that it resulted in distorted images when photographing the newspaper.  If the pages are not in a bound volume, then the handbill may have been tucked into the four-page broadsheet portion of the newspaper along with the additional half sheet of news.

Handbill (verso) perhaps distributed with the South-Carolina and American General Gazette (May 13, 1774).

That these items ended up together in an archive, however, does not necessarily mean that they were distributed together in 1774.  The middle of May seems rather late for Wells to distribute a handbill promoting an almanac and register for that year.  More than a third of the material in the almanac would not have much utility for readers, the months of January, February, March, and April having passed.  The register, on the other hand, with its lists of officials in Great Britain, Ireland, North America, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia and other information about local governance in the southern colonies, retained its full value.  Printers sometimes continued advertising almanacs well into the year, hoping to find buyers for surplus copies.  If Wells did happen to distribute this handbill in May 1774, then the handbill itself, proclaiming that “THIS DAY IS PUBLISHED … WELLS’S REGISTER,” was likely left over from previous marketing efforts.  The printer may have been trying to get both the handbill and remaining copies of the Register out of his shop.

The inclusion of this handbill as part of the May 13, 1774, edition of the South-Carolina and American General Gazetteraises questions about its production, distribution, and preservation.  While those questions do not have ready answers, that the handbill is part of the newspaper collection, regardless of how it ended up there, testifies to Wells’s use of media beyond newspaper notices to promote the Register.  Handbills and other advertising media, like broadsides and trade cards, were much more ephemeral than newspapers and, in turn, less likely to become part of collections that historians can examine.  They sometimes survived in quirky ways, such as a handbill tucked inside a newspaper.  Those instances suggest a much more vibrant culture of advertising than the scattered examples in research libraries, historical societies, and private collections.

September 20

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

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (September 20, 1773).

“When there will be added to his other Performances.”

Mr. Bates continued exhibiting feats of horsemanship for audiences in Boston in late September 1773, advertising once again in the September 20 editions of the Boston Evening-Post, the Boston-Gazette, and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  He planned his next performance for Tuesday, September 21, weather permitting.  He placed shorter notices in the first two newspapers, but in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy reverted to some of the material from the lengthier version that he initially published to introduce himself when he arrived in town.

The copy of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy digitized in America’s Historical Newspapers features manuscript additions, likely notes generated in the printing office when producing a handbill for Bates’s performance a week later on September 28.  For instance, the date has been crossed out and “28” written above it.  Similarly, “at the Bottom of the MALL in Boston” has a line through it after a description of the act with the location added in manuscript to the portion giving the date.  Manuscript additions for “A Variety of Manly Exercises never se[en here]” and the word “with” to introduce “a Burlesque on Horsemanship” appear on that copy of the newspaper, later integrated into the handbill, along with a line through “The Seats are made proper Ladies and Gentlemen,” which did not appear on the handbill.  The newspaper advertisement also features manuscript lines under each of the European courts where Bates previously performed.  Perhaps the compositor or an assistant underlined each when added to the handbill, ensuring none were overlooked or inadvertently omitted.  Large crosshatching at the bottom of the advertisement may have been added once all the material had been set in type and transferred to the handbill.

Handbill: Mr. Bates, “Horsemanship,” (Boston: [likely Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks], 1773). Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

The manuscript additions do not capture all of the additions made to the handbill.  For instance, the handbill included an appeal intended to incite a sense of urgency to see the show: “AS Mr. BATES’s Stay in Town will be but short, he will go thro’ all his Performances at the above Time.”  In other words, audiences would see all of the acts in his repertoire during a single performance, but only if they acquired tickets quickly before Bates departed from Boston.  He previously used a similar marketing strategy in New York.  Even though the manuscript notes do not document every revision made for the handbill, they do suggest that Bates turned to the printing office of Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks, the printers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, to produce the handbill.  The colophon for their newspaper solicited advertisements, presumably both newspaper notices and other formats, and stated that they pursued the printing business “in its different branches.”  This copy of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy digitized for broader access to the newspaper likely reveals some of the consultation between the printing office and the advertiser that went into producing a handbill that circulated in Boston.

June 28

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

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 28, 1773).

“I have not yet been favoured with a sufficiency of subscribers to enable me to carry it into immediate execution.”

Samuel Gale, the author of The Complete Surveyor, looked for subscribers to publish his work for more than a year.  He distributed a handbill with the dateline “PHILADELPHIA, MARCH 12th, 1772,” to advise those who already subscribed for copies of the book that even though he already collected two hundred subscribers on his own and expected to receive others from local agents in other cities and towns “the number in the whole falls considerably short of my expectations.”  Furthermore, he anticipated that “this work will be large, and the expence of printing it considerably greater than would be defrayed by the present number of subscribers.”  Accordingly, others had advised him “to delay the printing of it a little longer” out of concerns that he “might perhaps be a loser by proceeding too hastily.”  In other words, Gale received sound advice that he would likely incur expenses that he could not pay if he took the book to press without enough subscribers to defray the costs.

To that end, he hoped “for many Gentlemen in America, to encourage this publication” by becoming subscribers or, if they had already subscribed, recruiting other subscribers.  To reassure prospective subscribers of the quality of The Complete Surveyor, Gale asserted that the “Manuscript Copy has met with the approbation of some of the best judges of these matters in America,” including William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia; Alexander Colden, the Surveyor General of New York; David Rittenhouse, a prominent astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor in Philadelphia; and John Lukens, the Surveyor General of Pennsylvania.  Gale inserted short testimonials from each of these supports below a heading that called attention to “RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ABOVE WORK.”  In addition, he hoped to entice subscribers by promising to insert an “Essay on the Variation of the Needle, written by the late Mr. LEWIS EVANS,” a renowned Welsh surveyor and geographer who published the General Map of the Middle British Colonies in America in 1755.  Gale concluded the handbill with a list of local agents who accepted subscriptions in a dozen towns from Boston to Savannah.  In addition, he declared that “all the Booksellers and Printers in America” accepted subscriptions.

Apparently, such an extensive network did not yield a sufficient number of subscribers.  At the end of June 1773, more than fifteen months later, Gale ran an advertisement in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  He once again stated that the “manuscript copy has met with the greatest approbation,” yet “I have not yet been favoured with a sufficiency of subscribers to enable me to carry it into execution, without running too great a hazard.”  He requested that those who already subscribed give him a few more months to solicit subscribers among “the other well-wishers to mathematical learning among the public.”  He included the endorsements that previously appeared on the handbill and an even more extensive list of local agents, concluding with a note that “all the Booksellers and Printers in America and the West-India Islands” forwarded subscriptions to him.

Despite his best efforts, Gale never managed to attract enough subscribers to publish the book.  A note in the American Antiquarian Society’s catalog entry for the handbill states that “an insufficient number of subscriptions were received to encourage publication.”  Gale circulated advertising materials in more than one format, deployed testimonials from prominent experts in his field, offered a bonus essay as a premium, and made it convenient to subscribe via local agents throughout the colonies.  He developed a sophisticated marketing campaign, but it ultimately fell short of inciting sufficient demand for the book he wished to published.

Samuel Gale’s handbill promoting The Complete Surveyor. Courtesy Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

October 22

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 22, 1771).

“Several scandalous and malicious written bills stuck up in many public places about town.”

William Tweed was angry.  As he strolled through the streets of Charleston in the fall of 1771, he discovered that an anonymous antagonist had posted small broadsides, written by hand rather than printed, that attacked him.  In response, he turned to the public prints to achieve some sort of remedy.  In an advertisement in the October 22 edition of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, he expressed his frustration that “several scandalous and malicious written bills” had been “stuck up in many public places about town, tending to injure his character and reputation with the public.”  To remedy the situation, he offered a generous “One Hundred Pounds reward” to “Whoever will discover the author thereof, so that he may be brought to justice.”

Tweed meant business.  He placed the same advertisement in the South-Carolina and American Gazette on October 21 and in the South-Carolina Gazette on October 24.  In the course of three days, it ran in each newspaper published in the city, maximizing the number of readers likely to see it.  Considering the size of the reward that Tweed offered, he probably did not think twice about how much it cost to run the advertisement simultaneously in three newspapers.

Tweed likely removed the handwritten bills wherever and whenever he encountered them, but his advertisements may have called additional attention to the accusations they made against him.  Newspaper readers who had not otherwise been aware of the bills may have sensed a good story, one that Tweed did not commit to print, and asked their friends and associates if they knew more about what had transpired than appeared in the advertisements.  Even as Tweed attempted to leverage the power of print for damage control, he may have given the handbills new life and greater reach as colonists gossiped about what occurred.  On the other hand, discovering the author of those missives gave him a better chance to defend himself and rehabilitate his character and reputation.  That, apparently, was worth the risk of drawing attention to the incident in a series of newspaper advertisements.

October 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal (October 15, 1771).

“JOSEPH ATKINSON … HAS imported a new and general ASSORTMENT of EUROPEAN MANUFACTORIES.”

Joseph Atkinson’s advertisement in the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal almost certainly caught the attention of readers.  After all, it comprised nearly two-thirds of the front page of the October 15, 1771, edition.  Immediately below the masthead, it filled the first two columns before news from London in the remaining column.  In addition, Atkinson’s name served as a headline, printed in larger font than even the name of the newspaper in the masthead.

Other graphic design elements also demanded notice.  Atkinson’s name and an introduction to the imported goods available at his store near the New Exchange in Charleston ran across two columns, making that portion of the advertisement even more distinctive.  Most of the notice, however, was divided into two columns that matched the width of others throughout the rest of the issue.  In those columns, Atkinson listed his merchandise.  Instead of dense paragraphs of text common in many advertisements of the period, he placed only one or two items on each line.  That left a significant amount of white space, having the simultaneous effects of making the list easier to read and separating it visually from other content.  A line of ornamental type ran between the two columns, an additional flourish.

Atkinson’s advertisement served as a catalog for prospective customers.  Indeed, the size and format suggest the possibility that it did not appear solely in the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal.  Instead, the merchant may have hired Charles Crouch, the printer, to produce handbills or broadsides to distribute or post around town.  In that case, Crouch would have streamlined his efforts in creating marketing materials for Atkinson, choosing to set type just once in a format that fit the newspaper but also lent itself well to printing handbills and broadsides.  Unfortunately, such items were more ephemeral than newspapers, making them much less likely to have survived to today.

July 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (July 15, 1771).

“Buy worth a Dollar, when you come, / And you may drink a Glass of Rum.”

Lydia Learned received some free advertising in the July 15, 1771, edition of the Boston Evening-Post.  She distributed a handbill that listed a variety of items available at her shop “Near the Sign of the Punch-Bowl” in Brookline.  Intrigued by the advertisement, Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the printers of the Boston Evening-Post, inserted it in its entirety along with a note advising, “The following advertisement, copied from one in the Punch Bowl Tavern in Brookline, we publish for the Amusement of out Poetical Readers.”  Indeed, the poetry, not the assortment of goods offered for sale, attracted their attention.  Few advertisers attempted to transform their inventory into poetry in newspaper notices or on broadsides and handbills, helping to make Learned’s advertisement more memorable.

Her poetry featured three stanzas of four lines each, the second and fourth lines rhyming.  Learned devoted the first stanza entirely to her wares:  “FLOUR, Raisons, Rice, Molosses, Spice, / Good Indigo and Wire, / Knives[,] Combs, Fish-hooks, Verses and Books, / And Paper by the Quire.”  In the remaining stanzas, she used the final line to make appeals to prospective customers.  In the second, for instance, she listed “Sugar[,] Bisket and Chocolate, / Tinn, Glass and Earthen-ware, / Pins, Needles[,] Thread and Ginger-bread, / As good as any where.”  Her shop may have been humble compared to the larger enterprises operated by other entrepreneurs, but Learned assured prospective customers that the size of her business did not negatively affect the quality of her merchandise.  In the final stanza, she offered an additional incentive to shoppers.  “Salt, Allum, Coffee, Tea, and Snuff, / Crown-Soap and Candles, cheap enough / Buy worth a Dollar when you come, / And you may drink a glass of RUM.”  Perhaps the nip of alcohol as much as the poetry amused the Fleets and convinced them to reprint Learned’s handbill in their newspapers.

Learned was not the only entrepreneur to have the text from a trade card or billhead also printed in an eighteenth-century newspaper.  On May 5, 1768, Mary Symonds, a milliner in Philadelphia, ran a lengthy advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette.  In it, she listed dozens of items among her inventory.  She also distributed a trade card that reiterated, with minor variations, the text from the newspaper advertisement.  In October and November 1770, she recorded a receipted bill for items purchased by the Cadwalader family on the reverse, suggesting that Symonds kept her trade card in circulation for some time.

Symonds seems to have made a more intentional effort than Learned when it came to deploying advertisements in multiple formats.  All the same, Learned demonstrated creativity in devising a billhead that distinguished her business from her competitors.  If prospective customers did not appreciate the poetry, then the promise of a glass of rum offered as a premium for making a purchase may have convinced them to check out her merchandise.

Lydia Learned, Trade Card, ca. 1771. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

December 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dec 27 - 12:27:1769 Georgia Gazette
Georgia Gazette (December 27, 1769).

“One of Mrs. Stoke’s hand bills relating to her boarding school in Charlestown.”

Newspaper notices accounted for the vast majority of advertisements that circulated in eighteenth-century America, yet they were not the only form of marketing familiar in the colonies or the new nation. Advertisers distributed a variety of other media, including broadsides, trade cards, billheads, catalogs, magazine wrappers, subscription notices, furniture labels, and handbills. Even more ephemeral than newspapers, relatively few of these items survive today. Those that are extant testify to a vibrant landscape of advertising in early America.

In some cases, newspaper notices alluded to other advertisements, providing a more complete story of their production and circulation in eighteenth-century America. For instance, printers, booksellers, auctioneers, and others sometimes noted in their advertisements that they provided free catalogs to prospective customers who wished to learn more about their inventory. Sometimes newspaper notices placed for purposes other than marketing consumer goods and services mentioned advertisements distributed via other media.

Such was the case in a notice that ran in the December 27, 1769, edition of the Georgia Gazette. Lewis Johnson informed the public that several certificates and bills had been “STOLEN out of a desk in [his] house.” Je offered a reward to “whoever will give any information of the thief.” To help anyone who might come in contact with the culprit identify the stolen bills, Johnson reported that the “money was put up on one of Mrs. Stokes’s hand bills relating to her boarding school in Charlestown.” That single sentence, embedded in a newspaper advertisement about a theft, revealed quite a bit about another advertisement that circulated separately. Not only had a schoolmistress in Charleston, South Carolina, hired a printer to produce handbills about her boarding school, at least one of those handbills found its way to Savannah, Georgia. Whether or not he had any interest in Stokes’s school, Johnson held onto the handbill, adapting it to his own purposes when he used it as a folder to contain his certificates and bills. A significant proportion of eighteenth-century advertising ephemera in the collections of research libraries and historical societies have been preserved among family papers related to finances and household management. This suggests that advertising was integrated into the everyday lives of early Americans. In this instance, Johnson encountered Stokes’s handbill regularly as he saw to his own finances (before the theft), while readers of the Georgia Gazette saw references to an advertisement that many might have also seen circulating elsewhere.