What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?
“Imported last summer and fall from London [and] Bristol … A VERY large and general assortment of Ironmongery [and] Cutlery.”
James Bringhurst advertised a variety of items available at “his Ware-house on the Bank, below Walnut-street,” in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775. He stocked a “VERY large and general assortment of Ironmongery [and] Cutlery” that included “knives and forks with or without cases, roasting jacks, bake ovens, preserving pans with covers, sauce pans with ditto, teakettles, skillets, pots, kettles, [and] frying pans.” He also carried “most sorts of tradesmens tools” along with “compleat Furniture both for house and ship building.” In addition, his inventory included “sundry other articles too numerous to insert” in a newspaper advertisement. Bringhurst’s “Ware-house” was an eighteenth-century precursor of a superstore that sold housewares to consumers and equipment and supplies to builders.
Before he gave or his location or presented his list of merchandise, Bringhurst noted when and where he received the goods he sold. Many merchants and shopkeepers did so in the 1760s and 1770s yet doing so had a new kind of significance once the Continental Association went into effect on December 1, 1774. The First Continental Congress devised the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement, in response to the Coercive Acts, hoping to leverage the commercial boycott into political reform. Colonizers who signed the Continental Association vowed to abide by it until Parliament repealed the Coercive Acts and other legislation that infringed on their rights that had been passed since the end of the Seven Years War.
Bringhurst sent an important signal to prospective customers and the entire community when he specified that his wares had been “Imported last summer and fall from London, Bristol,” and other English ports. Under other circumstances, wholesalers and retailers would have been unlikely to acknowledge that they sold items that had been on the shelves or in the warehouse for so long; instead, they usually emphasized that they had just the received the newest goods and the newest fashions. In this case, however, peddling merchandise that had been around for the better part of a year was a virtue. Bringhurst abided by the Continental Association … and his customers could shop in good conscience knowing that they did so as well.