Lewis Nicola

July 8

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

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

Jul 8 - 7:8:1769 Providence Gazette
Providence Gazette (July 8, 1769).

“Subscriptions for the American Magazine, published in Philadelphia.”

On behalf of Lewis Nicola, the editor of the American Magazine, John Carter inserted a brief advertisement in the July 8, 1769, edition of the Providence Gazette. In just four lines, it advised readers in Rhode Island that “Subscriptions for the American Magazine, published in Philadelphia by the Editor Lewis Nicola, are received by the Printer hereof, at 13 s. Pennsylvania Currency per Annum, to be paid on subscribing.” This notice was much less extensive than some that appeared in other newspapers. An advertisement that ran in the New-York Journal almost two months earlier informed prospective subscribers of the length of each issue and promised a title page and index with the final edition for the year. Another much more extensive advertisement appeared in Richard Draper’s Massachusetts Gazette at the end of May. It described magazines as “the Taste of the Age” and provided an overview of the publication’s purpose and contents. The editor aimed “To instruct, and innocently amuse” readers. The magazine served as “a Repository for the many small, tho’ valuable Pieces that would otherwise be lost to the World.”

Though vastly different in length and content, these advertisements provide an example of the networks that members of the book trades established in eighteenth-century America. Realizing that local markets alone would not sustain some of their enterprises, printers and publishers banded together, sometimes formally but often informally, to assist each other. This included exchanging newspapers and then liberally reprinting content from one to another, but disseminating information was not the extent of the work accomplished by these networks. Note that Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, served as a local agent for Nicola in Providence, as did Draper, the printer of the Massachusetts Gazette, in Boston, and John Holt, the printer of the New-York Journal, in New York. These printers did not merely publish Nicola’s advertisement; they also informed him of the subscribers in their cities, collected subscription fees, and likely aided in the distribution of the American Magazine.

Publishing books, magazines, and other printed materials in eighteenth-century America often depended on these networks of cooperation among members of the book trades, especially printers and publishers. Sometimes such networks played a significant role in the success of an endeavor; other times, they were not enough to overcome other factors that ultimately led to the failure of publications. Nicola’s American Magazine ceased publication within three months of the advertisement in the Providence Gazette. Yet his efforts provided an important marketing model that other magazine publishers successfully deployed after the American Revolution.

May 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

May 25 - 5:25:1769 Massachusetts Gazette Draper
Massachusetts Gazette [Draper] (May 25, 1769).
“Such pieces as may serve to illustrate their civil history will be gratefully received.”

A week after a brief subscription notice for the American Magazine, or General Repository ran in John Holt’s New-York Journal, a much more extensive variation appeared in Richard Draper’s Massachusetts Gazette. Both printers indicated that they accepted subscriptions on behalf of the magazine’s publisher, Lewis Nicola, and the printers, William Bradford and Thomas Bradford. Nicola and the Bradfords realized that the success of any magazine depended on cultivating interest throughout the colonies, not just in the Philadelphia market. To that end, they recruited printers in other towns to serve as subscription agents and promote the American Magazine in their newspapers.

The subscription notice in Draper’s Massachusetts Gazette gave readers a better sense of the contents of the American Magazine than the abbreviated version in the New-York Journal. Nicola envisioned it as a complement to the publications of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. That institution concerned itself with the “natural history of the American and West-India colonies.” In contrast, Nicola wished to collect and preserve “such pieces as may serve to illustrate their civil history.” After the American Revolution, other magazine publishers advanced the same goal, seeking to record and celebrate the history of the thirteen colonies that became a nation as well as pieces that promoted American commerce. Nicola, like the magazine publishers that came after him, considered this an important undertaking that served purposed other than merely “gratifying the Curiosity of the Public.” Articles about the “civil history” of the colonies provided valuable information for “the present generation,” but over time they would also become useful to “such persons as may hereafter undertake general or particular histories of the colonies.” The American Magazine, or General Repository according to Nicola’s plan, was not ephemeral in the manner that magazines have become in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It was indeed a repository for consultation months, years, or even decades later. Although not explicitly stated in this advertisement, publishers intended for subscribers to collect all the issues to complete a single volume and then have them neatly bound to become a permanent part of the family library. Notice that Nicola stated that a subscription included “a general Title-Page” and index; such items became part of the bound volumes.

American booksellers imported many magazines from England in the eighteenth century, so many of them that Nicola described magazines as “the Taste of the Age.” Yet he promoted the American Magazine as timeless and a resource that retained its value over time because it included far more than entertaining curiosities. He suggested that subscribers should invest in the magazine for their own edification as well as the edification of subsequent generations.

May 18

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

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

May 18 - 5:18:1769 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (May 18, 1769).

“SUBSCRIPTIONS for the American General Magazine, or General Repository.”

By the late 1760s, American booksellers had long imported magazines published in London to sell to consumers in the colonies. Yet very few printers attempted to publish American magazines. When Lewis Nicola, publisher, and William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, printers, placed a subscription notice for the American Magazine, or General Repository in the New-York Journal in the spring of 1769, they promoted a product that had few domestic antecedents in the colonies.

According to the chronological list in Frank Luther Mott’s History of American Magazines, 1741-1850, only twelve American titles came before the American Magazine.[1] The first two appeared in Philadelphia in February 1741 (though dated January) as rivals Andrew Bradford and Benjamin Franklin raced to publish magazines they began advertising to the public months earlier. Bradford’s American Magazine, or Monthly View narrowly edged out Franklin’s General Magazine and Historical Chronicle by only three days to earn distinction as America’s first magazine. Despite this victory, the American Magazine survived for only three issues; the General Magazine did not last much longer, folding in June with its sixth issue. The first American magazines all had short runs. Of the twelve published before 1769, eight lasted less than a year, some for only a couple of months. Two maintained publication for an entire year, but only two others extended their runs for longer durations. The New American Magazine, published by Samuel Nevill (former editor of London’s Evening Post) in Woodbridge, New Jersey, ran for just over two years, from January 1758 to March 1760. The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle, published in Boston, met with slightly more success. Several printers, publishers, and editors played a part in operating this magazine for more than three years, commencing in September 1743 and concluding in December 1746.

Nicola and the Bradfords hoped to achieve more with the American Magazine, or General Repository. Produced in Philadelphia, it was a publication intended for consumption throughout the colonies. Nicola and the Bradfords enlisted others in the printing and book trades to assist in the promotion and circulation of their magazine. In addition to running advertisements in various newspapers, they advised that “SUBSCRIPTIONS … are taken in by the Printer of this Paper.” Networks that prioritized exchanging information for republication from newspaper to newspaper also allowed for cooperation on new ventures that did not amount to direct competition. Despite their efforts to attract subscribers in Philadelphia and beyond, they were unable to create a market that would sustain their publication, despite great interest in promoting “domestic manufactures” of other goods as a means of economic and commercial resistance to the Townshend Acts. Founded in January 1769, the American Magazine, or General Repository ceased publication with the September issue that same year.

[1] Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741-1850 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939), 787.