Linen Rags

April 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 23, 1776).

“THREE PENCE per pound … for the best sort of CLEAN WHITE LINEN RAGS.”

A year after the battles at Lexington and Concord, the landscape of newspapers published throughout the colonies had changed.  Some ceased publication, including most of the newspapers previously printed in Boston and Charleston as well as the only newspaper printed in Georgia.  During that time, one printer also launched a new newspaper.  Samuel Loudon commenced the New York Packet on January 4, 1776.  Printers and others experienced a scarcity of paper because of the war and nonimportation agreements.  That contributed to the suspension or irregular publication of some newspapers.  On April 23, 1776, William Trickett, a stationer in Philadelphia, ran an advertisement offering “THREE PENCE per pound … for the best sort of CLEAN WHITE LINEN RAGS.”  Readers knew that he planned to recycle that linen into paper.

I periodically provide a census of newspapers consulted for the Adverts 250 Project.  These are the newspapers published throughout the colonies as the Revolutionary War entered its second year.  This list includes only those that have been digitized and made widely accessible.  A couple titles have not survived or have not been digitized, so this list does not reflect every newspaper that circulated in the colonies in late April 1776.

Published on Mondays

  • Boston-Gazette (Watertown, Massachusetts)
  • Connecticut Courant (Hartford, Connecticut)
  • Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
  • Newport Mercury (Newport, Rhode Island)
  • New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (New York, New York)
  • Norwich Packet (Norwich, Connecticut)

Published on Tuesdays

  • Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (Baltimore, Maryland)
  • Pennsylvania Evening Post (Philadelphia Pennsylvania)

Published on Wednesdays

  • Connecticut Journal (New Haven, Connecticut)
  • Constitutional Gazette (New York, New York)
  • Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
  • Maryland Journal (Baltimore, Maryland)
  • Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
  • Pennsylvania Journal (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Published on Thursdays

  • Maryland Gazette (Annapolis, Maryland)
  • New-England Chronicle (final issue in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 4; first issue in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 25)
  • New-York Journal (New York, New York)
  • New York Packet (New York, New York)
  • Pennsylvania Evening Post (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Published on Fridays

  • Connecticut Gazette (New London, Connecticut)
  • Essex Gazette (Newburyport, Massachusetts)
  • Henrich Millers Pennsylvanischer Staatsbote (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
  • Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy (Worcester, Massachusetts)
  • Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (Williamsburg, Virginia)

Published on Saturdays

  • Constitutional Gazette (New York, New York)
  • Pennsylvania Evening Post (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
  • Pennsylvania Ledger (Philadelphia Pennsylvania)
  • Providence Gazette (Providence, Rhode Island)
  • Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (Williamsburg, Virginia)

These American newspapers published in late April 1776 either have not survived or have not been digitized for greater accessibility.

  • Germantowner Zeitung (Germantown, Pennsylvania; few numbers known)
  • North-Carolina Gazette (New Bern, North Carolina; possibly suspended)

January 29

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Norwich Packet (January 29, 1776).

“CASH GIVEN FOR Clean Linen Rags.”

Nathaniel Patten’s advertisement in the January 29, 1776, edition of the Norwich Packet was neither as lengthy nor as visually stimulating as some of his previous advertisements, but that may have been because he had a different purpose in running it.  The “BOOKBINDER and STATIONER, at the East End of the Green,” did not provide a list of titles that he sold in this notice.  Instead, he announced, “CASH GIVEN FOR Clean Linen Rags, Of any Kind, Old Sail Cloth,” and other remnants of textiles that could be recycled into paper.  Similar calls for rags appeared frequently in early American newspapers, most often placed by the printers of those newspapers.  Such advertisements often consisted of only one or two lines.  Printers offered cash for rags without further explanation because readers knew exactly why they wanted the rags and how they would be used.

The proprietors of paper mills sometimes ran more elaborate advertisements requesting rags.  Especially when colonizers enacted nonimportation agreements that disrupted the supply of paper coming from England, those advertisements depicted saving rags to produce paper as a patriotic duty and a means for all colonizers, including women, to support the American cause.  Patten did not go into as much detail as John Keating did when promoting ‘THE FIRST Paper Manufactory Established in the city of New-York,” but he did say more than most printers.  “As Paper is one of the most necessary Articles now wanted,” the bookbinder and stationer asserted, “it is hoped that all true Friends to America, will exert their utmost Endeavours to promote and encourage such Manufactory” in Connecticut.  A lack of paper had indeed caused some printers to sometimes reduce the size of their weekly newspapers to half sheets (two pages) instead of full sheets (four pages) or miss publishing for a week or two.  That was the situation in New England and beyond.  Two days before Patten issued his call for rags in the Norwich Packet, for instance, John Pinkney, the printer of one Virginia Gazette, ran a notice in another Virginia Gazette to explain that he could not print his newspaper that week because he could not acquire paper.

December 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-York Journal (December 2, 1773).

“Those who really wish to promote the interest of America … will contribute their aid to the success of the paper manufactory.”

John Keating, the proprietor of a “PAPER MANUFACTORY” near New York, had a task for every household in the colonies: collect rags to make into paper.  That might seem like an insignificant act, he argued in an advertisement that appeared week after week in the New-York Journal, but it had value beyond measure.  “The smallness of the value of rags in a family, is apt to make people careless in saving them, as being scarce worth the trouble,” Keating acknowledged.  However, “small as the value is, it is more than sufficient, taking one family with another, to supply each with all the paper necessary for its use.”  This endeavor, like so many acts of protest against the abuse of Parliament, depended on colonizers working in unison.  Cooperation yielded strength.  Keating elaborated on his vision: “And the benefit each will receive in common with the community, will be much greater than the immediate profit by the of the rags.”  To achieve that goal, he encouraged every household to designate a spot for collecting rags, noting that “a little practice in saving them, would soon make it habitual to do it, and establish this valuable manufactory upon a permanent foundation.”

True patriots would heed this call to help meet the demand for paper in America, “of late so greatly increased, that very large sums are continually sent abroad for the purchase of it.”  Importing paper instead of producing it locally resulted in “the great impoverishment of the colonies,” an assertion that Keating made in advertisement after advertisement for several years in the late 1760s and early 1770s.  “All the paper which is manufactured among ourselves,” he proclaimed, “is a clear saving, to us, of all the money that would be sent out of the country to procure it.”  Rather than exacerbate a trade imbalance with England, “those who really wish to promote the interest of America … will contribute their aid to the success of the paper manufactory in this place.”  That meant purchasing paper from Keating, yet his advertisements usually emphasized participating in the production of paper rather than the consumption of his product.  Given the demand, he likely assumed that he could sell paper as quickly as he produced it.  He needed the most assistance with procuring the necessary materials, “linen rags, quite useless for any other purpose, and generally thrown away.”  The strength of the local economy depended on the efforts of the members of every household.  According to Keating, wives and mothers, indentured servants and enslaved people, and youths and children all had a role to play in supporting this important industry in New York during the era of the American Revolution.

February 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (February 1, 1773).

“He most humbly addresses the Fair Sex, requesting their aid.”

John Keating regularly offered “READY MONEY … for CLEAN LINEN RAGS” in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury in the late 1760s and early 1770s.  The papermaker needed as many rags as he could gather to supply his mill with raw materials.  To convince readers to make an effort to collect and submit rags, he developed appeals that emphasized both commerce and devotion to the best interests of the colonies.

In an advertisement that ran on February 1, 1773, for instance, Keating stated that the “advantages that must result to this colony from the establishment of manufactories in it, are so obvious that the subject needs no elucidation.”  Then he elucidated.  “Since paper manufactories were established in Pennsylvania, the money saved and brought into that province, the money saved and brought into the province” amounted to “the many thousand pounds of which is annually drained of[f] by purchasing paper in England.”  Supporting domestic manufactures, goods produced in the colonies, helped to address the trade imbalance with Great Britain.  Keating challenged readers to think about what more they accomplish by working together.  “Might not every shilling of this money be saved?  Have we not materials amongst ourselves?  Is our patriotism all pretence …?”

New Yorkers did indeed already have the materials necessary for making paper, clean linen rags.  Keating suggested that women played a vital role in sustaining the patriotic project that he pursued, declaring that he “most humbly addressed the Fair Sex, requesting their aid, without which it will be impossible for him to establish this manufactory upon a respectable or prudent footing.”  He requested that every “frugal matron … hang up a bag … and take care to put every piece of linen that is unfit for any other use, in it.”  When the bag was full, the frugal matron would sell the contents to Keating in an eighteenth-century version of recycling to support a good cause.  The papermaker indicated that in return for the clean linen rags the frugal matron would receive enough money to “supply herself and family with the very essential article of pins.”  Just as significantly, “she will have the satisfaction of being conscious of contributing her part to the advancement of her country.”  Women’s industry served a dual purpose when it manifested patriotism.

The project did not depend solely on those frugal matrons.  Keating also asked “young ladies to co-operate … in saving rags,” though he presented a more romantic rationale to them.  The papermaker asked young women to “observe a very curious remark made by the celebrated Mr. Addison in the Spectator, ‘That a young lady who sends her shift to the paper mill, may very possibly in less than six months, have it returned made into a piece of fair paper, upon which her lover has written a billet doux.’”  Although Keating (and Addision) asked young women to imagine love letters, their shifts and other linen garments may just as likely been transformed into newspapers that kept their households informed about the imperial crisis that faced New York and other colonies.

Women, both “frugal matrons” and “young ladies,” participated in politics and expressed their patriotism when they heeded the call of papermakers who encouraged them to collect clean linen rags.  Similarly, their actions and decisions made an impact when they produced homespun textiles and garments and participated in nonconsumption agreements.  During the era of the American Revolution, both men and women understood that the personal was political.  That included gathering clean linen rags in “a bag in some convenient part of the house.”

July 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (July 9, 1772).

“Promote the interest of America.”

John Keating operated “PAPER MANUFACTORIES, At and near New-York” in the late 1760s and early 1770s.  He regularly advertised “ALL sorts of paper and paste board,” usually enhancing his newspaper notices with commentary intended to convince consumers to purchase goods produced in the colonies.  In an advertisement in the July 9, 1772, edition of the New-York Journal, for instance, he asserted that his paper “and other articles manufactured here, make a clear saving to this country of all the money that would have been sent out to purchase them from abroad.”  A greater number of advertisers promoted domestic manufactures when nonimportation agreements remained in effect, providing alternatives for consumers who wished for their shopping habits to match their politics, but such appeals tapered off when trade resumed.  Keating, on the other hand, remained adamant in calling on “all those who really wish to promote the interest of America” to “contribute their aid to the success of this undertaking.”

Keating imagined readers as more than consumers who would purchase his paper.  He also envisioned them as partners in producing it.  He needed resources, especially linen rags, “which are generally destroyed or thrown away as useless, tho’ they are absolutely necessary to a paper manufactory, which cannot be carried on without them.”  Colonizers played a vital role in supporting the production of paper in New York, “with which their own interest is closely connected.”  Some colonizers discarded rags that could have been transformed into paper at one of Keating’s “MANUFACTORIES.”  Others sent “considerable quantities … to other colonies,” prompting Keating to lament that the “the legislature have not yet thought proper to prohibit the exportation” of rags.  Even though the colonial assembly refused to act on that matter, colonizers in New York could choose to collect and send rags to Keating on their own.  He expressed his desire that “a due regard to their own interest will incline the inhabitants of this country to supply a manufactory among themselves.”

Keating invited colonizers to participate in both the production and consumption of paper made at his “MANUFACTORIES” in and near New York.  He reiterated that in doing so they not only supported a local business but also attended to “their own interest” in making goods produced in the colonies more widely available at lower prices than imported alternatives.  Doing so corrected trade imbalance that resulted from the colonies exporting resources and importing finished goods.  Keating advocated for the colonies producing more of the goods they consumed, but doing so required widespread cooperation.

March 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Packet (March 30, 1772).

“Prevail upon our LADIES to grant us a little of their industry and assistance.”

Women played a vital role in supporting the early American press.  So claimed John Dunlap, printer of the Pennsylvania Packet, in a notice calling on colonizers to exchange “CLEAN LINEN RAGS” for “READY MONEY” at his printing office on Market Street in Philadelphia.  What was the connection between rags and newspapers?  Printers produced their publications on paper made from linen.  The papermakers who supplied them needed “CLEAN LINEN RAGS” to transform into paper for printing items of “Instruction and Amusement” for the public.

Dunlap commenced his notice by addressing “the Public in general, and his Fellow-citizens in particular,” suggesting that colonizers had a civic responsibility to support the press by participating in the production of paper through collecting rags.  He claimed that until recently papermakers in Pennsylvania not only produced enough “Printing-Paper” to serve that colony “but likewise had the glory and emolument of furnishing some of the other Colonies, and West India Islands” with a significant amount of their “Printing-Paper.”  Recently, however, the “Paper-Mills about this city are almost idle for want of RAGS,” thus putting printing offices in danger of a similar fate.

He then pivoted to addressing the “LADIES,” the “FAIR READERS” of the Pennsylvania Packet, imploring them “to grant us a little of their industry and assistance” by collecting rags to recycle into paper.  Dunlap reminded that that paper “was a main article in the late unconstitutional Taxes, which have been so nobly parried by the AMERICANS.”  Readers, both women and men, needed little reminder that Parliament imposed duties on imported paper and other goods in the Townshend Acts.  In response, American merchants and shopkeepers coordinated nonimportation agreements, leveraging commerce into acts of protests.  At the same time, colonizers promoted “domestic manufactures,” including paper, to replace imported goods they refused to consume.  Such protests played a role in convincing Parliament to repeal most of the import duties.

Yet readers of the Pennsylvania Packet still had a responsibility in maintaining the press.  “FAIR READERS” acted as “Fellow-citizens” when they gave their “kind attention” to Dunlap’s “complaint” about the scarcity of rags.  Women could attend to “the welfare of their country,” Dunlap asserted, by heeding his request.  Just as decisions about consumption became political acts for women during the imperial crisis that led to the American Revolution so too did mundane chores like collecting rags.  Women’s work in that regard became imperative to the continued operation of American presses in the era of the American Revolution.

January 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-York Journal (January 16, 1772).

“He shall receive Encouragement and Assistance from the true Friends of their Country of all Ranks.”

In an advertisement that ran in the New-York Journal for several weeks in January 1772, William Shaffer addressed both the production and consumption of paper.  He issued a call for colonizers to provide him with “all Sorts of Linen Rags and old Paper” that he could use in making new paper, offering “Ready Money” in return.  Shaffer stated that he “continues to manufacture … All Sorts of Paper … to the general Satisfaction of his Customers.”

In addition, he offered an extensive explanation about why current and prospective customers should buy his paper.  The “Establishment of this Manufactory is of great Advantage to the Country,” Shaffer asserted, “by causing the Money that otherwise would be sent out of it, for the Purchase of Paper, imported from abroad, to circulate here, among a great Number of poor People.”  In the recent past, colonizers boycotted paper and other goods imported from Great Britain because Parliament imposed duties, but then resumed trade when Parliament repealed all of the duties except the one on tea.  For Shaffer and others who encouraged “domestic manufactures,” the production of goods in the colonies, that repeal addressed only one problem.  Colonizers continued to face a trade imbalance in which they sent their money across the Atlantic instead of spending it in support of local economies.  Colonial consumers, Shaffer argued, had an obligation to purchase paper and other goods produced locally.

They also had a responsibility to contribute to the production of paper by “supplying [Shaffer] with Linen Rags and old Paper, (Articles absolutely necessary to the Support of this Manufactory, and otherwise of little or no Use).”  This was an endeavor that could be undertaken by “the true Friends of their Country of all Ranks,” though Shaffer imagined different roles based on status.  “Gentlemen and Ladies in Town and Country,” he suggested, should “give proper Orders to their Servants” to collect and save linen rags and old paper and then send it to Shaffer.  In turn, he would “supply Country Merchants, Printers and others in this and the neighbouring Governments … with Paper of all Sorts, at the most reasonable Rates.”  Colonizers did not need to depend on imported paper, Shaffer proclaimed, when he offered a viable alternative, but the production of paper in New York depended in part on their cooperation in providing the necessary materials.  Colonizers could demonstrate that they were “Friends of their Country” by participating in both the production and consumption of paper.

March 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

Mar 19 - 3:19:1770 New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 19, 1770).

“Ready Money for old Rags by H. Gaine.”

It was a familiar appeal, one that became even more urgent when colonists boycotted imported paper in response to duties imposed on it (along with glass, lead, paint, and tea) in the Townshend Acts.  Newspaper printers throughout the colonies regularly issued calls for readers to collect and contribute “old Rags” that could be transformed into paper, offering “Ready Money” in exchange.  Readers of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury encountered it not once, not twice, but three times in the March 19, 1770, edition.

Either Hugh Gaine, “Printer, Bookseller, and Stationer, at the Bible and Crown,” or a compositor who worked in his printing office inserted similar notices on both the third page and the fourth page.  One stated, “Ready Money for old Rags by H. Gaine,” and the other “Ready Money for Linnen Rags.”  In both instances, these brief notices appeared at the bottom of the final column, completing the page and producing columns of equal length.  Yet they were more than convenient filler.  After all, Gaine or the compositor could have inserted other sorts of notices.  Eighteenth-century printers often hawked printed blanks in any leftover space.  Another one-line advertisement did run at the bottom of the second column on the third page, advising readers of “The Ten Pound Act, sold by H. Gaine.”  The notice about linen rags likely appeared more than once out of a sense of pressing need that outweighed promoting pamphlets and printed blanks for sale at the printing office.

John Keating’s lengthy appeal on behalf of “the Paper Makers” once again ran in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, calling on “Friends to their Country” to save “clean RAGS” as a means of “preserv[ing] the Rights and Liberties” of the colonists.  Keating framed collecting rags to manufacture into paper as a patriotic duty.  His petition ran week after week in Gaine’s newspaper, inflecting the printer’s much more humble calls for rags with additional meaning because, as Keating explained, none of the items taxed by the Townshend Acts were “more necessary and considerable than Paper.”  A single line that lends the impression of filler at first glance – “Ready Money for old Rags by H. Gaine” – overflowed with political meaning when considered in the context of current events.

March 12

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

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

Mar 12 - 3:12:1770 New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury
New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 12, 1770).

“… from a Principle of Love to their Country.”

John Keating became a familiar figure in advertisements that appeared in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury and other newspapers in the late 1760s and early 1770s.  He operated a paper manufactory and presented his enterprise as providing a patriotic alternative to paper imported from Britain.  He objected to the duties that Parliament levied on imported paper in the Townshend Acts while simultaneously noting that consumers could foil such attempts to tax them by purchasing paper made locally.  He also frequently took the pages of the New York’s newspapers to encourage colonists to participate in the production of paper by collecting rags and turning them over to him to be transformed into paper, as he did in the March 12, 1770, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.

His entreaty commenced with a prologue that could have been part of a political tract rather than a newspaper advertisement: “THE Imposition of a Tax upon Goods imported from Great-Britain to her Colonies, altho’ a palpable Violation of their most sacred Rights, was not more injurious to them, than in itself impolitic, absurd and detrimental to Great-Britain, herself: Yet, notwithstanding the Absurdity of the Measure, the Contrivers of it had Cunning enough to lay the Tax upon Articles of necessary to us, that it was with Reason supposed we could not do without them, and therefore should be compelled by our Wants, to submit to the Imposition.”  From there, Keating outlined the nonimportation agreements that went into effect in several colonies, noting that “Friends to their Country” could play an important role in continuing to make paper available if only they would collect their rags and turn them over to the paper manufactory.  Keating estimated that there “are Rags abundantly sufficient for the Purpose” that colonists should save “from a Principle of Love to their Country.”

Keating frequently made such appeals, but on this occasion his exhortation may have gained additional urgency.  It ran next to a news item dated “BOSTON, March 1” that reported “the melancholy Affair at the North End.”  The Massachusetts Historical Society provides this summary of events that took place on February 22: “Ebenezer Richardson, a customs informer, fired a musket through a broken window in his house at a crowd of young men and boys who had been taunting customers of a store selling British imports.”  In addition to wounding others, Richardson killed Christopher Seider, age eleven.  His funeral on February 26 was a significant event.  According to the report in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, “a great Multitude of People assembled in the Houses and Streets to see the Funeral Procession, which departed “from Liberty-Tree.”  Killed less than two weeks before the Boston Massacre, Seider could be considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.  News of that “Bloody Massacre,” as Paul Revere labeled it, did not yet appear in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, but the death of Seider may have been sufficient to put Keating’s calls for colonists to collect rags into new perspective.  He offered a practical means for “Service they would do their Country, in whose Welfare their own is involved.”

**********

For a more complete accounting of the death and burial of Christopher Seider, see the series of articles by J.L. Bell on Boston 1775.

August 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Aug 20 - 8:17:1769 New-York Chronicle
New-York Chronicle (August 17, 1769).

“A very curious Address to the Patriotic Ladies of New-York.”

John Keating’s advertisements for the “NEW-YORK PAPER MANUFACTORY” became a familiar sight in the New-York Chronicle and other newspapers printed in the city in the late 1760s. Keating marketed the goods produced at the manufactory – “Sheathing, packing, and several Sorts of printing Paper” – but he also solicited the supplies necessary for making paper. He regularly called on colonists to turn in clean linen rags “(for which ready Money will be given)” that would then be made into paper.

Keating’s advertisements had a political valence, sometimes explicitly, but always implicitly. Through the Townshend Acts, Parliament imposed duties on imported paper and other goods, prompting merchants and shopkeepers in several colonies to devise nonimportation agreements as a means of exerting economic pressure to achieve political ends. In addition to boycotts, advocates for American liberty encouraged domestic manufactures and the consumption of goods produced in the colonies as an alternative to imported wares. Keating’s “PAPER MANUFACTORY” resonated with political purpose even when he did not directly connect the enterprise to the ongoing dispute between Parliament and the colonies.

This iteration of Keating’s advertisement included a brief note that framed the paper manufactory in political terms: “A very curious Address to the Patriotic Ladies of New-York, upon the utility of preserving old Linen Rages, will make its Appearance in the next Chronicle.” No such article appeared in the next several issues, but a note from the editors indicated that “Several Entertaining Pieces from our Ingenious Correspondents” did not run “for want of room.” The “curious Address” likely rehearsed similar appeals to those that Keating and other colonists previously advanced in the public prints. Manufacturing paper in the colonies was a patriotic act. Participating in the production of paper gave colonists, including women, an opportunity to give voice to their own political sentiments. Although women neither voted nor served as elected officials in eighteenth-century America, they participated in politics through other means. Men often endorsed such acts and encouraged women to think about the political ramifications of their actions, as Keating did in this advertisement. Even without publishing the entire “curious Address,” Keating made it clear that women played a critical role in the political contest over taxes on paper.