What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
Massachusetts Spy (February 9, 1775).
“CORNISH’s New-England FISH HOOKS.”
Lee and Jones stocked a variety of merchandise at “their Store near the Swing Bridge” in Boston in February 1775, but they made “CORNISH’s New-England FISH HOOKS” the centerpiece of their advertisement in the February 9 edition of the Massachusetts Spy. Not only did they list that product first and devote the most space to describing it, but they also adorned their advertisement with a woodcut depicting a fish. That image previously appeared in advertisements that Abraham Cornish placed in the Massachusetts Spy in March 1772 and March 1773. Either Lee and Jones acquired the woodcut from Cornish when they composed the copy for their notice or Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, held the woodcut for Cornish and determined that advertisers promoting his product could use it in their notices. It was not the first time that Lee and Jones distributed “CORNISH’s New-England Cod-Fish HOOKS.”
By the time that Lee and Jones ran their advertisement, Cornish had established a familiar brand. In addition to advertising in the Massachusetts Spy, he also advertised in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter and Salem’s Essex Gazette. His marketing efforts regularly touted the approval he received when “Fishermen … made trial of his Hooks” and found them “much superior to those imported from England.” Lee and Jones deployed similar appeals when they proclaimed that the hooks had been “Proved by several Years experience, to be much Superior to any imported.” Such assertions held even greater significance with the Continental Association, a nonimportation pact, in effect and the imperial crisis becoming even more dire. In protest of the Coercive Acts passed in response to the Boston Tea Party, colonizers vowed not to import good from Britain. The Continental Association called for encouraging domestic manufactures or goods produced in the colonies as alternatives to imported items. Cornish has been making that case for his product for several years, as many readers likely remembered when they saw Lee and Jones’s advertisement for “CORNISH’s New-England FISH HOOKS.”
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
Massachusetts Spy (February 2, 1775).
“BUTTONS. MADE and sold … at the Manufactory-house, Boston.”
John Clarke’s advertisement for buttons that he “MADE and sold … at the Manufactory-house” in Boston was one of several in the February 2, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Spy that hawked goods produced in the colonies. He advertised at a time that the harbor had been closed and blockaded for more than eight months because of the Boston Port Act, one of several measures that Parliament enacted in response to the Boston Tea Party. The other Coercive Acts included the Massachusetts Government Act, the Administration of Justice Act, and the Quartering Act. In turn, the colonies refused to import British goods, having previously pursued that strategy in response to the Stamp Act in 1765 and the duties imposed on certain goods in the Townshend Acts in the late 1760s. The Continental Association, devised by the First Continental Congress, went into effect on December 1, 1774. In addition to prohibiting imports, it called on colonizers to encourage “domestic manufactures” or goods produced in the colonies.
Clarke not only made buttons in Boston, he made “two sorts of new fashioned buttons.” One was a “plain flat Button, with a corded edge round it, either gilt or plated. The other bore an inscription, “UNION AND LIBERTY IN ALL AMERICA,” that made a statement. Consumers could express political sentiments and sartorial sensibilities simultaneously. (Similarly, the Adverts 250 Project previously examined another newspaper notice that included “glass buttons having the word liberty printed in them.”) Clarke’s “Liberty button,” well worth the investment, cost just a little more than the “plain flat Button,” at twenty shillings per dozen compared to eighteen shillings per dozen. Clarke also gave “good allowance to shopkeepers to sell again.” In other words, he offered discounts to retailers who purchased his buttons and presented them to their customers. After all, shopkeepers had their own part to play in promoting American products to consumers and supplying them with alternatives to goods imported from Britain. When it came to buttons, what better way to do that than with the inscribed “Liberty button” made in Boston?
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Spy (February 2, 1775).
“AMERICAN CAKE-INK.”
This advertisement is extremely interesting because we do not use the term or commonly understand what cake ink is today. As author Harry Schenawolf explains in his Revolutionary War Journal, the Nortons’ cake ink was most likely dried iron gall ink. With a dash of water, the powder became liquid and ready to use with a quill. Iron gall ink is made from a mixture of iron sulfate, oak galls, and tree gum, ensuring it to be long-lasting, adherent, and dark.
Samuel Norton produced his own dried iron gall cake ink. Anna Norton sold it in Boston. They offered their product to any patriotic supporter of America. In the advertisement, the Nortons also reminded the public that their cake ink went for “the same rates as the British Cake-Ink is sold at in London.” They offered an American product for the same prices charged in Britain, obeying a nonimportation agreement. This alludes to the growing tension between the American colonies and Britain’s perceived unjust control in February 1775.
When the Revolutionary War started a couple of months later, American soldiers went to fight, bringing few belongings and facing long travels. Officers and soldiers easily transported and utilized cake ink. They wrote home to loved ones and shared news. Purchasing and using cake ink, like that made and sold by the Nortons, aided in communication during the era of the American Revolution.
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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes
As Ella notes, the Nortons advertised their cake ink at an important moment. The Boston Port Act closed the city’s harbor on June 1, 1774, severely hampering commerce. In response, the colonies enacted the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement, on December 1. In addition to boycotting imported goods, the Continental Association called on colonizers to “encourage Frugality, Economy, and Industry; and promote Agriculture, Arts, and the Manufactures of this Country.”
The Nortons did just that when they marketed “AMERICAN CAKE-INK” to “all true friends to America.” They did so at a time when other advertisers also advanced “Buy American” messages or otherwise indicated their compliance with the Continental Association. Consider some of the advertisements that ran alongside the Nortons’ notice in the February 2, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Spy. Henry Christian Geyer advertised printing ink that he “manufactured … at his Shop near Liberty Tree” in Boston’s South End. A nota bene indicated that the Massachusetts Spy “has been printed with Ink made by said Geyer, for two months past.” A similar nota bene appeared in his advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy. Enoch Brown’s notice sporting the headline “American Manufacture” ran once again, offering textiles produced in Massachusetts and glassware “manufactured at Philadelphia” as alternatives to imported goods. Philip Freeman inserted an advertisement for gloves that had been running for six months, lamenting the “threatening” times and asking consumers to “encourage our own Manufactures” by purchasing the gloves that he made. In a relatively new advertisement, John Clarke hawked the buttons that he produced “at the Manufactory-house, Boston,” each inscribed, “UNION AND LIBERTY IN ALL AMERICA.” Another advertisement notices announced the sale of “SUNDRY Goods … imported in the Brigantine Venus … from London” conducted under the supervision of the local Committee of Inspection according to the provisions of the tenth article of the “American Congress Association.”
The short advertisement for “AMERICAN CAKE-INK” that Ella selected for today’s entry played its part in disseminating messages about leveraging decisions about consumption to achieve political ends, especially when considered in concert with several other advertisements in the same issue of the Massachusetts Gazette. Consumers, these notices reminded readers, participated in politics when they chose which items purchase.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
Massachusetts Spy (January 26, 1775).
“American Manufacture.”
An advertisement in the January 26, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Spy informed readers of “SUNDRY Goods, Wares and Merchandize Imported in the Brigantine Venus … from London” that would be “SOLD agreeable to The American Congress Association.” That nonimportation agreement included provisions for selling goods imported between December 1, 1774, and February 1, 1775, yet it also called for encouraging “domestic manufactures” as alternatives to items acquired from Britain.
Enoch Brown emphasized such wares in his own advertisement in that same issue of the Massachusetts Spy. The headline proclaimed, “American Manufacture.” Brown reported that he stocked several kinds of textiles, a “LARGE assortment of Sagathies, Duroys, … Camblets, Calamancoes, Serge-Denim, [and] Shalloons … all which were manufactured in this Province.” Like many other retailers who encouraged consumers to “Buy American” during the imperial crisis, Brown emphasized that his customers would not have to make sacrifices when it came to price or quality for the sake of abiding by their political principles. These textiles, he insisted, “are equal in quality to any, and superior to most imported from England.” In addition, customers could purchase them “much cheaper than can be procured from any part of Europe.”
Yet that was not the extent of Brown’s wares produced in the colonies. He also stocked an “assortment of Glass Ware, manufactured at Philadelphia.” Perhaps he stocked some of the “AMERICAN GLASS” advertised by John Elliott and Company in the Pennsylvania Journal just as the Continental Association went into effect at the beginning of December 1774. Brown listed a variety of items, including decanters, wine glasses, and mustard pots, underscoring that “he will sell extremely cheap.”
Only after detailing products made in the colonies did Brown also mention a “general assortment of English Goods,” naming several textiles, such as “fine printed linens,” not included among those “manufactured in this Province.” He likely attempted to liquidate inventory that had been on his shelves before the nonimportation agreement commenced, intending to “quite business very soon, unless the times mend.” To that end, he vowed to “sell his Goods extremely cheap indeed.” In the process, he gave priority to “American Manufacture” in his advertisement, directing readers to options that would allow them to be responsible consumers who did their part in support of the Continental Association and the American cause.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago this week?
Massachusetts Spy (January 19, 1775).
“No ADVERTISEMENTS … can be inserted for the future without the Cash accompanies them.”
In a notice in the January 19, 1775, edition of the Massachusetts Spy, Isaiah Thomas, the printer, provided several important details about the practices he enacted for publishing his newspaper. He opened by noting that “the Hartford Post will be dispatched every Thursday Morning at nine o’Clock.” In order that that the Massachusetts Spy “may be forwarded by said Post,” Thomas “shall be obliged to put his paper to the press on Thursday Mornings at three o’Clock.” Calling attention to such early mornings not only testified to the industriousness of the printer but also alerted the public that he could publish updates that arrived at his printing office merely hours before he distributed the new issue of his weekly newspaper.
Thomas also advised “[t]hose who incline to ADVERTISE in the MASSACHUSETTS SPY … to send their ADVERTISEMENTS before two o”Clock on Wednesday Afternoons, otherwise they must be omitted until another week.” To convince them to advertise in in his newspaper, he proclaimed that it “has the greatest Circulation of any News-Paper in New-England.” That meant that advertisers were likely to experience the greatest return on their investment by placing notices in the pages of the Massachusetts Spy. Although compositors worked quickly, they did need some time to set type for individual advertisements and lay out all the news, editorials, advertisements, and other content for each issue. While Thomas might welcome “Articles of Intelligence” that arrived very shortly before taking his newspaper to press, he insisted that advertisements required more time to prepare for publication. Advertisers needed to plan accordingly.
In addition, Thomas declared, “No ADVERTISEMENTS, unless from persons with whom the Publisher may have accounts open, can be inserted for the future without the Cash accompanies them.” He also asserted that subscriptions for the newspaper required “one half [of the annual fee] to be paid time of subscribing” and “no Subscriptions can be received without.” Historians of the early American press often make general statements about printers extending generous credit to subscribers, expecting that some would never pay, because they understood that newspaper advertisements were a much more most significant revenue. According to such accounts, printers supposedly insisted on receiving payment for advertisements in advance of publishing them. While that may have been the case in some printing offices, several printers published notices indicating that they departed from such practices. That Thomas put in place such a policy “for the future” suggests that it may have been a new policy or one that he had not previously enforced. Similarly, Thomas joined other printers who extended credit yet also demanded that subscribers submit half of the annual fee in advance, updating the terms that he published in the colophon that appeared in each issue of the Massachusetts Spy.
Isaiah Thomas, patriot printer and founder of the American Antiquarian Society, was born on January 19 (New Style) in 1749 (or January 8, 1748/49, Old Style). It’s quite an historical coincidence that the three most significant printers in eighteenth-century America — Benjamin Franklin, Isaiah Thomas, and Mathew Carey — were all born in January.
Isaiah Thomas (January 30, 1739 – April 4, 1831). American Antiquarian Society.
The Adverts 250 Project is possible in large part due to Thomas’s efforts to collect as much early American printed material as he could, originally to write his monumental History of Printing in America. The newspapers, broadsides, books, almanacs, pamphlets, and other items he gathered in the process eventually became the initial collections of the American Antiquarian Society. That institution’s ongoing mission to acquire at least one copy of every American imprint through 1876 has yielded an impressive collection of eighteenth-century advertising materials, including newspapers, magazine wrappers, trade cards, billheads, watch papers, book catalogs, subscription notices, broadsides, and a variety of other items. Exploring the history of advertising in early America — indeed, exploring any topic related to the history, culture, and literature of early America at all — has been facilitated for more than two centuries by the vision of Isaiah Thomas and the dedication of the curators and other specialists at the American Antiquarian Society over the years.
Thomas’s connections to early American advertising were not limited to collecting and preserving the items created on American presses during the colonial, Revolutionary, and early national periods. Like Mathew Carey, he was at the hub of a network he cultivated for distributing newspapers, books, and other printed goods — including advertising to stimulate demand for those items. Sometimes this advertising was intended for dissemination to the general public (such as book catalogs and subscription notices), but other times it amounted to trade advertising (such as circular letters and exchange catalogs intended only for fellow printers, publishers, and booksellers).
Thomas also experimented with advertising on wrappers that accompanied his Worcester Magazine, though he acknowledged to subscribers that these wrappers were ancillary to the publication: “The two outer leaves of each number are only a cover to the others, and when the volume is bound may be thrown aside, as not being a part of the Work.”[1]
Detail of Advertising Wrapper, Worcester Magazine (Second Week of April, 1786).
Thomas’s patriotic commitment to freedom of the press played a significant role in his decision to develop advertising wrappers. As Thomas relays in his History of Printing in America, he discontinued printing his newspaper, the Massachusetts Spy, after the state legislature passed a law that “laid a duty of two-thirds of a penny on newspapers, and a penny on almanacs, which were to be stamped.” Such a move met with strong protest since it was too reminiscent of the Stamp Act imposed by the British two decades earlier, prompting the legislature to repeal it before it went into effect. On its heels, however, “another act was passed, which imposed a duty on all advertisements inserted in the newspapers” printed in Massachusetts. Thomas vehemently rejected this law as “an improper restraint on the press. He, therefore, discontinued the Spy during the period that this act was in force, which was two years. But he published as a substitute a periodical work, entitled ‘The Worcester Weekly Magazine,’ in octavo.”[2] This weekly magazine lasted for two years; Thomas discontinued it and once again began printing the Spy after the legislature repealed the objectionable act.
Third Page of Advertising Wrapper, Worcester Magazine (Fourth Week of May, 1786).
Isaiah Thomas was not interested in advertising for its own sake to the same extent as Mathew Carey, but his political concerns did help to shape the landscape of early American advertising. Furthermore, his vision for collecting American printed material preserved a variety of advertising media for later generations to admire, analyze, ponder, and enjoy. Happy 276th birthday, Isaiah Thomas!
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[1] Isaiah Thomas, “To the CUSTOMERS for the WORCESTER MAGAZINE,” Worcester Magazine, wrapper, second week of April, 1786.
[2] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers, and an Account of Newspapers, vol. 2 (Worcester, MA: Isaac Sturtevant, 1810), 267-268.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Spy (December 29, 1774).
“*** The last Chance.”
Prospective customers needed to act quickly or risk missing out on the opportunity entirely. That was the message that Duncan Ingraham, Jr., emphasized in his advertisement for “A few ENGLISH GOODS, now remaining” in his store in Boston at the end of 1774. His notice featured a headline that proclaimed “The last Chance” that he hoped would entice readers to look more closely at the list of merchandise in stock. Unlike the headlines for other advertisements, Ingraham’s headline included three asterisks to help draw attention to the offer he made available for a limited time. That offer included low prices that he described as “terms wholly to the advantage of the purchaser.” Ingraham was so eager to liquidate his inventory that he passed along significant savings to consumers, but only if they acted quickly. He concluded his advertisement with a warning that those “who design purchasing must apply immediately.”
Those “few ENGLISH GOODS, now remaining” had been on hand for six months or more. The Boston Port Act closed the harbor on June 1, 1774. Parliament asserted that the harbor would remain blockaded to commerce until the town made restitution for the property destroyed during the Boston Tea Party in December 1773. As a result, merchants and shopkeepers did not receive shipments from their suppliers in England. Ingraham peddled goods, including “China Bowls, Cups and Saucers,” “a variety of silk mitts and gloves,” and “children’s cotton, thread and worsted hose,” that had been on his shelves for some time. Under other circumstances, advertisers often emphasized that they received their merchandise via the ships most recently arrived in port, anticipating that consumers would associate the newest goods with the most fashionables ones. Such appeals, however, no longer held sway in Boston in the wake of the Boston Port Act. Elsewhere in the colonies, similar appeals lost their effectiveness once the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement enacted in response to the Boston Port Act and the other Coercive Acts, went into effect on December 1, 1774.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Spy (November 24, 1774).
“They hope that Gentlemen … that have been appointed into Office … will give the Editors immediate Notice.”
Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks, the printers of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, used crowdsourcing as one means of gathering information for their publications. To one extent or another, all colonial printers who published newspapers did so, seeking news from ship captains and travelers and reprinting items from one newspaper to another. They also regularly asked the public to submit news. In the colophon for the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, Mills and Hicks noted that “Letters of Intelligence for this Paper are taken in” at their printing office. It was a familiar invitation. Isaiah Thomas declared that “Articles of Intelligence, &c. are thankfully received” at the printing office where he published the Massachusetts Spy.
Yet Mills and Hicks did not limit crowdsourcing to their newspaper. They also incorporated it into gathering information for almanacs and registers. In early October 1774, they placed an advertisement requesting that “if any new Houses of Entertainment have been opened, or if any were omitted” in that year’s edition of Bickerstaff’s Boston Almanack that “such Tavern Keepers … send their Names immediately” so they could be included in the almanac for 1775. An advertisement for that almanac in the November 24, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Spy featured a list of contents, including “the best Houses for Travellers to put up at.” The printers presumably added any taverns that came to their attention because of their previous notice.
Immediately above that advertisement, they issued another call for the public to assist in compiling Mills and Hicks’s British and American Register for 1775. The commenced with expressing “their Thanks to such Gentlemen as furnished them with Lists for their REGISTER last Fall, and obligingly offered to assist in correcting the same for the ensuing Year (if published).” The 1774 edition had met with sufficient success, a “generous Reception,” that the printers did indeed feel “encouraged” to “put to the Press” a new Register for the coming year. To make it as accurate and comprehensive as possible, they declared that “they hope that Gentlemen (both in this and the neighbouring Governments) that have been appointed into Office, either Civil, Military or Ecclesiastical, will give the Editors immediate Notice, that their Names may be inserted in the same.” Mills and Hicks relied on the public, especially newspaper readers, to supply them with current information for their compendium of officials in New England.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Spy (November 17, 1774).
“To the whole is added, The ASSOCIATION of the Grand AMERICAN CONGRESS.”
Like many colonial printers, Isaiah Thomas generated significant revenue from publishing almanacs. From the most affluent to the most humble households in port cities and in the countryside, each year colonizers acquired these handy reference manuals that included all kinds of information. Thomas’s “NEW-ENGLAND ALMANACK, OR THE MASSACHUSETTS CALENDER, For the Year of our Lord Christ, 1775,” for instance, had everything from the tides or “Time of High Water” to a schedule of “the Superior and Inferior Courts setting in the four Governments of New-England” to poetry. Thomas “Embellished” the almanac with two images, “one representing an Antient Astrologer, the other a FEMALE SOLDIER.” The latter corresponded to the “LIFE and ADVENTURES of A FEMALE SOLDIER” that the printer promoted among the content of his almanac. Practically every almanac included the tides and many listed the dates for important meetings in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, so Thomas and other printers sought ways to distinguish their almanacs from others, including images and novel stories.
Thomas anticipated doing brisk business with the contents that he selected for his almanac. He announced that he sold it “by the Thousand, Hundred, Groce or Dozen, or Single,” offering peddlers, booksellers, and shopkeepers the opportunity to purchase in volume for resale. A single copy cost “Six Coppers,” yet Thomas promised that “Very great Allowances are made to those who buy to sell again.” In addition to turning a profit on his almanac, this patriot printer also wanted it disseminated widely because of a particular item that he inserted among the contents. His almanac included “The ASSOCIATION of the Grand AMERICAN CONGRESS.” He referred to the Continental Association, a nonimportation agreement recently adopted by the First Continental Congress when it met in Philadelphia in September and October 1774. The inclusion of the Continental Association distinguished Thomas’s almanac from others advertised in the same issue of the Massachusetts Spy, including “BICKERSTAFF’S BOSTON ALMANACK” published by Nathaniel Mills and John Hicks and “LOW’S ALMANACK” published by John Kneeland. That newspaper also featured advertisements for two different editions of “EXTRACTS from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental CONGRESS,” which included the Continental Association. Whether or not readers happened to purchase that political pamphlet, Thomas provided easy access to what they needed to know about the nonimportation agreement in an almanac that they would consult for a variety of purposes throughout the coming year. He asserted that the Continental Association “is absolutely necessary for every American to be acquainted with” … and since so many colonizers already planned to purchase an almanac for 1775 they might as well become acquainted with the Continental Association by purchasing Thomas’s almanac, the one that he sought to distribute “by the Thousand, Hundred, Groce or Dozen” to get into as many households as possible.
What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?
Massachusetts Spy (November 3, 1774).
“I am now sensible that my signing the said Address was altogether improper and imprudent.”
Yet another colonizer who signed “an Address to the late Governor Hutchinson, on his leaving this Province” took to the public prints to recant and apologize. Isaac Mansfield of Marblehead published his message to “my respectable Town and Countrymen” in the November 3, 1774, edition of the Massachusetts Spy. Like others who claimed that they regretted their actions, he asserted that he had endorsed the address “suddenly, and not sufficiently attending to its Impropriety and Tendency.” In other words, he had carelessly affixed his name without giving the contents or their implications much thought. Upon further reflection, realizing what he had done (and facing the consequences of giving “Offence”), he declared that he had no intention of “affronting any Individual” or, especially, “wounding the Constitution of my Country, the Rights and Liberties whereof I esteem it every one’s Duty to preserve and maintain, by all proper, laudable and lawful means.” Mansfield had strayed in expressing Tory sympathies, but he had seen the light. He described signing the address as improper and imprudent, following immediately with an apology and a request for the “Friendship and Regard of my Town and Countrymen.”
Similar disavowals and retractions had been appearing in newspapers in Massachusetts and neighboring colonies for some time. Much shorter versions by J. Fowle and John Prentice, both of Marblehead, that ran in three newspapers published in Boston and another in Salem during the past week also appeared in the November 3 issue of the Massachusetts Spy. Some printers treated them as letters to place among news items, while others placed them with advertisements, making unclear which genre these letter-advertisements represented and whether printers charged for inserting them in their newspapers. Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy, ran the letter-advertisements from Fowle and Prentice below a letter to the editor from “A PROPRIETOR” and above Donald McAlpine’s advertisement for fencing lessons, similar to their placement in the Boston-Gazette three days earlier. Had the men from Marblehead submitted their letter-advertisements to Thomas’s printing office? Or had the patriot printer decided to reprint news from another newspaper? In this instance, the double line separating different kinds of content appeared above the letter-advertisements, signaling to readers that they had finished with the news and began the advertisements. The placement of Mansfield’s letter-advertisement was less ambiguous. It ran on the final page, embedded among advertisements. A notice from Silent Wilde, a post rider, appeared above it and an advertisement for William Hunter’s “Auction-Room” below it. Does that mean that Thomas charged for printing Mansfield’s letter-advertisement? Perhaps, though he may have been more interested in publicizing that another member of the community had seemingly come into conformity with patriot politics than generating revenue from Mansfield’s missive. Either way, readers encountered news about current events as they perused the portion of the Massachusetts Spy that contained advertisements.
