New-York Paper Manufactory

October 23

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

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

Supplement to the New-York Journal (October 20, 1774).

“This being the safest and most efficacious method of convincing the Ministry of Great-Britain of their errour.”

John Keating frequently advertised the “FIRST Paper Manufactory Established in the city of New-York” in the late 1760s and early 1770s.  He often updated his advertisement, yet he incorporated familiar themes about patriotism and supporting the local economy.  He also encouraged readers to save linen rags to make into paper, underscoring that they could play an important role in the production of paper made in the colonies as well as its consumption.

Such was the case in an advertisement in the supplement that accompanied the October 20, 1774, edition of the New-York Journal.  Keating opened with an announcement that his enterprise “is in great want of a large quantity of fine and coarse LINEN RAGS.”  He encouraged “the public in general, to be careful in saving every species of materials that are requisite to support such a useful and necessary branch of business.”  In previous advertisements, he offered instructions for collecting and saving rags as part of the rituals of household management, entrusting women in particular with supplying the resources necessary for the operation of the local paper mill and, in the process, lauding the patriotic spirit of those who heeded his call.  In this instance, he did not distinguish men and women, instead stating that when it came to choosing which paper to consume “that most of his fellow citizens will give the preference to a mill in the province … when it is considered that such a conduct will be a certain means of preventing large sums of money going out of the province.”  In addition to supporting the local economy, Keating asserted that the “present alarming situation of the colonies renders it entirely needless to point out the utility of establishing this and every other kind of manufactory among us, as soon as possible.”  Such a plan, he declared, was “the safest and most efficacious method of convincing the Ministry of Great-Britain of their error, and securing opulence to ourselves.”  Keating effortlessly connected politics, commerce, and the livelihoods and good fortune of colonizers who benefited from domestic manufactures as alternatives to imported goods.  He did so once again with a plea “that more attention will be paid to this affair in the future, both from a principle of patriotism, and frugality.”  In so doing, Keating presented a multitude of reasons for readers to support American industry and buy American products as the imperial crisis intensified.

March 24

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

GUEST CURATOR:  Madison Kenney

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

New-York Journal (March 24, 1774).

“The best Price given for ALL SORTS OF LINEN RAGS.”

John Keating, the owner of a “PAPER MANUFACTORY” in New York, uses politics as an advertising strategy. In 1774, “The demand for paper in America, is of late so greatly increased, that very large sums are continually sent abroad, for the purchase of it.” Keating attempted to take advantage of the political tension with Britain by connecting the donation of spare rags to make into paper with patriotism. He argued, “All those who really wish to promote the interest of America … will contribute their aid to the success of the paper manufactory in this place.”

Advertisements asking families to save linen rags to support American printing were not uncommon during the era of the American Revolution. An advertisement printed on the back of Thomas’s Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, and Connecticut Almanack for the Year of our Lord Christ 1779 claims “ fair daughters of Liberty…would not neglect to serve their country, by saving for the paper mill in Sutton, all linen and cotton and linen rags.” Again, entrepreneurs who made paper or printed on it used patriotism to pressure households to support American industry by donating rags. Kayla Haveles argues that printing was “as vital to revolution as guns and gunpowder” because the colonists used it to spread ideology and attack the British.

Thomas’s Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New-Hampshire Almanack for the Year of Our Lord Christ 1779 (Worcester: Isaiah Thomas, 1778).

Additionally, the frequency of these advertisements highlights the contributions of women in the Revolution. Both advertisements focus on saving rags in the home. Keating’s advertisement asked every family to save spare rags in their household. Women were responsible for the housework so Keating’s call to action targeted women. The advertisement on the back of the almanac asked “daughters of Liberty” to save rags. Both advertisements are examples of how women contributed to the Revolution by supporting the American economy.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

John Keating had been placing similar advertisements for the “NEW-YORK Paper MANUFACTORY” for years by the time this advertisement appeared in the March 24, 1774, edition of the New-York Journal.  The Adverts 250 Project first featured one of his advertisements that offered “Ready Money for clean Rags” that ran in that newspaper on February 18, 1768.  During the six years in between, Keating maintained an almost constant presence in the public prints, encouraging colonizers, especially women, to collect rags for paper production and explaining the patriotic benefits of their efforts.  He advertised at times when relationships with Parliament deteriorated, including when nonimportation agreements went into effect to protest various legislation, as well as when the situation cooled and most merchants, shopkeepers, and consumers returned to business as usual.  Keating remained a steady voice in favor of “domestic manufactures” or goods produced in the colonies.

In this instance, Keating ran his advertisement at a time of crisis.  Throughout the colonies, the destruction of the tea in Boston the previous December remained a topic of conversation, including in New York.  The Sons of Liberty anticipated the arrival of the Nancy with a cargo of tea that they did not want landed in their city.  Keating’s advertisement, which had been running since before the Boston Tea Party, appeared on the last page of the March 24 issue, interspersed among other advertisements.  A notice that the Sons of Liberty would meet every Thursday evening “till the Arrival and Departure of the TEA SHIP,” on the other hand, made its second appearance, this time in the first column on the first page.  Only tables showing prices current and sunrise, sunset, and high tide preceded the announcement.  Its placement made it more likely that readers would see it, while also framing how they read other advertisements in the issue.  Most readers likely did not need that notice from the Sons of Liberty to influence their reaction to Keating’s advertisement calling on “all those who really wish to promote the interest of America” to do their part, considering how widely colonizers discussed the politics of tea at the time.  Still, the combination of print culture and public discourse occurring everywhere from the town common to taverns made Keating’s appeals to patriotism even more urgent.

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.”

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.

July 9

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

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

Jul 9 - 7:6:1769 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (July 6, 1769).

“Ready Money, for clean Linen RAGS.”

By the first week of July in 1769, John Keating’s advertisement for the “NEW-YORK Paper MANUFACTORY” became a familiar sight in the New-York Journal. Keating called on colonists, especially “ALL Persons who have the Welfare of their Country at Heart,” to collect clean linen rags and turn them over to the paper manufactory to be made into paper. He offered “Ready Money” for rags, but encouraged readers to deliver rags “not so much for the Money they will immediately fetch” but instead for “the Benefit which will accrue to the Public in general” if the manufactory received enough rags “to make a sufficient Quantity of Paper, for our own Consumption.”

This was particularly important in the late 1760s because the Townshend Acts levied duties on imported paper. As part of their resistance efforts, colonists boycotted a vast array of imported goods, not just those subject to the new taxes, and encouraged “domestic manufactures” or local production as an alternate means of acquiring goods while simultaneously bolstering the colonial economy. Keating argued that consumers who purchased paper from the New-York Paper Manufactory kept “Sums of Money” in the colony that were otherwise “annually remitted” across the Atlantic. Furthermore, the manufactory employed “Numbers of poor People” who kept that money “in a circulating State” in the colony, rather than lost to merchants, manufacturers, and Parliament in Britain. Keating deployed a “Buy American” campaign during the imperial crisis, before thirteen colonies declared independence.

In its most recent iteration, Keating’s advertisement appeared in the New-York Journal at least once a month since its first insertion on February 9, 1769. It also ran on February 16, March 23, April 20, May 18, June 8, and July 6. This copy for this iteration, for the most part, replicated a similar advertisement that ran in the summer of 1768. Over the course of a year, Keating was consistent in the message he communicated to colonists, encouraging them to participate in both the production and consumption of paper from the New-York Paper Manufactory.

The sporadic appearance of his advertisement in the New-York Journal raises questions about the arrangements Keating made with John Holt, the newspaper’s printer. Holt and others who worked at his printing office kept the type set over the course of several months, intending to insert the advertisement repeatedly. It ran once a month, but not on a regular schedule, such as in the first issue of the month. Did it appear when Keating ran low on rags and instructed Holt to run the advertisement once again in hopes of obtaining the materials he needed to operate his business? Did Holt insert Keating’s advertisement when running low on other content and needing to fill space? Did the two offer in-kind services to each other, such a supply of paper in exchange for advertising? Did Holt charge reduced advertising rates for Keating? After all, as a printer, Holt had a particular interest in having access to paper that may have prompted him to cultivate a relationship with the proprietor of the New-York Paper Manufactory.

By itself, any insertion of Keating’s advertisement tells a story of politics and the production and consumption of paper when colonists answered the Townshend Acts with nonimportation agreements. The repeated insertion of the advertisement, however, hints at another story about the business practices at both the New-York Journal and the New-York Paper Manufactory. Ledgers and correspondence, if they still exist, might shed more light on Keating’s advertising campaign. Without additional sources, the sporadic yet frequent insertion of the same advertisement for the New-York Paper Manufactory in the New-York Journal over the course of several months testifies to a message regularly communicated to readers while obscuring some of the decisions made by both the printer and the paper manufacturer in the process of presenting arguments in favor of supporting this local enterprise.

September 18

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

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

Sep 18 - 9:15:1768 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (September 15, 1768).

“Broadcloth from the New-York MANUFACTORY.”

At the same time that Enoch Brown was placing advertisements addressed to “those Persons who are desirous of Promoting our Own Manufactures” in multiple newspapers published in Boston, shopkeepers and artisans in other cities placed their own notices to promote “domestic manufactures” over imported goods. In the September 15, 1768, edition of the New-York Journal, for instance, several advertisers offered alternatives to the merchandise that competitors had imported in ships from London and other English ports.

Hercules Mulligan offered the starkest of these advertisements. In its entirety, it announced “Broadcloth from the New-York MANUFACTORY, TO BE SOLD, BY HERCULES MULLIGAN, TAYLOR, in CHAPEL-STREET.” In contrast, Samuel Broome and Company listed more than a dozen textiles “imported in the Mercury, from London, and the last Vessels from Bristol, Liverpool, and Scotland.” Similarly, an advertisement for “WILLIAMS’S STORE” once again underscored “the greatest variety and newest patterns; lately imported in the last ships.” These advertisements resorted to popular appeals, an explicit appeal to consumer choice and implicit appeals to fashion and quality through invoking the origins of the textiles. Given the political atmosphere in 1768, especially the movement to boycott British goods in the wake of the Townshend Acts, Mulligan did not consider it necessary to be any more verbose than simply proclaiming that he sold locally produced fabric at his shop.

In addition to Mulligan’s notice, the supplement to the September 15 issue featured two advertisements that had been running since July, one for the New-York Air Furnace Company and another for the New-York Paper Manufactory. The former hawked “a large Assortment of the following cast Iron Ware, which is allowed by proper Judges to be equal, if not superior to any made in Europe or America.” It then listed dozens of items that consumers could choose over those enumerated in advertisements by Broome and Company, Williams, and others. The latter made an unequivocal appeal related to current conversations about politics, commerce, and the colonies’ relationship with Britain. In it, John Keating advised “All those who have the Welfare of the Country at Heart … to consider the Importance of a Paper Manufactory” to the New York colony.

John Facey, a brushmaker from Bristol, was not as bold in his advertisement for the many different sorts of brushed he made and sold, but he did state his hope that “the gentlemen both in town and country will encourage the brush manufactory.” Readers of the New-York Journal certainly encountered familiar advertisements for imported goods, but as the imperial crisis intensified they also increasingly found themselves presented with alternatives. A growing number of advertisers launched “Buy American” campaigns before shots were fired at the Boston Massacre or the battles at Lexington and Concord.

July 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Jul 14 - 7:14:1768 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (July 14, 1768).

“Ready Money for clean Linen Rags.”

When John Keating placed an advertisement for the New-York Paper Manufactory in the July 14, 1768, edition of the New-York Journal, he did not merely seek customers. Instead, he sought supplies, rags in particular, necessary for the functioning of his enterprise. Throughout the colonies, newspaper readers frequently encountered calls for rags. Printers often inserted brief, generic notices that requested readers submit clean rags that could be made into paper. In the second half of the 1760s, in the wake of the Stamp Act and the Townshend Act, the calls for rags became lengthier and more elaborate, especially as the proprietors of the New-York Paper Manufactory and its counterparts in other colonies linked economic and political purposes to the formerly mundane process of collecting rags for paper production.

Keating made the stakes clear when he addressed “All those who have the Welfare of the Country at Heart.” Rather than think of linen rags as useless or contemplate the small sums they might yield in trade, he insisted that readers consider “the Benefit which will accrue to the Public in general if the Manufactory is supplied with Rags.” Increasing the volume of paper produced locally would reduce dependence on imports. Turning over rags to Keating and the New-York Paper Manufactory would “enable us to make a sufficient Quantity of Paper for our own Consumption, and by this Means keep in the Province the Sums of Money, which is annually remitted for this single Commodity.” In other words, colonists sent too much of their money to England, never to see it again due to an imbalance in trade, when they purchased paper that could otherwise be produced locally. In addition, the New-York Paper Manufactory created jobs: “by manufacturing of it here, Numbers of poor People are daily employ’d.” Overall, supporting the New-York Paper Manufactory amounted to an expression “of public Utility.”

John Keating was part of an incipient “Buy American” campaign that emerged in the 1760s and increasingly found expression in newspaper advertisements as the imperial crisis intensified. Just as consumption practices took on political valences, so too did some of the most mundane of daily activities, such as the decision to save rags for “the Welfare of the Country” rather than discard them.