Pennsylvania Evening Post

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)

April 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 20, 1776).

“OBSERVATIONS on the RECONCILIATION of GREAT-BRITAIN and the COLONIES … ARGUMENTS for and against.”

As colonizers marked the first anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1776, they debated the purpose of the war.  When it began, most wanted a redress of grievances within the imperial system, just as they had sought in response to the Stamp Act in 1765 and 1766 and the Townshend Acts in the late 1760s.  Yet as the war continued, more and more colonizers determined that it was no longer possible nor desirable to return to their position within the British Empire before the imperial crisis began.  The publication and widespread dissemination of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense in January 1776 convinced many readers to support declaring independence.

Robert Bell, the bold printer who published the first edition of Common Sense, contributed to the debate by printing, advertising, and selling several political pamphlets that expressed a range of views.  For instance, he published and sold “PLAIN TRUTH … containing Remarks on a late Pamphlet intituled COMMON SENSE,” a pamphlet that argued that “permanent Liberty, and true Happiness can only be obtained by Reconciliation” with Great Britain.  For readers interested in a pamphlet that considered both sides of the issue, Bell also marketed “OBSERVATIONS on the RECONCILIATION of GREAT-BRITAIN and the COLONIES.  In which are exhibited ARGUMENTS for and against that MEASURE.  By a FRIEND of AMERICAN LIBERTY.”

When Bell’s advertisement for that pamphlet appeared in the April 20, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, much of the other content argued against reconciliation.  The column next to Bell’s advertisement featured a list of seven “Reasons for a DECLARATION of the INDEPENDANCE of the American Colonies” submitted by a reader.  On the final page, another item submitted by a reader outlined “The PROGRESS of an American’s CREED for obtaining a redress of grievances, and brining about a reconciliation with Great-Britain.”  That timeline mocked colonizers who consistently advocated for one more effort to restore the colonies’ relationship with George III and Parliament.  It started with the rationale given in September 1774, “I believe in the efficacy of the union of the colonies,” and continued with other milestones, including “I believe in the efficacy of Lord Chatham’s speech, and Mr. Wilke’s opposition to the court,” invoking support from politicians in Britain, in January 1775, “I believe in the efficacy of a second petition to the King,” now known as the Olive Branch Petition, in July 1775, and “I believe in the efficacy of the reduction of Chamblee, St. John’s and Montreal,” referring to the invasion of Canada, in November 1775.  The final item, dated March and April 1776, stated, “I believe in the efficacy of COMMISSIONERS coming over to redress all our grievances, and to bring about a constitutional reconciliation with Great-Britain.”  Colonizers who advocated for reconciliation, this litany suggested, snatched at false hope as they made rationalization after rationalization for not declaring independence.  No matter the political or military measures that should have worked to the colonies’ advantage, they were never enough to get the king and Parliament to reach a satisfactory settlement.  It was time to stop generating new excuses and insisting that their opponents would finally see the light and negotiate in good faith.  The correspondents who submitted these items to the Pennsylvania Evening Post did not have much use for the arguments for reconciliation presented in latest pamphlet that came off Bell’s press.

April 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 13, 1776).

“LINEN to be SOLD at the Manufactory in Union-street.”

Nearly a year after the battles at Lexington and Concord, many colonizers continued to support the American cause through the decisions they made in the marketplace.  Such efforts began before the Revolutionary War.  Colonizers attempted to use commerce as political leverage, departing from the imperial system they previously embraced.  They experienced a British Empire defined by commerce rather than conquest, one in which England produced goods and the colonies consumed them.  When Parliament enacted new commercial regulations and other measures the colonies found oppressive in the 1760s and 1770s, they enacted nonimportation agreements.  Simultaneously, they encouraged “domestic manufactures” in the colonies as alternatives to imported goods.

That movement led to the establishment of “the Manufactory in Union-street” in Philadelphia.  In the April 13, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, the proprietors advertised “LINEN to be SOLD” there.  They also informed the public that they sought to hire two or three journeymen weavers who would enjoy “an advantageous seat of work.”  Yet “domestic manufactures” did not solely refer to goods produced in the colonies as opposed to those made elsewhere.  “Domestic manufactures” could also mean goods produced in homes, in domestic spaces, often by women.  Although not as fine as imported fabrics, wearing “homespun” cloth became a mark of distinction because of the political principles at play.  In addition to the journeymen to be employed “at the said factory,” the proprietors announced, “Weavers that have got looms in their own houses … will meet with good encouragement, the best prices, and constant employment.”  The “Manufactory in Union-street” served as a clearinghouse for textiles produced on site and in homes in and near Philadelphia.  It provided employment for local men and women and merchandise for consumers, allowing everyone involved to support the American cause as more and more colonizers considered the possibility of declaring independence rather than a redress of their grievances and a return to how the empire operated before the imperial crisis.

April 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 9, 1776).

“Making application to BENJAMIN CROFTS, recruiting Serjeant in Capt. LLOYD’s company.”

A recruiting notice ran in the April 9, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  It called on “ALL able-bodied freemen, willing to enter into the Provincial service, in the battalion of MUSQUETRY now raising for the immediate defence of this province.”  It was not the only news of that sort that appeared in that issue.  In the column to the left of that advertisement, a news update informed readers that “[a]t a meeting of the battalion of riflemen held yesterday at Carpenters-hall in this city, the following officers were chosen by ballot, viz. Timothy Matlack, Esq; Colonel – Daniel Clymer, Esq; Lieutenant-Colonel – Lawrence Herbert, First Major – George Miller, Second Major.”  Both news articles and advertisements relayed information about the companies forming as the war that started at Lexington and Concord nearly a year earlier continued and moved into a new phase following the British evacuation of Boston in the middle of March.

Those who enlisted in the “battalion of MUSQUETRY” would receive one month’s pay in advance, amounting to “Five Dollars per man.”  They would also “enter into present good quarters, with an allowance of Ten Shillings per week to each for subsistence.”  The notice instructed “able-bodied freemen” interested in enlisting to “mak[e] application to BENJAMIN CROFTS, recruiting Serjeant in Capt. LLOYD’s company, at said Croft’s quarters, the sign of the Britannia, in Front-street.”  That “the sign of the Britannia,” the personification of the British Empire, marked the location for recruits to enlist to defend the colony against British troops was an interesting juxtaposition.  When the war started, the colonies desired a redress of their grievance by Parliament.  In April 1776, they had not yet declared independence, though public opinion seemed to be moving in that direction rather than continuing to seek reforms within the imperial system.  In an extract of “a letter from a gentleman in Virginia to his friend” in Philadelphia immediately to the left of the recruiting notice, the correspondent stated, “I have read COMMON SENSE with much pleasure.  …  He has made many converts here.  Indeed every man of sense and candor, with whom I have had an opportunity of conversing, with whom I have had an opportunity of conversing, acknowledges the necessity of setting up for ourselves, having already tried in vain every reasonable mode of accommodation.”  Symbols of British identity, such as “the sign of the Britannia,” were part of everyday life in the colonies, but they did not hold the same power as they did throughout most of the eighteenth century.  For many colonizers, they lost their meaning.  For “able-bodied freemen, willing to enter into the Provincial service,” Britannia merely marked the location of the recruiting office.  The sign was no longer an expression of pride in being part of the British Empire.

April 2

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 2, 1776).

“HYNS TAYLOR, UPHOLSTERER, … AMELIA TAYLORS, MILANER and MANTUA MAKER.”

When Hyns Taylor, an upholsterer, relocated from London to Philadelphia, he introduced himself to prospective customers via an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Evening Post in the spring of 1776.  Like other artisans who migrated from the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the empire to the colonies, he encouraged consumers to associate sophistication with his prior experience.  Rather than merely stating that he was “from London,” as many did in their advertisements, he instead specified that he was “late from Saint James’s, London,” apparently believing that readers recognized the cachet of that address.  He also emphasized that he upholstered “all kind of furniture in the newest fashion,” including “drapery, Venetian, Gothic, canopy, four-post and couch beds.”  Even though the colonies were at odds with the empire, many colonizers even calling for independence as the anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord approached, they still looked to London for that “newest fashion,” yet Taylor also took current events into account by noting that he also worked on “field and camp beds” with “all sorts of mattresses.”

Members of Taylor’s household may have assisted him in the upholstery shop, yet Amelia Taylor, most likely his wife, but perhaps a daughter or other female relation, pursued her own enterprise as a “MILANER and MANTUA MAKER.”  Hyns and Amelia devised a join advertisement.  He received top billing in the first paragraph, while the second paragraph informed prospective customers that she “makes up all sorts of milanery goods,” such as “child-bed linen, childrens robes, jams, frocks, vests and tunics, gentlemens shirts, stocks, and all kinds of needlework.”  She emphasized her skill, stating that she did her work “in the very neatest manner,” though the Taylors likely intended for readers to note her origins “from Saint James’s, London,” when they considered engaging her services.  Although Amelia appeared second in the advertisement, her name and occupation in capital letters received the same treatment as Hyns’s name and occupation.  Only the drop cap, the large letter “H” that began the advertisement, distinguished his name from hers.  That may have been by their own design when they composed the copy or it may have been a decision made by the compositor when setting the type.  Either way, it signaled a partnership in which both Hyns and Amelia contributed to the livelihood of the Taylor household.

March 30

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 30, 1776).

“JOHN ATKINS … was seen wheeling a wheelbarrow … for a woman selling liquor.”

It was a rare instance of an aggrieved wife running a response to an advertisement that her husband placed to describe her supposed bad behavior and cut off her access to credit.  It began with a notice that John Atkins inserted in the February 19, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet: “WHEREAS ALICE ATIKENS, wife of the subscriber, now in this city,” Philadelphia, “has for some time past absented herself from my bed without any reason: This is therefore to caution all persons not to trust her on my account, as I am determined not to pay any debt she may contract.”  John used standard language that could have appeared in any newspaper published anywhere in the colonies.  Such notices, known to historians as runaway wife advertisements, ran regularly, often more than one in a given issue of a newspaper.  They were a familiar mechanism for husbands to attempt to assert authority over wives they claimed misbehaved.

Yet they told only one side of the story … and since husbands refused to pay expenses incurred by their wives that meant that very few of the women featured in such advertisements published responses in the public prints.  Alice was an exception.  Her own advertisement ran in Pennsylvania Evening Post, declaring that “JOHN ATKINS, by trade a bricklayer, was seen wheeling a wheelbarrow across the Race Ground, for a woman selling liquor and had not been with me for six nights past.”  Alice implied that John had been unfaithful or at least inappropriately directed his affections toward another woman.  He may even have diverted his time away from earning a living by transporting liquor for the other woman when he should have been on a job.  His absence might have been a relief of sorts because, Alice reported, “when he comes home, [John] pulls his wife’s cap and hair up by the root.”  Many runaway wife advertisements likely concealed domestic abuse that caused women to flee from their husbands.

Alice concluded with familiar instructions to the public, though inverted to disadvantage an absent husband rather than a disobedient wife: “This is therefore to forewarn all persons not to trust him on my account, as I will pay none of his debts.”  As a married woman, according to English common law, Alice held the status of a feme covert (or covered woman) whose legal identity had been subsumed by her husband.  She did not have the authority to cut her husband off from credit, though she did find resources to place the advertisement.  That final threat likely was not her purpose in placing the advertisement; instead, she wished to tell her side of the story and reveal the mistreatment she experienced at home.  In so doing, she deployed a format readers easily recognized, making it more powerful by bending it to her own purpose.

March 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 19, 1776).

“Hare’s American best bottled PORTER.”

Robert Appleby apparently specialized in beers brewed locally.  Those were the only products that he promoted in an advertisement that ran in the March 19, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  He opened with “SPRUCE BEER” that he brewed himself “in Chesnut-street, between Second and Third streets, two doors from the White-horse tavern” in Philadelphia.  Even if prospective customers were not already familiar with his beer, they could certainly find him once they were in the vicinity of the tavern.  Flavored with spruce needles or buds, this popular beverage helped in preventing scurvy.  Appleby sold his spruce beer in bottles, charging three shillings a dozen, or kegs as small as five gallons.  For the convenience of his customers, he offered delivery “to any part of the city.”

He also distributed beer that he did not brew, “Hare’s American best bottled PORTER.”  That beverage already had quite a reputation in Philadelphia.  Over the past several months, several tavernkeepers placed advertisements to alert prospective patrons when they planned to “open a TAP of Mr. HARE’s best AMERICAN DRAUGHT PORTER,” often associating drinking a brew brewed in the colony (and gathering together to do so) with support for the American cause.  Patrick Meade, for instance, declared that he “expects the Associators of Freedom will encouragement to the American Porter it deserves,” and Joseph Price called on “all the SONS of AMERICAN LIBERTY” to drink it at his tavern at “the sign of the Bull and Dog.”

In addition to his spruce beer and the most famous beer brewed in the city at the time, Appleby also sold “Philadelphia bottled BEER and CYDER, by the grose or dozen,” pledging that “None will be sent out but what is exceeding fine.”  Elsewhere in the same issue, Robert Bell placed competing advertisements for his third edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and James Chalmers’s Plain Truth, a response that depicted the “scheme of INDEPENDANCE” as “ruinous, delusive, and impracticable.”  Whether or not they purchased those pamphlets, the readers who consumed Appleby’s spruce beer and Hare’s porter likely had animated conversations as they discussed current events.

February 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 27, 1776).

“BOTTLES wanted by ROBERT HARE and Co. at their Porter Brewery.”

During the first year of the Revolutionary War, Robert Hare and Company gained a following for “HARE’s best AMERICAN DRAUGHT PORTER.”  Hare, the son of an English brewer, arrived in Philadelphia in 1773.  He established a brewery, reportedly the first to produce porter in the colonies.  As the imperial crisis intensified and Americans leveraged their participation in the marketplace for political purpose, Hare’s porter became a popular alternative to imported beer.

Tavernkeepers, innkeepers, and others promoted Hare’s porter when they invited patrons to their establishments.  In the November 25, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, for instance, William Dibley, the proprietor of the Fountain and White Horse Inn, announced that he would soon “open a TAP” of Hare’s porter and declared that he “has no doubt but that the sturdy friends of American freedom will afford due honor to this new and glorious manufacture.”  Not long after that, Patrick Meade invited the “TRUE FRIENDS to LIBERTY” to the Harp and Crown in Southwark, just outside of Philadelphia, to enjoy “HARE’s and Co. AMERICAN PORTER, which he will sell in its purity.”  Rather than offer a selection of beverages, he stated that he “intends no beer of any other kind shall enter his doors.”  As far as Meade was concerned, it was the only beer for the “Associators of Freedom.”  He hoped they would “give the encouragement to the American Porter it deserves.”  Joseph Price also served Hare’s porter “in the greatest purity and goodness” to “all the SONS of AMERICAN LIBERTY” at the “sign of the Bull and Dog” in Philadelphia.  Jeremiah Baker served Hare’s porter at the “sign of Noah’s Ark.”  Lewis Nicola opened an “AMERICAN PORTER HOUSE” where he no doubt served Hare’s porter.

With all that buzz for their beer, Hare and Company did not need to advertise in the public prints, at least not to gain customers.  They did, however, need supplies.  At the end of February 1776, the brewers placed an advertisement soliciting bottles “at their Porter Brewery.”  Readers could show their support for the American cause by drinking Hare’s porter, but that was not the only way.  They could also supply the brewery with bottles to aid in distributing the porter to even more consumers who wanted to drink beer produced in America rather than imported from England.

February 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 22, 1775).

“Self-defence against unjust attacks needs no apology.”

It was the final volley in the battle over competing editions of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense that took place in newspapers advertisements in Philadelphia over a course of a month in late January and most of February 1776.  The author and Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, had a parting of the ways over Bell’s bookkeeping for the first edition.  Paine claimed that he wished to donate his share of the proceeds to purchase mittens for American soldiers participating in the invasion of Canada, but Bell somehow had not turned a profit.  That prompted Paine to work with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, on an expanded edition.  Bell published an unauthorized second edition.  Paine, who remained anonymous at that point, and Bell attacked each other in newspaper advertisements.  The author walked away, but Bell continued and the Bradfords joined the fray.  When Aitken learned that the Bradfords’ edition would feature new material, he published his own “ADDITIONS to Common Sense.”  The Bradfords warned that Bell’s new pamphlet “consists of Pieces taken out of News Papers, and not written by the Author of COMMON SENSE.”  Several newspapers carried some of these advertisements; the Pennsylvania Evening Post carried all of them.  Printed three times a week instead of just once (in contrast to the other newspapers published in Philadelphia at t the time), the Pennsylvania Evening Post allowed the feuding printers to publish speedy responses to the latest accusations leveled against them.

Bell inserted the last of those responses in the February 22 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and the February 26 edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  In Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an Account of Its Publication, Richard Gimbel notes that Bell “thought so much of this address that he had it separately printed as a two-page leaflet and added it, as an integral part, to his ‘complete’ edition of Common Sense.”[1]  In this advertisement, Bell presented himself as a performing his civic dry as a “Bookseller, to the Public.”  He entitled this new address, “Self-defence against unjust attacks needs no apology.”  He then disparaged Paine, the “envious Mr. ANONYMOUS,” for wanting to have all the attention for writing Common Sense when other authors, “worthy and respectables citizens of Philadelphia,” also penned “excellent pieces.”  Furthermore, “in the opinion of some gentlemen, who are good judges of literary merit,” those essays were “worthy of preservation, in such manner as to bind with other pamphlets in an octavo volume.”  Why should readers limit themselves to Common Sense alone when they considered current events when they could instead consult an entire compendium of essays that supported the American cause?  Paine, his intermediaries who negotiated with Bell, and the printers who worked with him attempted to “insinuate,” according to Bell, that there is no WRITERS in America but the would-be-author of Common Sense.”  Yet Paine had been influenced by others, so any acclaim he received amounted to nothing more than “stolen applause.”  In addition, the publisher framed the production and, especially, the dissemination of Common Sense as his work.  After all, Paine did not attach his name to the pamphlet and most printers initially did not want to be associated with such a revolutionary tract, but Bell “printed his name on the title of the flaming production, to sound the depths of the multitude for a virtuous and glorious independency.”  “Mr. ANONYMOUS” wrote the pamphlet, but it was Bell who deserved credit for presenting it to the world.  He concluded by proclaiming that he “continueth to sell to all who are capable of making proper distinctions, the large edition of Common Sense with ALL the additions and improvements.”  That volume included “the appendix, and address to the Quakers COMPLETE,” pieces written by Bell for the Bradfords’ expanded edition and pirated by Bell.  Gimbel contends that this “acrimonious quarrel” in newspaper advertisements “doubtless helped to make Paine’s Common Sense the most discussed and most widely circulated pamphlet in America.”[2]  Then, as now, everyone loved a controversy.  The dispute gave readers all the more reason to check out the pamphlet.

**********

[1] Richard Gimbel, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an Account of Its Publication (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), 47.

[2] Gimbel, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense, 49.

February 24

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (February 24, 1776).

“THE MODERN RIDING-MASTER … Adorned with sixteen neat engravings.”

When Robert Aitken “PUBLISHED, PRINTED and SOLD” an American edition of Philip Astley’s “THE MODERN RIDING-MASTER, or a KEY to the KNOWLEDGE of the HORSE and HORSEMANSHIP,” he placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  In marketing the manual, he emphasized Astley’s celebrity, identifying him as a “Riding-master, late of his Majesty’s royal light dragoons.”  Aitken also promised that the manual included “several necessary rules for young horsemen.”  To that end, he declared that The Modern Riding-Master “may be considered as an useful Vade-Mecum” or handbook “for gentlemen of every rank and profession, whether civil or military.”  As printers and booksellers often did in their advertisements, Aitken copied the section headings to provide an overview of the contents.  The manual began with “Necessary precautions in purchasing a horse” and attention “Of the bridle and saddle,” continued with “The art of riding, and reducing a horse to proper obedience,” and also covered how “To mount the horse; with a variety of directions for the training and better government of this useful animal” and “Necessary directions on a journey.”

Figure 6 from Philip Astley, The Modern Riding-Master (Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1776). Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

In addition to these directions, the manual featured “sixteen neat engravings descriptive of this manly exercise.”  Aitken exaggerated a bit.  The handbook did indeed have sixteen illustrations, but they were woodcuts integrated into the text rather than copperplate engravings printed separately.  Those images “Adorned” the text, as Aitken stated, but they were not of the same quality as engravings.  Still, they provided useful visual aids for readers.  To draw the attention of prospective customers, Aitken submitted one of those woodcuts, Figure 6, to accompany his advertisement in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.  It depicted a rider placing his “left Foot in the Stirrup” as he prepared to mount a horse held steady by an attendant.  Aitken made savvy use of the woodcut, reusing it in an advertisement once he finished printing the manual.  It was the only visual image in his notice in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, a newspaper that did not even have a device in its masthead.  The woodcut gave a preview of what readers could expect if they purchased Astley’s manual.

Woodcuts in Philip Astley, The Modern Riding-Master (Philadelphia: Robert Aitken, 1776). Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.