Recommendations

October 15

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

New-London Gazette (October 15, 1773).

“Begs the Favour of those who are acquainted with his Abilities and Veracity in Business, to recommend him to Others.”

John Champlin, a goldsmith and jeweler, ran a shop near the courthouse in New London in the early 1770s.  In the fall of 1773, he advertised his services and merchandise in an advertisement that ran for several weeks in the New-London Gazette.  To entice prospective customers, he declared that he “makes and sells all Kinds of Gold-Smith, Silver-Smith, and Jeweller’s Work as cheap as is sold in this Colony.”

Champlin shared his shop with Daniel Jennings, an artisan who pursued an adjacent trade.  Jennings advised readers that he “repairs and hath to sell, all Kinds of Utensils for repairing Clocks and Watches.”  Recognizing that he operated within a regional marketplace, he asserted that he set prices “as cheap as can be had in New-York or Boston.”  Prospective customers, he suggested, did not need to send their clocks and watches to artisans in either of those urban ports.

Jennings did not mention, perhaps intentionally, the prices for similar goods and services in Hartford, though Thomas Hilldrup, a competitor in that town, had advertised extensively in the New-London Gazette and the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy as well as in the Connecticut Courant, the newspaper published in Hartford.  Perhaps Jennings did not mention Hartford because he did not wish to call any more attention to Hilldrup, a relative newcomer whose aggressive advertising campaign targeted prospective customers well beyond the town where he settled.

To secure his share of the market, Jennings issued a plea for “those who are acquainted with his Abilities and Veracity in his Business, to recommend him to Others.”  He considered such recommendations as effective or even more effective than the lengthy advertisements that Hilldrup ran in several newspapers.  After all, even though Hilldrup was industrious with his advertising he had only begun to establish his reputation in Connecticut.  Enlisting satisfied customers could work to Jennings’s advantage if prospective customers trusted word-of-mouth endorsements over flashy newspaper notices.  Whether or not Jennings had Hilldrup in mind when he composed his advertisement, he understood that the power of testimonials from colonizers who had engaged his services in the past.

August 13

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Aug 13 - 8:13:1770 New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy
New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy (August 13, 1770).

“We shall just give the Sentiments of the Authors of the Monthly and Critical Review concerning it.”

Much of Garrat Noel’s advertisement in the August 13, 1770, edition of the New-York Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy looked like other advertisements placed by booksellers.  Divided into two columns, it listed some of the “VERY great Variety of BOOKS” that he sold.  With the titles organized mostly in alphabetical order, Noel’s advertisement was a book catalog adapted for publication as a newspaper advertisement.

For selected books, however, Noel did more than name the title and author.  He attempted to incite interest by appending short notes.  Rather than “Bunyan’s Works,” he stocked “Bunyan’s Works complete in 2 Vols Folio, finely adorned with elegant Copper Plates, among which is a neat Head of the Author.”  Not only did this two-volume set come with attractive images, it was also “Recommended by the Rev. Mr. WHITEFIELD,” one of the most influential ministers in the colonies.  Whitefield gained celebrity when he toured the colonies, preaching to exuberant crowds in cities and towns from Georgia to New England.  Noel deployed a different strategy in promoting “Boswell’s entertaining Account of Corsica.”  Rather than rely on a celebrity endorsement, he noted that readers themselves expressed great enthusiasm for this book.  It was “in so great Demand in London, that 7000 Copies of it sold in the Space of a few Months.”  Noel encouraged consumers in New York to follow the lead of their counterparts in London who had purchased so many copies.

Those additional notes were relatively short compared to Noel’s treatment of “The patriotic Mrs. McAULAY’S celebrated History of England from the Accession of JAMES I. to the Elevation of the House of HANOVER.”  Noel inserted his own puff piece and then followed it with reviews from two prominent magazines published in London.  “This HISTORY OF ENGLAND,” Noel proclaimed, “is universally approved, and for Beauty and Elegance of Diction, is esteemed one of the best written Histories in the English Language.”  Rather than take the bookseller’s word for it, prospective customers could consider “the Sentiments of the Authors of the Monthly and Critical Review concerning it.”  A lengthy blurb from the Monthly Review followed by a shorter blurb from the Critical Review appeared immediately below Noel’s recommendation of the book.  Promotion of Macaulay’s History of England comprised one-quarter of the space devoted to listing the titles available at Noel’s bookstore.  It extended the same length as nineteen books in the facing column, including “Bunyan’s Works” and “Boswell’s entertaining Account of Corsica” that each had shorter commentaries attached.

Noel sought to enhance demand for his wares by enhancing his list of titles with additional notes about some of them.  He hoped that endorsements by celebrity preachers like Whitefield, recommendations from literary critics from magazines like the Critical Review and the Monthly Review, and even sales figures from consumers in London would influence prospective customers in New York.  Booksellers’ catalogs and newspaper advertisements were not necessarily dry lists of titles in eighteenth-century America.  To greater or lesser extents, some booksellers did enhance the standard format in their efforts to win over consumers.