Reference to Previous Advertisement

August 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (August 3, 1772).

“Vide the case of Flackfield published in this paper the 29th June, and 6th of July instant.”

When they feuded over selling “Dr. KEYSER’S famous PILLS” for venereal disease in the summer of 1772, Charles Crouch and Powell, Hughes, and Company ran advertisements that referenced notices by their competitor.  In the July 30 edition of their South-Carolina Gazette, Powell, Hughes, and Company even reprinted Crouch’s most recent advertisement “From the South-Carolina GAZETTE, AND Country Journal, of July 28, 1772.  [No. 348.]”

Hundreds of miles to the north, another purveyor of “KEYSER’s famous PILLS” placed an advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy that directed readers to a notice he placed weeks earlier.  On July 20, Michaell B. Goldthwait ran a notice in which he asserted that doctors who prescribed the pills and observed the results “have produced the following testimonies which is written under Dr. Hammond Beaumount’s original certificate of the case* of Thomas Flackfield, a soldier in the 26th Reg’t, an event that astonished all the officers of that corps, and all the inhabitants of New-York.”  The asterisk directed readers to a note at the end of the advertisement: “Vide the case of Flackfield published in this paper the 29th June, and 6th of July instant.”  Goldthwait cited his own lengthy advertisement for “Dr. Keyser’s celebrated PILLS” that overflowed from one column into another.  Much of that earlier notice consisted of a narrative of “The Case of Thomas Flackfield,” signed by “H. BEAUMONT, Surgeon to his Majesty’s twenty sixth, or Cameronian Regiment,” and dated “New-York, May 10, 1772.”

On July 27, that original advertisement ran once again, but on August 3 Goldthwait once again published the newer notice that cited the earlier one.  It featured two new testimonials, including “The Opinion of Dr. JOHN KEARSLEY, of Philadelphia, published now with his knowledge and consent,” and an “Extract of a Letter from a Doctor of Physick in a City to the Southward of Philadelphia.”  Although this new advertisement likely provided sufficient information to entice doctors and patients hoping to cure “the French disorder” as well as “the several diseases specified in the printed direction,” Goldthwait asked prospective customers to consider other notices from his marketing campaign.  He also expected that readers had fairly easy access to previous issues of the weekly Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Subscribers sometimes held onto issues for some time before discarding them.  Coffeehouses also maintained libraries of recent newspapers, allowing patrons to peruse them for items they missed.

Whether part of a feud between rival printers who peddled patent medicines in South Carolina or a marketing campaign devised by an apothecary in Massachusetts, advertisements for Keyser’s pills were not always standalone entries in the entries in which they appeared.  Instead, the advertisers expected that readers had seen other advertisements and even provided citations for them to find additional advertisements they referenced as they told a more complete story about the products they sold.

June 14

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

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (June 11, 1772).

“From and ADVERTISEMENT in Mess. Purdie & Dixon’s Paper of March 1772, he appears to be the same Negro advertised by Mr. Perkins.”

In the spring of 1772, James Eppes, the jailer in Charles City, placed an advertisement in Purdie and Dixon’s Virginia Gazette to inform Hardin Perkins that he imprisoned “a Negro FELLOW, who says his Name is Tom.”  This notice demonstrates how closely some colonizers read and remembered the runaway advertisements that regularly appeared in early American newspapers.  In addition to Tom stating that he “belongs to Mr. Hardin Perkins of Buckingham,” Eppes surmised “From and ADVERTISEMENT in Mess. Purdie & Dixon’s Paper of March 1772” that Tom “appears to be the same Negro advertised by Mr. Perkins, as he exactly answers the Description.”  That earlier advertisement described Tom as “about forty Years old, of the middle Size, and has an impediment in his Speech.”

Virginia Gazette [Purdie and Dixon] (March 5, 1772).

Tom managed to elude capture for about nine months.  Perkins reported that Tom liberated himself in August 1771, not long after the enslaver purchased him.  Perkins suspected that Tom was “lurking about Williamsburg” and offered forty shillings to anyone who “secures the said Negro, or gives me such information that I may get him again” or five pounds to anyone who delivered Tom to Perkins.  According to Eppes, Tom was “COMMITTED to Charles City Jail” on May 10.  Eppes did not mention where Tom spent his time during his nine months of freedom or the circumstances of his capture.  Like other advertisements offering rewards for enslaved men and women who liberated themselves, this one told only part of the story.

That Eppes matched Tom to an advertisement that ran in Purdie and Dixon’s Virginia Gazette two months earlier suggests that the jailer carefully read the runaway advertisements and kept newspapers on hand for at least several months so he could review the notices and consult them for similarities when imprisoning Black men and women.  Newspapers played an important role in the infrastructure of returning enslaved people who liberated themselves to those who purported to be their owners or masters.  Printers disseminated the information, followed by jailers and others creating archives to aid in the capture and return of fugitives who sought freedom.

July 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Jul 2 - 7:2:1767 Pennsylvania Gazette
Pennsylvania Gazette (July 2, 1767).

“A Variety of other Articles (advertised in the May Papers).”

In an advertisement in the July 2, 1767, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette, Philip Wilson announced that he sold “A NEAT assortment of Merchandize” at his store on Front Street, just three doors down from “the Tea-pot, at Chestnut-street Corner.” He listed more than a dozen specific items, but also indicated that he carried “a Variety of other Articles (advertised in the May Papers).”

This note near the end of the Wilson’s advertisement suggests how he imagined colonial consumers interacted with advertisement in their local newspapers. Most likely he did not expect readers to remember the particulars of his advertisements published two months earlier, not given that during that time the Pennsylvania Gazette regularly included a four-page supplement devoted exclusively to advertising in addition to all of the advertising in each standard issue. In addition, residents of Philadelphia were also exposed to advertisements in the Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Journal. The proliferation of newspaper advertising that occurred in Philadelphia by the 1760s made it unlikely that readers would remember Wilson’s original notice unless it included especially noteworthy or innovative appeals to distinguish it from others. (It did not.)

Jul 2 - 5:14:1767 Pennsylvania Gazette.jpg
Pennsylvania Gazette (May 14, 1767).

Instead, Wilson assumed that his potential customers were active readers – very active readers – who had access to issues of the Pennsylvania Gazette published and distributed weeks earlier. In mentioning that he had previously advertised and listed a greater assortment of merchandise, he offered directions for locating a more complete accounting of his wares, anticipating that at least some readers would take the time and make the effort to do so. In turn, Wilson’s reference to his advertisements in previous issues suggests that some subscribers held onto their newspapers for some time before discarding them. Some of those subscribers may have included proprietors of coffeehouses, establishments known for providing newspapers among the many amenities offered to patrons.

Wilson was not alone in making assumptions that readers would look for advertisement inserted in previous issues.  Samuel Nightingale, Jr., deployed a similar technique in the Providence Gazette the previous November, though he directed readers to specific issues by number.

The masthead of the Pennsylvania Gazette proclaimed that it “Contain[ed] the Freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic,” but some subscribers and coffeehouses likely created small archives of what was becoming old news (and advertisements), at least going back a few months, for perusal and reference. Philip Wilson assumed potential customers had some way to access a list of the “Variety of other Articles (advertised in the May Papers).”

November 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Ceara Morse

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

nov-2-1111766-providence-gazette
Providence Gazette (November 1, 1766).

“A Variety of English, East and West-India GOODS, … to be sold at the cheapest Rate for CASH.”

In this advertisement in the Providence Gazette, Samuel Nightingale, Jr., sold an assortment of goods from England, as well as both the East and West Indies, in his “new Shop, near the Great Bridge” in Providence.

Since this advertisement mentions earlier issues that included the actual information about what was being sold, I went in search of them. In issue 145, published on October 25, 1766, I found a much larger advertisement with a vast list of goods. The majority of the items on the list were linens and other sorts of textiles, but it also included other things, such as “Ivory and buckling combs,” “Pewter dishes, plates and basons,” and “Flat irons. English Steel.”

nov-1-10181766-providence-gazette
Providence Gazette (October 18, 1766).

Pewter was very popular in the eighteenth century. James A. Mulholland notes that “[a]ll but the poorest families owned at least one or two pewter items, and wealthier families accumulated substantial inventories of pewterware, including porrigngers, tankards, coffeepots, and candlesticks.”[1] He also noted that the majority of pewter came from England.

**********

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

I was very excited when Ceara selected this advertisement. When guest curators are participating in this project I leave the decisions about which advertisements to feature to them, provided they follow the project’s methodology. That means that they sometimes pass over advertisements that I find either interesting or significant, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes when working on a collaborative project. After all, the guest curators can learn something interesting or significant about colonial America from any advertisement.

Why was I so excited when Ceara submitted this advertisement for approval? She mentioned the reason in her own analysis. Samuel Nightingale, Jr., instructed potential customers to “[see No. 144 and 145 of this Gazette]” for a list of the “Variety of English, East and West-India GOODS” that he sold. When she noticed this, Ceara did the sort of historical detective work that I consider an enjoyable part of this project: she consulted the earlier issues (October 11 and 18, 1766) of the Providence Gazette to find out more about those advertisements. In the process, she discovered an advertisement that resembled others by Thompson and Arnold and Benjamin Thurber and Edward Thurber, both previously featured by the Adverts 250 Project.

In the course of a few weeks, Nightingale published two advertisements with rather extraordinary features. His first advertisement borrowed innovations from competitors, but those innovations had not been so widely adopted that Nightingale’s advertisement blended in with others. With a decorative border and spanning two columns, Nightingale’s earlier advertisements dominated the pages on which they appeared.

nov-2-10181766-page-4-providence-gazette
Providence Gazette (October 18, 1766).

Today’s advertisement did not have the same visual impact, but it did incorporate one rather unusual feature. It instructed readers to consult another newspaper to see the original advertisement. Nightingale assumed a high level of interest among potential customers. At the very least, he hoped to incite interest by offering a brief description and then challenging readers to find the original advertisements in earlier issues.

This tells us something about how colonists used newspapers. Nightingale’s directions to “[see No. 144 and 145 of this Gazette]” only worked if readers still had access to those issues. It suggests that subscribers held on to newspapers for at least several weeks to consult the news, advertisements, and other items they contained. Newspapers were not immediately ephemeral in the eighteenth century. In turn, that means that the advertisement printed in colonial newspapers had longer lives than the week that passed before the publication of the next issue.

Running his lengthy advertisement for two weeks may have been a significant investment for Samuel Nightingale, Jr., but it may also have been a risk worth taking if he could depend on it to keep circulating for quite some time after that. To shore up his bet, today’s brief notice directed potential customers back to the impressive original advertisement.

**********

[1] James A. Mulholland, History of Metals in Colonial America (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1981), 95.