Regional Newspaper

July 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (July 14, 1773).

“He is determined to sell as low as any person can sell in Philadelphia, Lancaster, or elsewhere.”

At a glance, readers of the Pennsylvania Gazette may have thought that Frederick Hubley was a distiller.  After all, the woodcut that adorned his advertisement in the July 14, 1773, edition depicted a still.  On closer examination, however, they discovered that Hubley was a coppersmith who plied his trade in Lancaster.  He advised prospective customers in and near that town that he “MAKES all sorts of COPPER and BRASS WARE, in the neatest and best manner.”  In particular, he made “STILLS, brewers, hatters, wash, fish and tea kettles, bake-pans, [and] sauce-pans,” though repeating “&c.” (an abbreviation for et cetera) indicated that he accepted orders for other items.

To entice prospective customers, Hubley advanced some of the appeals most commonly deployed by colonial artisans who placed newspaper advertisements.  He offered assurances about the quality of the items he produced in his shop, declaring that he made them “in the neatest and best manner.”  Such declarations simultaneously testified to his skill as a coppersmith.  Hubley also leveraged price as a means of attracting customers.  He did not merely mention low prices or reasonable prices.  Instead, he compared his prices to those charged by his competitors, both coppersmiths and shopkeepers, near and far, stating that he “is determined to sell as low as any person can sell in Philadelphia, Lancaster, or elsewhere.”  Prospective customers, Hubley asserted, would not find better deals, not even in Philadelphia, the largest city and busiest port in the colonies.

Hubley advertised in a newspaper published in that city because Lancaster did not yet have its own newspaper in 1773.  The Pennsylvania Gazette and several other newspapers published in Philadelphia, as well as Germantowner Zeitung, served the entire colony and portions of Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey.  Lancaster would not have its own newspaper until late November 1777 when John Dunlap temporarily moved the Pennsylvania Packet to town when the Continental Congress briefly relocated there during the British occupation of Philadelphia.  Although the Continental Congress quickly moved to York in hopes that even more distance meant more safety from the British, Dunlap and his press remained in Lancaster.  For six months, he printed the Pennsylvania Packet in Lancester, but ceased when he returned to Philadelphia to resume the newspaper there on July 4, 1778.  The war disrupted publication of several newspapers.  In addition, some folded completely, while printers established others.  In the summer of 1773, however, Hubley and others in Lancaster who wished to advertise did so within a fairly stable media environment, one with a center of gravity in Philadelphia.

July 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (July 10, 1773).

“At his Shop in Killingly.”

In the early 1770s, the Providence Gazette served readers … and advertisers … in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.  At the time that Asaph Wilder published his advertisement for a “general Assortment of English, Scotch and India GOODS” available at his shop in Killingly, Connecticut, about twenty-five miles west of Providence, printers published only three newspapers in his colony, the Connecticut Courant in Hartford, the New-London Gazette, and the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy.  In Massachusetts, five printing offices in Boston and one in Salem printed newspapers, but none to the west or south.  In Rhode Island, John Carter published the Providence Gazette and Solomon Southwick published the Newport Mercury.  That made the Providence Gazette the local newspaper for colonizers like Wilder in Killingly as well as others in towns in all three colonies.

Though Wilder kept shop in the countryside, he wanted prospective customers to know that he maintained an inventory that rivaled what they would find in Providence.  His “general Assortment” included “an Assortment of Cutlery and Hard-Ware Goods” and “a neat and elegant Assortment of Queen’s and Liverpool Ware” as well as coffee, tea, and several grocery items.  Rather than leftovers, his inventory consisted of goods “Suitable for the Season” that arrived in the colonies via “the Ships lately from London.”  Yet customers in Killingly and nearby towns did not have to pay a premium for the convenience of acquiring these items at Wilder’s shop rather than sending away for them or making a trip to Providence or another port.  The shopkeeper pledged that he “will sell at the most reasonable Rates,” either in cash or in exchange for commodities like “Beef, Pork, Butter, white Pine Shingles and Clapboards, and White Oak Staves.”  Wilder offered consumers in the countryside the same sorts of goods available to their counterparts in larger towns and cities, but made accommodations for payment tied to the local economy.  Even if some prospective customers suspected that Wilder’s selection was not as extensive as he suggested, his willingness to deal with them on such terms may have been a factor in winning their business.

March 16

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

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

Pennsylvania Packet (March 16, 1772).

“Proposes to engage his performance for one year, provided the owners do not abuse the same.”

When Thomas Morgan, a watch- and clockmaker, relocated from Philadelphia to a shop on Gay Street in Baltimore in the early 1770s, he placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet, published in Philadelphia.  Why did he advertise in a newspaper published in the town he left rather than one published in his new town?  Baltimore did not yet have its own newspaper.  Colonizers in Baltimore and the surrounding area depended on the Maryland Gazette, published in Annapolis, and several newspapers published in Philadelphia, including the Pennsylvania Packet, as regional newspapers.  When he placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet, Morgan anticipated that prospective customers in Baltimore would see it.

In addition, he deployed other marketing strategies.  He marked his new location in Baltimore with “THE SIGN OF THE ARCH DIAL,” a visual statement to all passersby about what kind of business he operated.  He also offered a guarantee for repairing and cleaning watches and clocks, stating that he would “engage his performance for one year, provided the owners do not abuse the same.”  In other words, the guarantee remained in effect only if customers treated their clocks and watches well.  That included not subjecting their timepieces to “unskilful hands” who did more harm than good.  Morgan lamented that “many good watches are greatly abused for want of experience” by artisans who purported to possess skills that they did not.  In so doing, Morgan made appeals similar to those that John Simnet, a watchmaker in New York, included in his newspaper advertisements.  He also offered guarantees of his work, contingent on how customers treated their clocks and watches, and warned against trusting inexperienced watch- and clockmakers who damaged the timepieces entrusted to them.

Morgan invited “Any Gentleman” to visit his new location in Baltimore, promising that they may “have new Watches and Clocks made after the neat and best construction.”  To encourage those previously unfamiliar with his work, he indicated that he already attracted new clients and “most gratefully acknowledges the many favours received from the Public, and hopes for the continuance of them.”  Morgan hoped that advertising in the Pennsylvania Packet would further ease the transition after setting up shop in a new town.

May 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (May 2, 1771).

“They manufacture and sell as usual at Frederick-Town.”

According to their advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Hamilton and Leiper sold tobacco and snuff at several locations.  For consumers in Philadelphia, they listed their location as “Second-street, between Market and Arch-streets.”  The primary purpose of their advertisement in the May 2, 1771, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, however, was to inform customers in Maryland that they had “established a MANUFACTORY in Market-street, Baltimore.”  At that location, they sold “the various kinds of manufactured TOBACCO and SNUFF (of the best quality) on the most reasonable terms.”  In addition, the tobacconists declared that they “manufacture and sell as usual at Frederick-Town” in western Maryland.  Altogether, Hamilton and Leiper sold tobacco and snuff in three towns in two colonies, their multiple locations providing for “the conveniency of their customers.”

Their advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette also testified to the reach of that newspaper in the early 1770s.  Baltimore would not have its own newspaper until August 1773.  Fredericktown (now Frederick) did not have a newspaper until after the American Revolution.  For half a century, the Pennsylvania Gazette served as a regional newspaper for readers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey.  Although most of the advertisers who promoted consumers goods and services in its pages were located in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Gazette also carried notices from Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Wilmington, Delaware; Baltimore and Frederick, Maryland; Burlington and Trenton, New Jersey; and several other towns in those colonies.  Similarly, the Pennsylvania Gazette carried legal notices and advertisements about runaway apprentices and indentured servants and enslaved people who liberated themselves submitted by colonists throughout the region.  In the same column as Hamilton and Leiper’s advertisement, Henry Wells, a jailer, described a runaway servant who made his escape from William Anders or Andrews in Joppa, Maryland, but had been taken into custody and confined in Dover, Delaware.

Several colonies constituted a single media market for the Pennsylvania Gazette and other newspapers published in Philadelphia before the revolution.  Enterprising entrepreneurs like Hamilton and Leiper also recognized the potential to create larger markets for their wares rather than serve only a single town and its hinterlands.  In the early 1770s, they branched out from locations in Philadelphia and Frederick to a third location in Baltimore.  Advertisements in the Pennsylvania Gazette alerted consumers in and near all three places about the tobacco and snuff that Hamilton and Leiper sold at their several convenient locations.

April 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Boston Evening-Post (April 8, 1771).

“Rider from Boston to Northampton, Deerfield, &c.”

Silent Wilde’s advertisement in the April 8, 1771, edition of the Boston Evening-Post testified to the dissemination of that newspaper to subscribers who lived far from its place of publication.  Wilde described himself as a “Rider from Boston to Northampton, Deerfield, &c.”  He served towns in the western part of the colony, one hundred miles and more from the bustling port city.  Only six newspapers were printed in the colony at the time, five of them in Boston and one in Salem.  For residents of Northampton, Deerfield, and other towns, the Boston Evening-Post was a local newspaper.

The printing office of the Connecticut Courant, published in Hartford, was closer than Boston, but that newspaper did not carry nearly as much news about Massachusetts matters, including coverage of the governor and the colonial assembly, as the Evening-Post and other newspapers from Boston.  The issue of the Evening-Post that carried Wilde’s advertisement, for instance, devoted two out of three columns on the front page to news with a “BOSTON, APRIL 4” dateline.  The printers evenly divided the second page between news from London and news from Boston, including exchanges between the governor and the assembly.  The Connecticut Courant reprinted news from Boston publications, but that newspaper’s coverage of Massachusetts politics and current events was not nearly as extensive as what appeared in the newspapers published in that colony.  As was the case in most colonies, newspapers printed in the largest city served as both local and regional publications, disseminating news to the far reaches of the colony.

Wilde ran his advertisement in the Evening-Post, but he indicated that he “carried the Boston News-Papers.”  His “Engagement with the Printers” to serve subscribers in western towns likely included Boston-Gazette, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, and the Massachusetts Spy.  The names of those publications suggested both local and regional coverage of news and dissemination of newspapers.  It took some time for those publications to reach residents of Northampton, Deerfield, and other towns, but they eventually read the same news and advertising, as packaged by the printers, as residents of Boston.

October 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (October 20, 1770).

“The Subscriber proposes undertaking the Practice of the Law.”

In the fall of 1770, John Cole took to the pages of the Providence Gazette to advertise his services as an attorney.  In introducing himself to prospective clients, Cole noted that “several Gentlemen of the LAW have lately removed from Providence.”  Furthermore, there was “another Vacancy at the Bar” caused by the death of “the late worthy and ingenious Oliver Arnold, Esq.”  As a result, residents of Providence and nearby towns and villages no longer had access to as many attorneys.  Cole sought to fill that gap in the market.

When he informed the public that he “proposes undertaking the Practice of the Law,” Cole asserted that he had been “brought up” to the business, though he did not provide additional details about his training and credentials.  Instead, he focused on his demeanor, assuring prospective clients that he would serve them “with the utmost Fidelity, Dispatch and Punctuality.”  Advertisers of all sorts made such promises, whether attorneys or artisans, but an emphasis on fidelity had a different resonance when invoked by those practicing the law.  It implied both confidentiality and consistently working in the best interests of clients, two aspects of the profession that some attorneys more explicitly highlighted in their advertisements.  Cole made more general commitments that his clients would be satisfied with his services.

He also cast his net widely for clients, seeking them in Providence and “the neighbouring Towns or Governments.”  The Providence Gazette served much of Rhode Island as well as portions of Massachusetts and Connecticut.  For instance, Joseph Jewet and Darius Adams’s advertisement on the same page as Cole’s notice in the October 20, 1770, edition addressed readers in several towns in Connecticut who might wish to engage them as postriders to deliver their newspapers.  Jewet and Adams also promised fidelity, but in their case they meant that patrons would receive their newspapers rather than have them go missing.

With the departure of several attorneys and the death of another, Cole sought to establish himself as an attorney in Providence.  To attract clients, he not only announced that he opened an office but also suggested that he had some sort of training and offered assurances that he would be trustworthy and competent in delivering his services.  Compared to modern advertising for legal services, Cole was considerably less bombastic.  He aimed to earn the confidence of prospective clients, not attract them with spectacle.

August 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Aug 19 1770 - 8:16:1770 Pennsylvania Gazette
Pennsylvania Gazette (August 16, 1770).

“CLOCK and WATCH-MAKER, at the DIAL in WILMINGTON.”

Two clock- and watchmakers advertised in the August 16, 1770, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, but they likely did not consider each other competitors.  John Wood promoted a “PARCEL of neat Philadelphia made WATCHES” available at his shop “at the Corner of Front and Chestnut-streets” in Philadelphia.  Thomas Crow advised prospective customers that he made “gold and silver Watches” as well as “musical, Chamber, and plain Clocks.”  He also noted he had “removed his Shop to Market-street, opposite to William Marshall’s Tavern,” but he did not mean the Market Street in Philadelphia that would have put him in close proximity to Wood’s shop.  Instead, his advertisement identified Crow as a “CLOCK and WATCH-MAKER, at the DIAL in WILMINGTON,” Delaware, thirty miles down the Delaware River.  The two advertisers addressed different markets in their efforts to attract consumers.

Although Wood expected the majority of his customers to come from Philadelphia and its environs and Crow expected most of his customers to come from Wilmington and the surrounding area, they participated in a single media market.  Wilmington did not have its own newspaper in 1770.  Indeed, no printers published newspapers in Delaware during the colonial period.  Only after the American Revolution, in 1785, did Jacob Killen commence publication of the Delaware Gazette, the state’s first newspaper, in Wilmington.  In 1770, the Pennsylvania Gazette served as a regional newspaper for readers and advertisers in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and portions of Maryland and New Jersey.  The Pennsylvania Chronicle and the Pennsylvania Journal did as well, though the Gazette had been in print for much longer and had larger circulation numbers.

Merchants, shopkeepers, and artisans placed most of the advertisements for consumer goods and services that appeared in the newspapers published in Philadelphia, but not all of them.  Advertisers from Wilmington, Delaware; Burlington, New Jersey; Baltimore, Maryland; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and other towns in the region also treated those publications as their local newspapers.  When Thomas Crow inserted his advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette, he expected that prospective customers in and near his town would see it and respond.

February 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Feb 9 - 2:9:1770 New-Hampshire Gazette
New-Hampshire Gazette (February 9, 1770).

“Auction-Hall, KING-STREET … BOSTON.”

John Gerrish, “Public Vendue-Master” or auctioneer, continued his endeavor to extend the range of his advertising by developing a marketing campaign for his auction hall that incorporated newspapers published in towns other than Boston. In early February 1770, he placed notices in the Providence Gazette, the Essex Gazette, and, eventually, the New-Hampshire Gazette, in addition to three of the five newspapers in Boston. In so doing, he coordinated a campaign that involved six newspapers in four cities spread over three colonies. The Adverts 250 Project has been tracking the development of that campaign in several entries published during the past week.

Not surprisingly, Gerrish’s efforts radiated outward from Boston. His advertisement ran in the New-Hampshire Gazette only after it ran in the Essex Gazette, moving from Boston to Salem to Portsmouth. That the notice in the New-Hampshire Gazette included exactly the same copy, down to the punctuation (such as the brackets around “[Public Vendue-Master]”), as the one in the Essex Gazette suggests one possible mode of transmission. While Gerrish might have carefully written out identical copy in letters sent to the two printing offices, he may very well have instructed Samuel Hall, printer of the Essex Gazette, to forward instructions to reprint the advertisement in the New-Hampshire Gazette when he sent an exchange copy to Daniel Fowle and Robert Fowle, the printers of that newspaper. The Fowles, like every other colonial printer, liberally reprinted news items, letters, and editorials from other newspapers when selecting the content for the New-Hampshire Gazette. When sent instructions (and promises of payment) they could have done the same with an advertisement.

Although the advertisements in the Essex Gazette and the New-Hampshire Gazette featured identical copy, they did have variations in format, including capitalization, italics, and line breaks, though certain key appeals to prospective customers did appear in capitals in both newspapers (“EXCEEDING CHEAP” and “VERY CHEAP TERMS INDEED”). That was standard practice in the production of newspaper advertisements. Advertisers provided the copy and sometimes made suggestions or requests concerning format, but printers and compositors exercised broad discretion when it came to typography and graphic design.

For Gerrish, the format, as long as it was done well, likely mattered less than disseminating his advertisements over greater distances than he managed previously by inserting them solely in the Boston newspapers. He aimed to create a much larger regional market for himself by boosting the circulation of his notices in additional publications and new places where prospective bidders and clients had less awareness of his “Auction-Hall” on King Street in Boston.

December 23

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

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

Dec 23 - 12:23:1769 Providence Gazette
Providence Gazette (December 23, 1769).

“His Store in East-Greenwich.”

On December 23, 1769, Richard Matthewson published a newspaper advertisement promoting the “Neat Assortment of English and West-India Goods” he sold at his store near the courthouse in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. On the same day, James Mitchell Varnum also published a newspaper advertisement, that one informing the public that he “hath lately opened an Office … in the Character of Attorney at Law” in the town of East Greenwich. Both advertisements ran in the Providence Gazette. They demonstrate the widespread circulation of colonial newspapers.

For Matthewson and Varnum, the Providence Gazette, printed twenty miles distant from East Greenwich, was their local newspaper. In 1769, only two newspapers were printed in Rhode Island, the Newport Mercury by Solomon Southwick and the Providence Gazette by John Carter. Each served as clearinghouses for advertisements from beyond the busy ports where the printing offices were located. Matthewson expected that customers in East Greenwich and the surrounding villages would read the Providence Gazette and encounter his notice. Otherwise he would not have placed it. Similarly, Varnum anticipated that investing in an advertisement in the Providence Gazette would generate clients for his law office.

An explosion of printing occurred after the American Revolution. Printers established newspapers in smaller towns throughout the new United States in the final decades of the eighteenth century and even more as the nineteenth century progressed. In the period before the American Revolution, however, colonists had access to far fewer newspapers. Several newspapers emanated from the largest port cities, but they often served an entire colony or an even larger region. Some colonies had only one newspaper, such as the Georgia Gazette published in Savannah and the New-Hampshire Gazette published in Portsmouth. Their mastheads bore the name of the colony rather than the town where they were published. Only in New England were some newspapers named for cities and towns, suggesting a greater concentration of print in that region. (Newspapers published in New York served the entire colony, not just the bustling port.) Even when named for a town, however, newspapers like the Providence Gazette circulated throughout an entire colony and beyond. That made the Providence Gazette the local newspaper and appropriate place to advertise for Matthewson, Varnum, and others who lived in other parts of the colony.

January 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Essex Gazette (January 10, 1768).

“THE Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Salem would be glad to bind out a Number of poor Children.”

Colonial newspapers tended to be regional rather than local, as the names sometimes indicated. Consider the newspapers published in 1769. The Georgia Gazette (published in Savannah), the Massachusetts Gazette (published in Boston), the Pennsylvania Gazette (published in Philadelphia), the South-Carolina Gazette (published in Charleston), and the Virginia Gazette (published in Williamsburg) all served their respective colonies and beyond. Other newspapers with names that specified their places of publication also circulated far beyond the towns and cities that appeared in their mastheads. Such was the case for the Boston Evening-Post, the Newport Mercury, and the Providence Gazette. The title of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette summed up the extensive communities served by colonial newspapers. They were simultaneously local and regional publications.

That was the case for advertising as well as news. The majority of paid notices that appeared in any newspaper concerned local affairs, yet a smaller number of advertisements from beyond the city or town where a newspaper was published were interspersed. Artisans and shopkeepers in Albany, for instance, placed advertisements in newspapers published in New York. Colonists in Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey as well as towns in Pennsylvania beyond Philadelphia placed advertisements for consumer goods and services, legal notices, estate notices, and other sorts of notices in the newspapers published in Philadelphia. In each instance, they depended on the extensive circulation across a vast geography to place their notices before the eyes of readers in their own communities.

By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the number of newspapers increased dramatically. Especially after the American Revolution, printers established newspapers in smaller cities and towns, eliminating some of the need for newspapers to serve regional audiences. Those new publications allowed advertisers to target local readers more effectively. The process began prior to the Revolution. When Samuel Hall commenced publication of the Essex Gazette in Salem, Massachusetts, in August 1768, he offered his community more than just “the freshest Advices, both foreign and domestic.” As the colophon indicated, he took in subscriptions and advertisements at the printing office. Not just for news but also for advertising, residents of Salem and the surrounding towns now had a local alternative to the several newspapers published in Boston. Residents of Salem could continue to insert advertisements in the Boston Chronicle, the Boston Post-Boy, and their competitors as a means of placing them before larger audiences, yet some advertisers likely considered the local alternative more appropriate and more effective for their purposes, whether selling goods or keeping the community informed about local affairs.