Robert White

December 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (December 19, 1775).

“He carries on the Spinning-Wheel business in its various branches.”

In the final weeks of 1775, Robert White, a tobacconist in Baltimore, diversified his business.  He inserted an advertisement in the December 19 edition of Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette that announced that “he carries on the Spinning-Wheel business in its various branches.”  Why would a tobacconist decide to go into that line of business?  The Continental Association, a nonimportation and nonconsumption agreement devised by the Furst Continental Congress, remained in effect.  It called on colonizers to replace imported goods, including textiles, with alternatives produced in the colonies.  That meant more time spent spinning, a domestic chore that gained political significance.  Women styled Daughters of Liberty in newspaper accounts participated in public spinning bees to demonstrate their patriotism and inspire others to follow their example in their own homes.  To do so, they needed the right equipment.  White saw an expanding market for spinning wheels.

He was not alone in marketing equipment for producing homespun cloth.  His advertisement happened to appear immediately above Fergus McIllroy’s notice promoting “LOOMS made properly, for carrying on the Linen and Woolen Weaving-business.”  McIllroy, a “House Joiner,” also pursued a new line of work, though in his case doing so did not depart nearly as much from his primary occupation.  In addition, he reported that he had previously constructed more than two hundred looms in Ireland before migrating to the colonies.  White, the tobacconist, did not invoke such experience when it came to spinning wheels, yet he confidently proclaimed that he “will engage” his spinning wheels “to be as good as any made on the Continent” because “he has procured some of the best hands that could be had.”  In turn, White “flatters himself” that his workers and the spinning wheels they produced “will meet with general approbation” or approval from customers.  The tobacconist apparently served as a supervisor, an entrepreneur who established a business when he identified need for it during difficult time yet did not participate in making the spinning wheels.  Instead, in overseeing his new business, he pledged that “his constant study will be to please all those who favours him with their Commands.”  With no resolution in sight for the imperial crisis that became a war the previous April, White’s advertisement likely resonated with readers who understand the political implications of a tobacconist deciding to produce spinning wheels.

November 10

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Pinkney] (November 10, 1774).

“A WOOLEN and WORSTED MANUFACTORY … American manufactures.”

As John Pinkney published updates from the First Continental Congress in the Virginia Gazette in November 1774, Elisha White and Robert White ran an advertisement to announce that they were “engaged in the erection of a WOOLLEN and WORSTED MANUFACTORY” that they anticipated would meet with great success.  They had already been “encouraged by many of the most patriotic gentlemen of the country,” yet sought even greater support for “so beneficial an undertaking” among the public.  In other words, they sought investors to defray the costs of this endeavor, addressing those “who may incline to promote American manufactures” as alternatives to goods imported from Britain.  The Whites had already gone to some expense, recruiting “a number of the best workmen,” though they still needed to “compleat the works, and procure the necessary utensils.”  Their enterprise would have even greater urgency as colonizers learned more about the Continental Association, a nonimportation pact, adopted by the First Continental Congress.

To raise the necessary funds to make their “MANUFACTORY” viable, the Whites established a subscription and designated local agents in several towns who collected the money on their behalf.  They also outlined their scheme for repaying these loans: “Half the price of our work to be received in cash, the other half, from time to time, is to be placed to the credit of our generous benefactors, till the whole is repaid.”  In case that seemed like too much of a gamble, the Whites appended a note from some of those “most patriotic gentlemen” to offer assurances.  Samuel Meredith, Barrett White, John Stark, and Richard Chapman pledged that they “will be responsible to the gentlemen who have or may subscribe for the encouragement of Elisha and Robert White’s WOOLLEN MANUFACTORY.”  If the project did not succeed, those four men “shall return the subscribers their money.”  That promise reflected their confidence in the Whites’ ability to “carry on their business with life and spirit” while simultaneously underscoring that civic duty called for supporting the “MANUFACTORY” through investing in it and, eventually, purchasing the goods produced there.  Political principles guided participation in both production and consumption of “American manufactures” as the imperial crisis intensified in 1774.