Samuel Broome and Company

December 19

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Connecticut Courant (December 19, 1768).

“SAMUEL BROOME, and Co. have the following GOODS … at their Store in NEW-YORK.”

By the time it made its final appearance in the December 19, 1768, edition, regular readers of Hartford’s Connecticut Courant would have been quite familiar with Samuel Broome and Company’s lengthy advertisement for an assortment of goods available at their store in New York. Over the past five months the advertisement had appeared frequently, replicating its publication schedule in New Haven’s Connecticut Journal.

Broome and Company’s first inserted their advertisement in the August 1 edition of the Connecticut Courant. It then ran in alternating issues, appearing again on August 15 and 29, September 12 and 26, October 10 and 24, November 7 and 21, and December 5 and 19. It did not run on August 8 and 22, September 5 and 19, October 3, 17, and 31, November 14 and 28, and December 12. I have assumed that this advertisement did run on August 15, but not on October 31. Extant copies of those issues were not available to consult, but this would match the schedule throughout the five months the advertisement appeared in the Connecticut Courant. Furthermore, a similar schedule in the Connecticut Journal strongly suggests that Broome and Company’s advertisement did indeed consistently run in alternating issues for the final five months of 1768.

This advertising campaign was ambitious and probably expensive, not just for its frequency but also due to the length of the advertisement. It filled the better part of two out of three columns in the Connecticut Courant, dominating any page on which appeared. Similarly, it filled an entire column in the Connecticut Journal, a newspaper that featured only two columns per page. Despite its length, Broome and Company indicated that they also sold “many other articles too tedious to mention.”

Broome and Company also placed the same advertisement in the New-York Journal. Most merchants and shopkeepers in New York opted to advertise in one or more of the newspapers printed in that city, trusting the extensive circulation of those newspapers to distribute their commercial notices to towns and villages far beyond the city. Broome and Company took a more calculated approach to cultivating new customers and enlarging their share of the market. Their persistent advertising in newspaper published in Hartford and New Haven likely helped to establish greater name recognition on a regional level.

November 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Nov 25 - 11:25:1768 Connecticut Journal
Connecticut Journal (November 25, 1768).

“Broad cloths in|Best belladine sew-|Bellows’s Gimblets”

The format of Samuel Broome and Company’s advertisement in the Connecticut Journal suggested the work of an unskilled compositor, someone who had not sufficiently mastered the typographical arts to create an advertisement that was either visually appealing or easy to read. Yet Bernard Lintot’s advertisement that appeared immediately to the left in the November 25, 1768, edition hinted that the compositor of Broome and Company’s notice might not have been entirely at fault for its dense and cluttered appearance.

Both advertisements featured two vertical lines trisecting three columns of goods. Lintot’s advertisement listed only one item per line in each column, taking advantage of white space to make each legible for readers. Broome and Company’s advertisement, on the other hand, included multiple items per line and crushed the columns together without any space to separate them. Why adopt that approach when it was clear that those employed at the printing office were capable of doing better?

It may have been an issue of finances rather than a lack of aesthetics. The cramped advertisement already filled an entire column. If Broome and Company had insisted on a style that replicated Lintot’s advertisement, their notice would have extended into a second column. That may not have been a viable alternative considering that the partners ran their advertisement in the Connecticut Journal in alternating issues for five months, incurring significant advertising costs. Broome and Company may have intentionally avoided the additional expense associated with overflowing into a second column; given their frequent publication schedule, the printers also may have confined Broome and Company to a single column. Each time their notice appeared it accounted for one-eighth of the total content in a four-page newspaper with only two columns per page.

What kind of consultation took place among advertisers, printers, and compositors in the eighteenth century? On its own, Broome and Company’s advertisement suggests that the compositor did not execute his charge particularly well, but that might not have been the case. The variation in visual appeal among the advertisements in the Connecticut Journal indicates that other factors may have also been at play in determining the format of Broome and Company’s lengthy notice.

November 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Nov 11 - 11:11:1768 Connecticut Journal
Connecticut Journal (November 11, 1768).

“SAMUEL BROOME, and Co. Have the following Goods to Sell.”

Samuel Broome and Company’s advertisement for an assortment of goods they sold “on the most reasonable Terms, at their Store in NEW-YORK” probably became quite familiar to readers of the Connecticut Journal and New-Haven Post-Boy in 1768. The advertisement appeared regularly during the last five months of the year, though on a rather unique publication schedule.

After first appearing in the August 5 edition, Broome and Company’s advertisement ran again on August 19, September 2, 16, and 30, October 14, November 11 and 25, and December 9 and 23. It did not appear on August 12 and 26, September 9 and 23, October 7 and 21, November 18, and December 2, 16, and 30. (Any extant copies of the October 28 and November 4 editions have not been digitized so they have not been consulted in compiling this calendar. Presumably the advertisement ran on October 28 but not on November 4.) In other words, Broome and Company’s advertisement alternated issues from August through December before being discontinued.

Most eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements ran in consecutive issues for a set period. Why did Broome and Company adopt a schedule that deviated from standard practices? Several factors may have played a role. The partners may have considered the expense of advertising weekly prohibitive. They may have also wished to prolong their advertising campaign while maintaining a particular budget. Staggering their advertisements allowed them to do so. The publishers of the Connecticut Journal may have also played a role in Broome and Company’s decision. Compared to other advertisements in that newspaper, their notice was extensive. It usually filled and entire column (though sometimes the compositor managed to squeeze a short advertisement above or below). Unlike most other newspapers published in 1768, the Connecticut Journal featured only two columns per page. That meant that Broome and Company’s advertisement that filled an entire column actually comprised one-eighth of any standard four-page issue. Without sufficient news and additional advertising to regularly justify a supplement, he publishers may have determined that Broome and Company’s advertisement so dominated the pages of the Connecticut Journal that it could not appear every week.

Whatever factors contributed to the unique publication schedule, Broome and Company inserted their advertisement in the Connecticut Journal a total of eleven times. By the end of December, readers almost certainly recognized it at a glance. They published the same advertisement in the New-York Journal, but it did not achieve the same visibility in a publication that featured far more advertisements, many of them of a length that rivaled Broome and Company’s notice.

September 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Sep 25 - 9:22:1768 New-York Journal
New-York Journal (September 22, 1768).

“Too many other articles too tedious to mention.”

In an extensive advertisement that comprised almost an entire column in the September 22, 1768, edition of the New-York Journal, Samuel Broome and Company emphasized the choices they offered consumers by listing hundreds of items. Organized into two neat columns with only one or two items listed on each line, this list of goods enumerated a vast array of merchandise “imported in the Mercury, from London, and the last vessels from Bristol, Liverpool, and Scotland.”

Visually, the design of the advertisement readily communicated the choices available to prospective customers, but Broome and Company relied on more than just copy filling so much space in the newspaper to make their point. For many items they provided descriptions that further testified to the variety readers could expect to encounter upon visiting their store “near the Merchant’s Coffee-House.” For instance, they stocked “Gilt, silver’d and metal buttons of all sorts.” After listing dozens of textiles, Broome and Company stated that they also stocked “a large assortment of other handsome figur’d stuffs.” They did not merely carry ribbons but instead “Ribbons a complete assortment.” Similarly, they carried “Rose blankets of all sorts.” They also emphasized the range of colors and prints for many of their fabrics and garments, including “Flannels of all colours,” “Tammies, durants, and callimancoes of all colours,” “Silk, hair and scarf twist of all colours,” and “Cotton checks of all sorts[,] Check linen handkerchiefs[, and] Printed blue and red do.” They used an eighteenth-century abbreviation for “ditto” – “do” – as they expanded on the variety of handkerchiefs. They did the same when they listed an assortment of hinges: “H and HL hinges[,] Table do[,] Dovetail do[,] Butts do[, and] Rais’d joint do.”

As if this was not enough to entice potential customers, Broome and Company invoked a familiar refrain to conclude their list: “With too many other articles too tedious to mention.” Despite all of the textiles, housewares, and hardware named in the advertisement, the partners suggested to consumers that they provided only a small preview of the many wares available at their store. Many of their competitors who advertised in the same issue of the New-York Journal also made appeals to consumer choice, but the combination of copy and design deployed by Broome and Company most effectively delivered the message to consumers in the city and its hinterlands.

August 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Aug 5 - 8:5:1768 Connecticut Journal
Connecticut Journal (August 5, 1768).

“colours, Six quarter|London quality’s|common, Spike do”

Although many eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements for consumer goods took the form of long lists delivered in dense paragraphs, some advertisers and compositors experimented with other formats that made advertisements easier to read. Listing only one or two items per line better highlighted each item; the white space aided in directing readers to those goods that most interested them. This strategy, however, reduced the number of items that could be included in the same amount of space. Advertisers had to choose between listing fewer goods or paying for advertisements that occupied greater amounts of space in newspapers.

Getting creative with typography allowed for another choice: dividing an advertisement into columns and listing one item per line per column. When undertaken by a skilled compositor, this strategy still introduced sufficient white space to significantly improve readability while doubling or tripling, depending on the number of columns, the number of goods that appeared in a neatly organized list. List-style advertisements that featured columns usually had only two, but occasionally compositors demonstrated that it was possible to effectively incorporate three columns.

The success of this strategy depended on the skills of the compositor. An advertisement placed by Samuel Broome and Company in the August 5, 1768, edition of the Connecticut Journal demonstrates that experimenting with the graphic design elements of newspaper advertisements did not necessarily produce positive results. In an advertisement that filled an entire column, Broome and Company made an appeal to consumer choice by listing scores of items they sold at their store in New York. The compositor divided the advertisement into three columns, but apparently nobody affiliated with the production of the advertisement – neither Broome and Company when writing the copy nor the compositor when setting the type – insisted that it should list only one item per line per column. Instead, the advertisement featured the dense paragraph format common to so many newspaper advertisements, but divided into three narrow columns. Not only did this not make the contents any easier for prospective customers to read, the lack of space devoted to separating columns made the advertisement even more confusing and difficult to decipher.

While it is possible that the strange format may have attracted some attention, the challenges inherent in reading Broome and Company’s advertisement likely did not prompt potential customers to examine it closely, especially not casual readers who did not already have an interest in some of the goods that Broome and Company carried (if they could only find them in that disorienting list). Good typography helped to develop interest and perhaps incite demand for consumer goods listed in eighteenth-century newspaper advertisements, but clumsy typography that made it more difficult for readers to peruse some advertisements likely made those advertisements even less effective than if they had simply resorted to the traditional dense paragraph format.

February 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Feb 20 - 2:20:1768 New-York Journal Supplement
Supplement to the New-York Journal (February 20, 1768).

“SAMUEL BROOME, And COMPANY, Have just imported … a beautiful assortment of European and India Goods.”

In general, printers published three types of newspaper supplements in eighteenth-century America: advertising supplements delivered the same day as the regular issue, news supplements distributed sometime during the week between issues, and mixed supplements published on the day of the regular issue.

The first were the most common, especially in the largest port cities. A standard issue consisted of four pages, created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folding it in half. Given the size of the population in Boston, Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, printers often found that they had too much content, especially advertisements, to squeeze everything into just four pages. In such cases they simultaneously distributed a two-page supplement comprised exclusively of advertising. Such was the case with the February 18, 1768, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette. Space in the standard issue was almost evenly divided between news and advertisements, but paid notices alone filled the pages of the supplement. Hugh Gaine charted a similar course for the February 22, 1768, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, though the standard issue contained nearly three full pages of advertising. No news items appeared in the supplement.

On February 20, 1768, John Holt distributed a Supplement to the New-York Journal, two days after the regular issue made its usual weekly appearance. This supplement consisted of four pages rather than two, but otherwise followed the pattern for midweek supplements. It contained mostly news items with very few advertisements. What little advertising did appear, including Samuel Broome and Company’s notice, served as filler that completed the supplement. Two days earlier, James Parker issued a two-page New-York Gazette Extraordinary as a midweek supplement to the New-York Gazette and Weekly Post-Boy. Like the Supplement to the New-York Journal, it contained mostly news items with very few advertisements.

During the same week, Richard Draper included a supplement with the Massachusetts Gazette on the day of its usual publication. The supplement balanced news items and advertisements. On the same day, John Holt issued a Supplement to the New-York Journal that accompanied the regular issue, not to be confused with the midweek supplement released two days later. (All three publications bore the same issue number, 1311, but the regular issue and the first supplement were dated February 18 while the second supplement was dated February 20.) This supplement also devoted significant space to both news items and advertisements; neither eclipsed the other.

Supplements from the latter two categories became more common during periods that the imperial crisis intensified. The number of commercial notices and other types of advertisements had been sufficient justification for publishing supplements to accompany the regular issues during times of relative harmony between colonists and Parliament. During periods of unrest, however, the volume of advertising no longer served as the determinative factor in whether or when printers published supplements. The proliferation of supplements certainly disseminated more advertisements to colonists, but the understanding of the purpose of supplements likely shifted as both publishers and readers conceived of them as more than just mechanisms for circulating advertising. The revenues collected from advertisements made possible the publication of supplements in times of political turmoil. In turn, these extraordinary issues may have stoked demand for newspapers – featuring news items – published more frequently. Printers soon experimented with semiweekly and triweekly publication. Not long after the American Revolution, newspapers in the largest cities commenced daily publication.