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

“She intends to open a DANCING SCHOOL … for young ladies.”

The new term had commenced, yet Sarah Hallam continued advertising her “DANCING SCHOOL” in Williamsburg in the August 31, 1775, edition of John Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette.  She first promoted the school in the public prints on August 17, announcing that she “intends to open a DANCING SCHOOL, on Friday the 25th instant, for young ladies.  That gave prospective pupils and their parents just over a week to enroll.  Hallam advertised a second time on the eve of opening her school and again a week later to give stragglers a chance to join.  She apparently considered advertising worth the investment.  The advertisement continued in four more issues, through the end of September.  According to the rates in the newspaper’s masthead, Pinkney charged three shillings for the first insertion (to cover setting type and space in the newspaper) and two shilling for each additional insertion (for the space once the type was set).  That meant that Hallam spent fifteen shillings on advertisements in Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette.  She charged twenty shillings as an entrance fee and then four pounds per year for each student.  That meant that the entrance fee for just one student covered her advertising expenses.

Hallam certainly made choices about her marketing campaign, choices not limited to how long it lasted.  Williamsburg had three newspapers at the time.  John Dixon and William Hunter published their own Virginia Gazette, as did Alexander Purdie.  Yet Hallam opted not to place notices in either of the other newspapers even though the printers charged the same rates.  She had a limit to how much she would spend on recruiting new students.  She apparently decided that a longer campaign in a single newspaper would be more effective than a shorter campaign in several newspapers.  She may have reasoned that each Virginia Gazette circulated so widely in Williamsburg that inserting an advertisement in Dixon and Hunter’s Virginia Gazette or Purdie’s Virginia Gazette would be superfluous after running it in Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette.  Why choose Pinkney’s newspaper over the others?  Perhaps she appreciated that Pinkney had printed the Virginia Gazette “FOR THE BENEFIT OF CLEMENTINA RIND’s CHILDREN” after the former printer’s death in September 1774.  For six months, the masthead made that proclamation immediately above the advertising rates.  As a female entrepreneur, Hallam may have found meaning in choosing the newspaper formerly printed by a woman and then printed to support her children following her death.