School

November 1

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

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

Essex Journal (November 1, 1776).

“A Boarding-School.”

“EVENING SCHOOL for Youth of Both Sexes.”

“EVENING SCHOOL at the Town-House.”

“An Evening School.”

Compositors usually did not cluster together newspaper advertisements inserted for similar purposes, yet that was the case for four advertisements for schools that appeared one after the other in the November 1, 1776, edition of the Essex Journal.  Each advertisement also ran in the previous issue, but they were scattered throughout the other notices.

The first announced “A Boarding-School” in the headline.  Eleanor Druitt relocated from Boston to Newburyport in the spring of 1775, about a month before the battles at Lexington and Concord.  Despite the disruptions caused by the war, she operated “a Boarding, and Day-School, for the reception of young Ladies, near the Assembly-House.”  She planned to begin a new term on “Monday the 28th of October,” so instruction had already commenced when her advertisement ran for the second time on November 1.

In the next advertisement, John Vinal declared his intention to open an “EVENING SCHOOL for Youth of both Sexes … at the NORTH SCHOOL HOUSE” on the “first Monday Evening in November.”  Vinal’s school offered some competition for Druitt’s school, but competed even more directly against Nicolas Pike’s “EVENING SCHOOL at the Town-House” that would begin its new term “on the first Monday in November next.”  Pike’s notice was dated October 1 and the notation that appeared on the final line, “44-46,” indicated that it was supposed to run in issues 144, 145, and 146 on October 4, 11, and 18.  Vinal’s advertisement was dated October 24 with “47-49” on the final line to remind the compositor to insert it in the issues for October 25 and November 1 and 8.

Yet the Essex Journal did not discontinue Pike’s advertisement after the three insertions indicated in the notation.  The fourth advertisement, dated October 11, may help to explain that.  Robert Long proclaimed that he “DETERMINES to open an Evening School the first Monday in November next” in a notice that first ran on October 11 with “45.-47.” as the notation on the final line.  Perhaps Pike saw the advertisement for the competing school and instructed the printing office to extend the run of his own notice.  Long may have been similarly concerned and desired additional insertions of his advertisement.  The notation with issue numbers disappeared on October 25, the first time that Druitt and Vinal ran their advertisements, though the compositor may have dropped the notation to achieve uniform length for each column on that page (and Long’s advertisement did appear at the bottom of the column).  Alternately, perhaps neither Pike nor Long requested that their advertisements continue running in the Essex Journal.  Both should have been discontinued before issue 148 on November 1, according to the original notations, yet the compositor may have continued running them to fill the page.  An advertisement for an auction for a house with a “45.-47.” notation ran immediately below Long’s notice.

The schoolmasters and schoolmistress may have been deploying their advertisements strategically … or day-to-day operations in the printing office may have explained the additional insertions of some of the advertisements for schools opening in Newburyport in the fall of 1776.  Whatever the explanation, four advertisements for schools running one after the other was an unusual example of clustering notices placed for a similar purpose.  Early American newspapers did not tend to classify or categorize advertisements.

November 5

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

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

Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 4, 1775).

“A NIGHT SCHOOL.”

“FRENCH ACADEMY.”

Two advertisements in the November 4, 1775, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and its supplement offered opportunities for learning and self-improvement.  In the first notice, Matthew Maguire announced that he had opened a “NIGHT SCHOOL” for “youth of both sexes.”  The curriculum included “the various branches of READING, WRITING and ARITHMETIC,” subjects that both boys and girls typically learned.  Maguire also indicated that he taught “ACCOMPTS [or accounts] in all their different forms, after the latest and most approved methods,” though he did not mention whether he reserved that subject for male students.  Learning how to keep daybooks and ledgers may have been useful for some of the girls and young women who attended Maguire’s school, especially those that attended in the evening because they assisted in running the family business during the day.  Maguire also provided lessons during the day “as usual,” but he specified in a nota bene that he continued admitting “Young ladies only.”  In addition to giving female students a homosocial setting with fewer chances of disruptions, he may he reasoned that most boys and young men who would attend the school he kept in his house in Carter’s Alley did indeed have apprenticeships and other responsibilities during the day.

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Evening Post (November 4, 1775).

In the other advertisement, Francis Daymon, “MASTER of the French and Latin Languages” and “LIBRARIAN of the Philadelphia Public Library” (or the Library Company of Philadelphia), advised prospective pupils that he “HAS opened his FRENCH ACADEMY for the winter season.”  Classes began “punctually at seven o’clock every evening (Saturday excepted),” though it went without saying that he did not give lessons on Sundays.  Daymon delivered lessons “in the Library Room in Carpenters Hall,” the Library Company having moved to the second floor of that building from the Pennsylvania State House when it was completed in 1773.  He presumably admitted students of both sexes since he did not indicate otherwise in his advertisement.  He did note that “Ladies and Gentlemen may be instructed at their places of abode as usual,” an arrangement that allowed his pupils or their parents to determine who would be present.  Unlike Maguire, Daymon offered private lessons, likely setting rates for his students for the convenience of learning in their homes accordingly.

While some of the students who learned reading, writing, arithmetic, and accounts from Maguire could have also sought out French lessons from Daymon, the two schoolmasters cultivated different clienteles.  Maguire emphasized basic skills for everyday use by a wide range of colonizers, while Daymon’s French lessons appealed to genteel residents of Philadelphia and those aspiring to gentility.  With the Continental Association, a nonimportation and nonconsumption agreement, in effect, discourses about fashion had shifted.  Learning French gave some colonizers an alternate way to assert their status.

July 10

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

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (July 10, 1775).

“Children educated … at a distance from probable, sudden danger and confusion.”

In July 1775, Andrew Wilson, a schoolmaster in Morristown, New Jersey, attempted to leverage current events to enroll students in his school “about twenty-seven miles from Powles-Hook, and eighteen miles from Elizabeth-Town.”  In the late spring and early summer, colonizers in New York followed the news about the battles at Lexington and Concord, the siege of Boston, and the Battle of Bunker Hill.  In addition to updates from Massachusetts, they read and discussed actions taken by the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, and provincial congresses throughout the colonies.  While the fighting had been confined to Massachusetts so far, colonizers anticipated that it would spread.

In such an environment, Wilson saw an opportunity to market his school to parents and guardians in New York City and other coastal towns.  “IN these dangerous and alarming times,” he declared, “the inhabitants of large cities, and other places on the sea coast, may wish to have their children educated in the interior parts of the country, at a distance from probably, sudden danger and confusion.”  He acknowledged that they likely weighed tuition and the quality of instruction against the prospects of danger, suggesting that they would send their children to such a school “if the expence was reasonable, and they could depend on the fitness of the teacher.”  Wilson confidently stated that he could alleviate both concerns.  He claimed that he “was recommended by Dr. Witherspoon, of New-Jersey College, and the Rev. Mr. Mason, in New-York.”  Furthermore, he had experience.  When he ran his advertisement in the July 10, 1775, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, he had “taught [in Morristown] upwards of ten months, to the satisfaction of his employers.”  When it came to expenses, lodging and board amounted to “much less money than is generally given for the same in other places.”  His pupils did not reside at the school; instead, Wilson placed them in the homes of “good families.”  In addition, the schoolmaster described Morristown and a “healthy place” as well as an accessible one.  “[O]n three different days of the week,” he noted, “a stage goes from it to New-York.”

As resistance to imperial overreach became a revolution, the crafty schoolmaster portrayed Morristown, New Jersey, as a relatively safe place to send children to school.  Parents and guardians could remove their charges from danger while still attending to their education and development, alleviating at least some of the worry they experienced during uncertain times.