South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Extraordinary

May 19

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

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Extraordinary (May 19, 1775).

“NEGROES of different Qualifications.”

Charles Crouch usually published the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal on Tuesdays in 1775, distributing new issues on a different day than his competitors in Charleston.  Peter Timothy delivered the South-Carolina Gazette on Mondays and Robert Wells and Son presented the South-Carolina and American General Gazette on Fridays.  Yet as information about the battles at Lexington and Concord arrived in Charleston, Crouch published a two-page extraordinary issue on Friday, May 19.  He had first broken the news in the May 9 edition, printing “alarming Intelligence” received via “the Brigantine, Industry, Captain Allen, who sailed the 25th [of April] from Salem.”  Subsequent issues of both the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal and the South-Carolina and American Gazette carried news about Lexington and Concord.  (A gap in extant issues between April 10 and May 29 prevents determining when the South-Carolina Gazette reported on those events.)

Many, perhaps most, readers likely heard that British regulars had engaged colonial militia outside of Boston before they read anything in newspapers.  News and rumors spread via word of mouth more quickly than printers could set type, yet readers still clamored for coverage.  After all, the public prints carried more details about what happened, though not all of them were always correct.  Wells and Son printed the South-Carolina and American General Gazette as usual on Friday, May 19, carrying additional news about Lexington and Concord and the aftermath.  Refusing to be scooped, Crouch published his extraordinary issue on the same day.  He specified that the “particulars respecting the Engagement at Lexington, are copied from the Newport Mercury.”

Even as Crouch provided more news for subscribers and the public, he disseminated even more advertisements.  News accounted for only one-quarter of the contents of the May 19 extraordinary issue, with advertisements filling three-quarters of the space.  Those notices included three from Jacob Valk, a broker, looking to facilitate the sales of “ONE of the compleatest WAITING-MEN in the Province,” “Some valuable PLANTATION NEGROES,” and “NEGROES of different Qualifications” at his office.  In another advertisement, William Stitt described Lydia and Phebe, enslaved women who liberated themselves by running away, and offered rewards for their capture and return to bondage.  In yet another, the warden of Charleston’s workhouse described nearly a dozen Black men and women, all of them fugitives seeking freedom, imprisoned there, alerting their enslavers to claim them, pay their expenses, and take them away.  As readers learned more about acts of tyranny and resistance underway in Massachusetts, they also encountered various sorts of advertisements designed to perpetuate the enslavement of Black men and women.  The early American press simultaneously served multiple purposes, regularly featuring a juxtaposition of liberty and slavery that readers conveniently compartmentalized.

April 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal Extraordinary (April 27, 1771).

“He carries on his Business as usual, at his Shop in Broad-Street.”

A standard issue for most newspapers published in colonial America consisted of four pages created by printing two pages on each side of a broadsheet and then folding it in half.  This did not always provide sufficient space for all of the news and advertising on hand, so printers adopted a variety of strategies for producing supplements.  In the past week, the Adverts 250 Project has examined some of the decisions made by printers who had too much content and not enough space.  On April 24, 1771, Robert Wells, printer of the South-Carolina and American General Gazette, distributed a smaller sheet that consisted entirely of advertising along with the standard issue for the week.  The following day, Richard Draper, printer of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter, inserted a note that “for want of Room” several advertisements “must be deferred till next Week.”  He did, however, issue a supplement that contained “Fresh London Articles” that he received from the captain of a ship that just arrived in port.  In that supplement, Draper scooped other newspapers.

Charles Crouch, printer of the South-Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, took another approach.  On April 27, he published an Extraordinary containing both news and advertising that served as a midweek supplement to his newspaper.  Prior to the American Revolution, most newspapers operated on a weekly publication schedule.  When printers did publish supplements, they usually did so on the same day as the standard issue and distributed them together.  Both Draper and Wells did so with their supplements.  On occasion, however, printers produced supplements, extraordinaries, or postscripts midway through the week.  In such instances, supplements consisted of either news or news and advertising, but rarely just advertising.  Typically, breaking news justified publishing and disseminating midweek supplements, but printers determined that advertising supplements could wait until the usual publication day.

Crouch devoted an entire half sheet to his two-page supplement, unlike Draper and Wells who each opted to conserve resources with smaller sheets.  Crouch could have devised a smaller sheet that featured only news accounts.  Instead, he published news and advertising, further disseminating notices about consumer goods and services, real estate for sale, and ships preparing to sail to England and other colonies.  Did those advertisers pay for the additional insertion?  Or did those advertisements appear gratis?  Answering those questions requires consulting Crouch’s ledgers or other sources beyond the newspaper.  Either way, the midweek supplement increased the amount of advertising (and news) circulating in South Carolina near the end of April 1771.