The Censor

May 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Postscript to the Censor (May 2, 1772).

“Just Arrived, The Cream of Goods.”

Gilbert DeBlois placed his advertisement for “The Cream of Goods” imported from England in several newspapers published in Boston in the spring of 1772, including the Censor.  Ezekiel Russell commenced publication of the Censor, more “a political magazine rather than a newspaper,” in November 1771.[1]  He eventually supplemented it with a half sheet Postscript that looked more like a newspaper.  Instead of carrying essays and editorials exclusively, it also featured news and advertising.  Those efforts to diversify the publication, however, did not broaden its appeal to readers in Boston.  As Isaiah Thomas, the ardent patriot who published the Massachusetts Spy and wrote The History of Printing in America (1810), noted, “the circulation of the paper was confined to a few of their own party,” Tories who sympathized with the British government.[2]  Given his politics, DeBlois numbered among that party.  He eventually left Boston as part of the British evacuation in 1776.  He was among the advertisers in the final issue of the Censordistributed by Russell.

Thomas made his contempt for the Censor clear, demeaning it for being “discontinued before the revolution of a year from its first publication.”  In a footnote, Thomas also provided details about a notorious contributor to the Censor.  “Dr. Benjamin Church, a reputed whig, who when the Revolutionary war commenced was appointed surgeon general of the American army, but was soon after arrested and confined, being detected in a traitorous correspondence with the British army in Boston, I have been informed by a very respectable person whom I have long known, was a writer for the Censor.”  Thomas did not reveal his source, but he did state that “[t]his person, then an apprentice to Russell, was employed to convey, in a secret manner, the doctor’s manuscripts to the press, and proof sheets from the press to the doctor.”  Thomas asserted that Church engaged in skullduggery long before his infamous letter to General Thomas Gage was intercepted and decoded in October 1775.  Some historians have suggested that Church’s case was more nuanced than Thomas allowed, as did Church at the time.  Thomas apparently had little use for Church’s rationalizations that he deliberately sent misinformation to the British to ward off attacks against patriots who lacked ammunition, just as he had little use for the Censor.  For a few months, the Postscript to the Censor increased the number of publications that disseminated advertising in Boston, but Russell did not attract enough subscribers or advertisers to continue producing the weekly political magazine and its supplement.

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[1] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 275.

[2] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers (1810; New York: Weathervane Books, 1970), 285.

April 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Postscript to the Censor (April 25, 1772).

“The Cream of Goods … at his Cheap Shop.”

Customers could expect only the best merchandise when they visited the “Cheap Shop” operated by Gilbert Deblois.  In an advertisement in the April 25, 1772, edition of the Postscript to the Censor, Deblois trumpeted that he carried “The Cream of Goods” selected by “the most able merchants in the city of LONDON,” purchased at “the different manufactories in England,” and imported to Boston.  His inventory included “a great variety” of “English, Scots, Irish, Dutch & India Goods.”

In describing his business as a “Cheap Shop,” Deblois did not mean that he sold inferior goods.  Instead, both buyers and sellers understood “cheap” to mean inexpensive or a good value for the money.  They did not associate “cheap” with poor quality.  As a result, prospective customers did not notice any contradiction in Deblois’s claim that he sold “The Cream of Goods … at his Cheap Shop.”

The merchant set such good prices for his merchandise, both wholesale and retail, that he refused to haggle with his customers.  He declared his determination “to sell very cheap,” but also asserted that he “makes no abatement on the prices first asked.”  He expected buyers to be satisfied that they acquired the best possible bargains for “The Cream of Goods” without having to negotiate for further discounts.  To that end, he informed readers that his customers “may depend no shop in town shall under sell him.”

Deblois was so confident in this claim that he circulated it widely, placing the same advertisement in the Boston Evening-Post and the Boston-Gazette.  Doing so significantly expanded the distribution of his advertisement, especially since the Censor was struggling to attract subscribers and would cease publication less than a month after Deblois submitted his notice to multiple printing offices.  A Tory who eventually evacuated Boston with the British in 1776, Deblois may have appreciated the political stance represented in the Censor, but as a man of business he chose to advertise in newspapers that did not share his perspective.

April 11

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , ,

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

Postscript to the Censor (April 11, 1772).

“Jackson’s VARIETY-STORE.”

Ezekiel Russell continued publication of the Censor, a political newssheet that expressed Tory sympathies that lasted only a few months, in April 1772.  He inserted this introduction in the April 11 edition: “As the Petition of the CLERGY, &c. for a repeal of the THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES, has been a subject of much speculation in England as well as America, we now offer our Readers said Petition with the Debates in the HOUSE OF COMMONS thereon, not doubting but it will be acceptable to many of them.”  The debate concerned the doctrinal positions adopted by the Anglican Church during the English Reformation.  At the conclusion of the petition, Russell informed readers that “The Proceedings of the House of Commons upon the above Petition are in the Postscript.”

He referred to the Postscript to the Censor, a half sheet that much more resembled a newspaper than the Censor did.  The format accounted for some of the distinction.  Russell organized the content in the Postscript into two columns per page, but did not use multiple columns in the Censor.  In addition, the Postscript also carried advertisements, a defining feature of early American newspapers.  No advertisements appeared in the Censor.  When Russell first distributed the Postscriptwith the Censor, most of the advertisements promoted goods and services available at his printing office.  He gradually managed to cultivate a more substantial clientele of advertisers, though never the numbers who placed notices in the several newspapers published in Boston in the early 1770s.

Still, the number of advertisements and the amount of space they occupied on April 11 exceeded any of the previous issues.  Fourteen advertisements filled nearly two of the four pages of the Postscript.  Only a couple sought to incite interest in goods sold at Russell’s printing office.  George Deblois, Smith and Atkinson, and others who advertised regularly in other newspapers took a chance on seeking customers who read the Postscript, though political sympathies may have played a role in that decision for William Jackson, the Loyalist who ran a shop at the Brazen Head.  Russell might have gained additional advertisers over time had he not ceased publication of the Censor three weeks later.  He seemed to gain advertisers though not enough readers to sustain his newssheet, prompting him to indefinitely suspend it.  For a short period in the spring of 1772, residents of Boston had access to six weekly publications that disseminated advertising, more than in any other urban port in the colonies.

March 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

The Censor (March 28, 1772).

“The hurry of our other business prevents giving the Publick an additional half sheet.”

When Ezekiel Russell began publishing The Censor, a political magazine, in the fall of 1771, he did not include advertising as a means of generating revenue.  Each weekly issue of the publication consisted of four pages, two printed on each side of a broadsheet then folded in half.  In that regard, The Censor resembled newspapers of the period, but it did not carry short news articles reprinted from other newspapers, prices current, shipping news from the customs house, poetry, advertisements, and other content that appeared in other newspapers.  Instead, Russell used The Censor to disseminate political essays that expressed a Tory perspective on current events in Boston, often only one essay per issue.  Sometimes essays spanned more than one issue.  After a few months, Russell began distributing a half sheet Postscript to the Censor with content, including advertising, that more closely resembled what appeared in other newspapers published in Boston.

Russell devoted the entire March 28, 1772, edition of The Censor to a letter from a correspondent who defended Ebenezer Richardson, the customs official who killed eleven-year-old Christopher Seider.  On the night of February 22, 1770, Richardson fired into a crowd of protestors who objected to merchants bringing an end to their nonimportation agreement before Parliament repealed import duties on tea.  His shots killed Seider.  The boy’s funeral became an occasion for further anti-British demonstrations.  Less than two weeks later, heightened tensions overflowed into the Boston Massacre.  A jury convicted Richardson of killing Seider, but the authorities chose to imprison rather than execute him.  The king eventually pardoned Richardson and offered him a new post in Philadelphia in 1773, but he was still imprisoned in 1772 when a correspondent of The Censor examined his case.

That correspondent’s letter did not fit in a single issue of The Censor.  Russell concluded with a brief note that “The Remainder must be omitted until next Week.”  He further explained that “the hurry of our other business prevents giving the Publick an additional half sheet” with other news, advertising, and other content.  He did find space, however, to insert a short teaser about a forthcoming publication.  “It is with pleasure the Printer can promise his Customers,” Russell declared, “that in a few days will be published, a PAMPHLET, intimately connected with the present Times, and perhaps one of the most agreeable Entertainments ever offered the sensible Publick.”  He did not further elaborate on the topic of that pamphlet, but his announcement suggested that he could be savvy in his efforts to incite interest and anticipation among consumers.  In this instance, Russell emphasized his own marketing but did not tend to the paid notices that would have appeared in the “additional half sheet.”  Isaiah Thomas, the patriot printer of the Massachusetts Spy and author of The History of Printing in America (1810), claimed that The Censor quickly failed because Russell published unpopular political views.  While that may have been the primary reason, it also looks as though Russell did not sufficiently attend to the business aspects of publishing it.  Not distributing the “additional half sheet” meant delayed advertising revenues and dissatisfied advertisers.

March 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

The Censor (March 21, 1772).

“This Paper may be had once a Week, Price Two Pence per Number to Subscribers.”

The colophon for The Censor, a political newspaper-magazine published in Boston by Ezekiel Russell for a few months in late 1771 and early 1772, appeared immediately below the masthead on the front page rather than on the final page. While the placement was unusual, it was not unique.  Both newspapers printed in New York at the time adopted the same format, drawing attention to the printers as soon as readers glanced at the front page.  Starting with the March 7 issue, Russell did include more information in the colophon for The Censor than the New York printers listed in the colophons for their newspapers.  The colophon for the New-York Journal simply stated, “PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY JOHN HOLT, ON HUNTER’S-QUAY, ROTTON-ROW.”  The colophon for the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury was only slightly more elaborate: “Printed by HUGH GAINE, Printer, Bookseller, and Stationer, at the Bible and Crown, in HANOVER-SQUARE.”

Russell initially included the same information, printer and location, in a short colophon that declared “Published by E. RUSSELL, at his Printing-Office, in Marlborough-Street.”  He eventually added, “Where this Paper may be had once a Week, Price Two Pence per Number to Subscribers.”  Even though he recently began accepting advertising to publish in a supplement, the Postscript to the Censor, Russell did not indicate how much he charged to publish advertisements.  Although some printers mentioned subscription prices or advertising fees or both in their colophons, most did not regularly provide that information in their weekly publications.  The information that Russell incorporated into the colophon for The Censor indicated that he adopted a different business model than other printers.  Others charged annual subscription rates rather than by the issue or “per Number.”  Why did Russell choose a different method for his weekly publication?  Perhaps he wished to make The Censor seem less expensive to prospective subscribers.  After all, “Two Pence per Number” amounted to eight shillings and eight pence over a year.  None of the newspapers printed in Boston at the time published their subscription rates, but the colophon for the Essex Gazette, published in Salem, listed the price at “Six Shillings and Eight Pence per Annum.”  If printers in Boston charged similar amounts for their newspapers, that made an annual subscription to The Censor more expensive than any of the local newspapers.  The Censor quickly folded, largely because it rehearsed unpopular political opinions, but the cost “per Number” may have been a factor in the publication’s demise as well.

March 14

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Postscript to the Censor (March 14, 1772).

“WILLIAM WINGFIELD, At his Shop in Union-Street, BOSTON.”

Like many advertisers who resided in town with more than newspaper, shopkeeper William Wingfield attempted to capture a larger share of the market by inserting notices into multiple newspapers.  On Monday, March 9, 1772, he ran an advertisement for a “General Assortment” of textiles and “all sorts of Goods suitable for all seasons” in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  On Thursday, March 12, he placed the same advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter.  By then, his advertisement ran in both newspapers for several weeks.  Wingfield ended the week with the same advertisement in the Postscript to the Censor on Saturday, March 14.  Ezekiel Russell, the printer of The Censor, had only recently expanded that magazine of political essays to include a half sheet supplement that featured news and advertising.  Wingfield was among the first colonizers to place an advertisement in that supplement.

What prompted Wingfield to make that decision?  Russell had not established an extensive circulation for The Censor and its supplement.  Indeed, the publication folded just two months later because Russell could not find sufficient readers in Boston who appreciated the Tory perspective promoted in his magazine.  If Wingfield wanted to place his advertisement before greater numbers of readers and prospective customers, then he would have been better served by placing it in the Boston Evening-Post or the Massachusetts Spy, two other newspapers published in Boston at the time.  Politics did not seem to be the defining factor.  The Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy and the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Weekly News-Letter were friendly to the British government, suggesting that Wingfield may have made a political decision when expanding his advertising campaign to the Postscript to the Censor.  However, he had also been publishing his advertisement in the Boston-Gazette.  Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of that newspaper, consistently advocated the patriot cause, making the Boston-Gazette as much of a nuisance to colonial officials as Isaiah Thomas’s Massachusetts Spy.  Before inserting advertisements in the Postscript to the Censor became an option, Wingfield already distributed his advertisements among newspapers that took various political positions.  Choosing to advertise in the Postscript to the Censor neither bolstered his affiliation with publications that expressed Tory views nor diversified his outreach to consumers according to the politics of the publications they read.  What else might have explained his decision to start advertising in the Postscript to the Censor but not the Boston Evening-Post or the Massachusetts Spy?  Perhaps Russell, the printer, offered good deals on advertising in his attempts to cultivate a new clientele.  In his advertisement, Wingfield noted that he carried “too many [goods] to enumerate in an Advertisement,” suggesting a certain frugality compared to competitors who published much longer lists of their merchandise.  If Russell offered bargains on advertising, then Wingfield might have seized the opportunity.  Whatever his reasons for advertising in the Postscript to the Censor, Wingfield expanded his advertising campaign from three of the six weekly publications in Boston to four of the six in March 1772.

March 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

The Censor (February 29, 1772).

“NORTON’s American Mercantile INK-POWDER.”

Ezekiel Russell of Boston commenced publication of The Censor on November 23, 1771.  In an advertisement he inserted in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy a few weeks later, he described The Censor as “a New Political Paper,” though both colonizers and historians have since questioned whether Russell published a newspaper or a magazine or something else that defied categorization.  For several months, The Censor did not carry any advertisements, distinguishing it from every newspaper published in the colonies.  Eventually, according to Isaiah Thomas, printer and publisher of the Massachusetts Spy and author of The History of Printing in America (1810), Russell “made and effort to convert” The Censor “into a newspaper; and, with this view some of its last numbers were accompanied with a separate half sheet, containing a few articles of news and some advertisements.”[1]  An infusion of revenue from advertising did not prevent The Censor from folding a couple of months later since the Tory-leaning publication did not attract a broad readership in Boston.

The first of those half sheets accompanied the February 29, 1772, edition of The Censor.  Russell printed “Vol I.” and “NUMB. 15” in the masthead of both the standard issue and the supplement.  The latter featured four columns, two on the front and two on the back.  News from London, some of it reprinted from the London Gazette, filled the first three columns, leaving the entire fourth column for advertisements.  Only two of the four advertisements appear to have been paid notices, one seeking a farm to rent and another offering a farm for sale.  Russell inserted the other two advertisements in support of other activities undertaken at his printing office in Marlborough Street.  In one, he hawked “NORTON’s American Mercantile INK-POWDER.”  The other, a subscription notice, outlined “PROPOSALS For Printing … A Collection of POEMS, wrote at several times, and upon various occasions, by PHILLIS, a Negro Girl.”  Russell sought to publish about two dozen of Phillis Wheatley’s poems in a single volume “as soon as three Hundred Copes are subscribed for,” but his notices apparently did not generate sufficient attention to produce an American edition.  The following year, Wheatley traveled to London to publish Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moralwith assistance from the Countess of Huntingdon.

Even when Russell introduced advertising into The Censor, his own notices accounted for the vast majority of such content.  Colonial printers often inserted advertisements into their own publications, sometimes two or three or more in a single newspaper issue.  Russell demonstrated that The Censor provided space for advertising, but the publication closed before he managed to cultivate a clientele of regular advertisers.  For only a couple of months in 1772, colonizers in Boston encountered advertising that circulated via yet another publication printed in the city.

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[1] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers, ed. Marcus McCorison (1810; New York: Weathervane Books, 1970), 153.

December 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (December 9, 1771).

“Subscriptions for the CENSOR, a New Political Paper.”

In a crowded market for selling almanacs, Ezekiel Russell advertised “The Original Copy of Ames’s Almanack, For the Year 1772” in the December 9, 1771, edition of the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Russell claimed that only he printed that version of the popular almanac and announced that he would publish it, along with “Three Elegant Plates,” at his printing office on Marlborough Street the following week.  In addition, he advised prospective customers to look for an updated advertisement that included the “Particulars of the above curious Almanack with the Places where the Original are Sold.”

Although Russell opted not to include that information in his current advertisement, he did devote space to promoting another publication that he recently launched on November 23.  “Subscriptions for the CENSOR, a New Political Paper, published every Saturday,” he declared, “are taken in at said Office.”  According to newspaper historian and bibliographer Clarence Brigham, The Censor was more of a magazine than a newspaper, though the advertising supplements that sometimes accompanied it resembled those distributed with newspapers.

Isaiah Thomas, printer of the Massachusetts Spy at the time Russell published The Censor, declared that “those who were in the interest of the British government” supported The Censor “during the short period of its existence” in his History of Printing in America (1810).[1]  Thomas credited his own newspaper with inspiring The Censor.  “A dissertation in the Massachusetts Spy, under the signature of Mucius Scaevola,” he explained, “probably occasioned the attempt to establish this paper.”  The piece “attached Governor Hutchinson with a boldness and severity before unknown in the political disputes of this country.”  In turn, it “excited great warmth among those who supported the measures of the British administration, and they immediately commenced the publication of the Censor; in which the governor and the British administration were defended.”

Thomas, one of the most ardent patriots among Boston’s printers, had little use for The Censor.  Neither did most other residents of the city.  According to Thomas, “the circulation of the paper was confined to a few of their own party.  As the Censor languished, its printer made an effort to convert it into a newspaper; and, with this view, some of its last numbers were accompanied with a separate half sheet, containing a few articles of news and some advertisements.”  In the end, Russell discontinued The Censor “before the revolution of a year from its first publication.”[2]  The last known issue bears the date May 2, 1772.  Despite Russell’s attempts to attract subscribers, he did not manage to establish a market for a publication, whether magazine or newspaper or amalgamation of the two, that defended the governor and British policies.

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[1] Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America: With a Biography of Printers and an Account of Newspapers, ed. Marcus McCorison (1810; New York: Weathervane Books, 1970), 153.

[2] Thomas, History of Printing, 284-285.

November 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy (November 25, 1771).

“Last Saturday was published … The CENSOR, No. 1.”

Ezekiel Russell distributed the first issue of The Censor on November 23, 1771.  Two days later, he promoted his new publication in an advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and Boston Post-Boy.  Russell announced that he published the inaugural issue “Last Saturday” and invited prospective subscribers to reserve their copies.  “The Receiption this Paper has already met with,” he confided, “gives the Publisher Encouragement to hope for a large Subscription for the same, and that he shall be enabled to continue it on Saturday next.”

Russell apparently had some doubts about whether The Censor would achieve a second issue.  It did, but publication lasted less than six months.  Russell distributed the last known issue on May 2, 1772.  In his monumental History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820, Clarence Brigham describes The Censor as “a political magazine rather than a newspaper, somewhat in the style of the ‘Tatler’ or ‘Spectator.’”  Frank Luther Mott indicates that it was one of only three American magazines founded between 1760 and 1774, but otherwise gives The Censor little attention beyond including it in a chronological list of magazines in an appendix.  “The political state of the Colonies was unfavorable to literature,” Mott intones.[1]  Brigham present a more sanguine view of The Censor, especially “its occasional ‘Postscripts’ [which] bore every appearance of being newspapers and contained certain local news and a large number of advertisements.”[2]

If such a Postscript accompanied the first issue, it has not survived.  Unlike printers who launched newspapers during the period, including Richard Draper and the Pennsylvania Packet in the fall of 1771, Russell did not seek advertisers in his notice.  Instead, he focused on attracting subscribers, expressing his desire that “every Subscriber will deposit something on subscribing” in order to defray the “great Expence” associated with the publication and “setting up a new Office.”  As Brigham notes, advertising supplements accompanied certain subsequent issues.  In the coming months, the Adverts 250 Project will examine some of those Postscripts to the Censor.

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[1] Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741-1850 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1939), 26, 788.

[2] Clarence S. Brigham, History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820 (Worcester: Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1947), 275.