Thomas Leiper

September 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (September 25, 1776).

“THOMAS LEIPER, TOBACCONIST.”

In early June 1776, tobacconists Hamilton and Leiper announced that they dissolved their partnership.  Each man set off on a new venture.  Hamilton and Son operated a “Scotch snuff and tobacco Manufactory” on Second Street in Philadelphia, while Thomas Leiper remained “in the house occupied by the [former] company” at the corner of Spruce and Walnut.  Leiper emphasized in his advertisements that he “manufactures in the best manner Snuff and Tobacco of the first quality, equal, if not superior, to any heretofore imported from Europe.”

Leiper advertised aggressively.  He inserted advertisements with identical copy in Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, the Pennsylvania Gazette, the Pennsylvania Journal, and the Pennsylvania Ledger.  He aimed to maintain as much of the clientele that he and his former partner had cultivated as he could as well as attract new customers.  To that end, he arranged for his advertisements to run in some of those newspapers for months, making a significant investment in doing so.  Most printers offered a standard package that included setting type and inserting an advertisement in three or four issues before discontinuing it.  Advertisers could pay for each additional insertion if they wished to extend the run of their notices.  Leiper apparently did so.  His advertisement ran in both the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journalon September 25, 1776.  The one in the Pennsylvania Gazette even included a notation – “3 m” – on the final line, likely intended to remind the printer that it was supposed to run for three months.

Leiper competed with his former partner and other tobacconists in Philadelphia.  He likely believed that an advertising campaign that extended for several months would yield the kind of name recognition that would convince prospective customers to give his snuff and other products a chance.  The repetition of his advertisements, appearing week after week in some of Philadelphia’s most popular newspapers, probably made his business familiar to many readers as they perused the advertisements for all sorts of information about commerce and current events.

June 10

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

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

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet (June 10, 1776).

“THOMAS LEIPER … manufactures in the best manner Snuff and Tobacco of the first quality.”

Two days after tobacconists Hamilton and Leiper announced that they dissolved their partnership with an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Ledger, an advertisement with identical copy ran at the top of the middle column on the front page of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet.  An editorial submitted by a readers filled the rest of the column, whereas an advertisement for the new partnership of Hamilton and Son ran immediately below the same notice in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  Hamilton and Son did insert their advertisement in the June 10, 1776, edition of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet, though it ran in the upper right corner on the third page, separated from the advertisement about the end of the partnership.

In this instance, Hamilton and Son’s advertisement appeared immediately to the right of a new advertisement from “THOMAS LEIPER, TOBACCONIST,” who made his own announcement to “the public in general and his friends in particular, that the partnership of HAMILTON and LEIPER is dissolved, and that he … manufacturers in the best manner Snuff and Tobacco of the first quality, equal, if not superior, to any heretofore imported from Europe.”  Now in competition with his former partner, Leiper proclaimed that he could sell his products “on as reasonable terms as any Manufacturer in America” and he could “execute all orders on the shortest notice.”  To make that possible, “the works he has lately formed are by far the most complete not only for expediting the business of manufacturing Snuff and Tobacco, but also doing it in the greatest perfection, of any works ever yet erected on the Continent.”  Leiper gave good reasons why the clientele that he and Hamilton had cultivated while in business together for several years should stick with him rather than take their business to Hamilton and Sons.  He also had the advantage of remaining “in the house occupied by the company,” a familiar location to both former customers and the public.

Hamilton and Son may have initially had a leg up on Leiper by publishing their advertisement with the notice about the dissolution of the partnership.  In response, Leiper disseminated a more elaborate advertisement that made even bolder claims.  He may even have made arrangements for the compositor of Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet to separate the notices that appeared together in the Pennsylvania Ledger.  That the advertisements for the two new ventures appeared next to each other put them on equal footing.  Two days later, all three advertisements ran in the Pennsylvania Gazette.  The compositor placed them one after the other after the other on the third page, staring with the announcement about dissolving the company, then Hamilton and Son’s advertisements, and Leiper’s notice at the end.  Readers could peruse all the news about these tobacconists in one convenient place.

June 9

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

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

Pennsylvania Ledger (June 8, 1776).

“THE Copartnership of HAMILTON and LEIPER, Tobacconists, is dissolved.”

The “Copartnership of HAMILTON and LEIPER, Tobacconists,” provided their products to consumers for more than half a decade in the early 1770s.  In May 1772, they placed an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette to advise the public that they “established a MANUFACTORY in Market-street, Baltimore,” and they continued “to manufacture and sell as usual at Frederick-Town,” Maryland.  (At the time, Baltimore did not yet have its own newspapers, so the partners resorted to the Pennsylvania Gazette as a regional newspaper for their advertisement.)  Less than a year and a half later, they opened a new location in Philadelphia. In an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Journal in September 1772, they promoted “KITE-FOOT TOBACCO … manufactured and sold … In Second-street,” Philadelphia.  To entice prospective customers who might not believe that their tobacco was “Of an excellent quality, equal to any imported from Europe,” Hamilton and Leiper made samples available “at the Bar of the London Coffee-House.”

As summer arrived in 1776, however, Hamilton and Leiper ran a new advertisement in the Pennsylvania Ledger, this time announcing that they dissolved their partnership and calling on associates who “have any demand against that concern … to bring in their accounts as soon as possible.”  They could present any such accounts to Leiper “in the house lately occupied by the Company, at the corner of Spruce and Water-streets,” or to Hamilton and Son “in Second-street.”  That notice implied that Hamilton and Son commenced their own partnership.  An advertisement that conveniently appeared immediately below that notice made clear that “HAMILTON and SON, Tobacconists[,] … continue to carry on their Scotch snuff and to bacco Manufactory in all the several branches as usual.”  To that end, they “have laid in a large stock of the very best Virginia leaf tobacco.”  The news partners declared that they “are confident of giving the utmost satisfaction to their former customers and the publick” and pledged that orders “will be punctually answer’d with all possible dispatch.”  In running one advertisement after the other, they aimed to maintain the clientele that Hamilton and Leiper had cultivated over several years in business together.