Thomas Palmer

March 16

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (March 16, 1774).

“THO. PALMER Gun Smith.”

Jack Healy, a student in my Revolutionary America class, selected Thomas Palmer’s advertisement for “a Quantity of well made RIFLES” and “all Sorts of SHOT GUNS” to feature on the Adverts 250 Project, hoping to learn more about firearms in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution and the Early Republic.  The woodcut depicting a gun, which the gunsmith previously used in other advertisements, helped attract Jack’s attention, prompting him to seek more information.

Among other secondary sources, I recommended that Jack peruse Saul Cornell’s A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America.  In the opening chapter, “English Tyranny versus American Liberty,” Cornell describes militia laws “that required each householder to provide himself with a musket to meet his obligation to participate in the militia” for the purposes of keeping order and defending their communities.  “It would be impossible,” Cornell asserts, “to overstate the militia’s centrality to the lives of American colonists.”  In addition to providing defense, the militia “served an important social role” as “one of the central means for organizing citizens” prior to the emergence of modern political parties.  Communities gathered at musters, drilling, celebrating, and forging bonds.[1]

Palmer did not mention any of that in his advertisement.  He did not need to do so since prospective customers were so familiar with the part that militias played in colonial culture.  Instead, he emphasized the quality of the firearms he produced, declaring that he constructed them “in the best and neatest Manner.”  Furthermore, his work “hath gained the Approbation of some of the best Judges within the three Provinces” of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, though he did not identify who gave such endorsements.  For those not in the market to purchase a new firearm, Palmer offered to repair “old Work, in the most careful Manner.”  To fulfill their civic obligations and to participate in communal gatherings, many colonizers may have turned to Palmer to obtain and maintain the firearms they carried as members of their local militia.

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[1] Saul Cornell, A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 12-13.

March 31

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

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

Pennsylvania Gazette (March 31, 1773).

“A Quantity of well made RIFLES.”

Thomas Palmer, a gunsmith, made several appeals to prospective customers in Philadelphia in the advertisement he placed in the March 31, 1773, edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette.  He declared that his inventory included a wide selection, a “Quantity of well made RIFLES, of different Lengths and Sizes of Bores.”  Palmer was so confident of the quality of those guns that he proclaimed that he “will insure to the Purchasers” that they were “as good and as handsomely fitted up as any made in America.”  Consumers would not find better in Philadelphia or anywhere else in the colonies.  In addition, the gunsmith “makes Fowling Pieces, of different Sizes, such as have been approved of by Gentlemen of this City.”  Short of publishing testimonials from his clients, Palmer suggested that men with good reputations endorsed the guns produced in his workshop.  In addition to making rifles and fowling pieces, he also “repairs old Guns in the most careful Manner.”

Palmer did not rely on advertising copy alone to market his services.  Instead, he incorporated a visual image into his notice.  A woodcut that may have replicated a sign that marked the gunsmith’s location adorned the advertisement, though the copy did not make reference to any sign at Palmer’s shop on “the North Side of Market-street, between Fourth and Fifth-streets.”  On the other hand, Palmer may have considered it unnecessary to mention a sign in copy that appeared immediately below an image of a rifle and the words “THO: PALMER Gun Smith” enclosed within a double border.  Residents of Philadelphia may have already been familiar with the sign and readers from beyond the city would have easily recognized it if they decided to visit Palmer’s shop.  Whether or not Palmer displayed a sign at his shop on Market Street, the woodcut helped distinguish his advertisement from other content in the Pennsylvania Gazette, likely making it worth the investment.  With the exception of the seal in the masthead, only one other image appeared in that issue.  A stock image of a house ran with a real estate notice, but that lacked the same level of customization as the woodcut in Palmer’s advertisement.  The gunsmith deployed text and image simultaneously in his efforts to engage prospective customers.