Vandalism

December 23

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

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

Pennsylvania Journal (December 23, 1772).

“Repeated INSULTS the City has lately received, by damaging, and taking away, the Public Lamps.”

On one of the shortest days of the year, the “WARDENS of the CITY” of Philadelphia offered a significant reward “for discovery of the person or persons, who … TOOK AWAY, one of the PUBLIC LAMPS” on Fourth Street.  To draw attention to this act of vandalism and theft, the wardens placed advertisements in both the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal on December 23, 1772.  The wardens had determined that someone removed and stole the lamp sometime between ten and eleven on Saturday night.  That they could pinpoint the time that precisely suggested that members of the public took enough notice of the light provided by the lamps to notice when that particular lamp was lit for their safety and convenience and when it disappeared.

The wardens considered the removal of the lamp more than an act of vandalism.  They framed it as an assault on the city and its residents.  “The repeated INSULTS the City has lately received, by damaging, and taking away, the Public Lamps,” the wardens proclaimed, “WILL, doubtless, be PROPERLY RESENTED by the INHABITANTS.”  That being the case, the wardens “Request the ASSISTANCE of their FELLOW-CITIZENS, in order to a discovery of the Perpetrators of those infamous practices, that a check may be put, to a growing evil, of the most dangerous tendency.”  Public works, like street lamps, only benefited the public when they remained in place and optional.  The entire community, the wardens argued, shared the responsibility of identifying the vandals, just as the entire community benefitted from the installation of “Public Lamps” to light the streets during the winter months.

The compositors for the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Pennsylvania Journal did their part in alerting the public to this call to action from the wardens of the city.  In the former, the notice ran immediately below the shipping news from the customs house.  As readers finished perusing news items, they encountered the advertisement offering “TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS REWARD” upon the conviction of the vandals.  Even if they did not closely examine other advertisements in the remainder of the issue, readers interested in the news likely saw this notice.  In the Pennsylvania Journal, the compositor placed the notice at the top of the first full column of advertising in the issue.  In the upper right corner of the third page, it appeared next to local news from Philadelphia.  For added measure, the compositor added a manicule to direct readers to the advertisement, the only manicule anywhere in that issue.

October 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Providence Gazette (October 5, 1771).

“Some evil-minded Person or Persons have attempted to destroy a new Store.”

John Carter, the printer of the Providence Gazette, did not include much local news in the October 5, 1771, edition of his newspaper.  Of the twelve columns spread over four pages in that issue, only two-thirds of a column featured news under the heading “PROVIDENCE.”  Such was the case in most colonial newspapers, most of them a weekly publication schedule.  Local news tended to spread by word of mouth before printers took their newspapers to press.

Even as printers like Carter made their own editorial decisions about which news to feature and which to exclude, advertisers paid to highlight certain events in the notices they placed.  As a result, advertisements often delivered news or elaborated on stories already in circulation.  Consider, for instance, an advertisement placed by the partnership of White, Allen, and Waterman.  According to that notice, “some evil-minded Person or Persons have attempted to destroy a new Store … by putting Fire through one of the Windows” and setting a barrel on fire.  Fortunately for the proprietors, that barrel contained “some Bayberry-Wax” and the fire “was happily extinguished by the running of the Wax.”  The partners offered a reward to “Whoever will give Information of the villainous Author or Authors of this wicked and diabolical Act, so that he or they may be legally convicted.”

Among the other advertisements in that issue of the Providence Gazette, readers encountered estate notices placed by executors, calls for creditors of colonists who presented petitions related to an Act for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors to appear in court, and an announcement that the proprietors of the Providence Library would meet the following week to conduct business vital to the continued operations of that institution.  Such local news that ran as advertisements, interspersed among notices for consumer goods and services, filled more space than the “PROVIDENCE” news selected by the printer.  Readers interested in all of the “freshest ADVICES, Foreign and Domestic” promised in the masthead needed to peruse the advertisements in addition to the other contents of the newspaper.