Victoria Ostrowski

April 20

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR: Victoria Ostrowski

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

Boston Evening-Post (April 20, 1772).

“Ladies SILKS of the newest Fashion.”

In this advertisement, Thomas Lee sold a variety of goods imported from England. The ones that stood out the most to me were the “Ladies SILKS of the newest Fashion.” I was interested in finding more about silks because I wanted to know more about women’s fashion in the colonial era. I discovered that the materials used to make women’s clothing changed during the eighteenth century. According to the “Fashion History Timeline” from the Fashion Institute of Technology, “The heavy, brocaded, lushly floral silks of the mid-century were superseded by silks that were both lighter in weight and simpler in design, heralding ‘the advent of Neo-Classicism.’ In the first half of the 1770s, motifs shrank significantly and ‘the vertical element of the of the late 1760s proliferated in the early 1770s into clusters of broad and narrow stripes.’ By the middle of the decade, ‘the clustered stripes had all but disappeared and, instead … [they were absolutely regular in width.” Fashions for women seemed to enter a new age of design every couple of years! Thomas Lee advertised “a most elegant Assortment” of “Ladies SILKS,” allowing for colonial women to dress in “the newest Fashions.”

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Carl Robert Keyes

Along with price and quality, eighteenth-century advertisers frequently made appeals to fashion as they attempted to incite demand for the goods they sold.  Merchants and shopkeepers, tailors and milliners all tried to convince prospective customers that they could outfit them in current styles.  As Tori notes, Thomas Lee promoted his “Supply of Ladies SILKS of the newest Fashions” in an advertisement that ran in the April 20, 1772, edition of Boston Evening-Post.  Elsewhere in the same issue, Cyrus Baldwin advertised a “large and neat Assortment of English and India Goods” that included “LADIES newest-fashioned bonnets” and other items.  The proprietors of the Irish Linen Warehouse on King Street informed readers that they stocked a “Variety of the most elegant Copper-Plate printed Muslins for Ladies Summer Wear, much esteemed at present among the most fashionable People in England.”  John Barrett and Sons published an extensive catalog of goods available at their shop, underscoring fashion in the first two entries: “New fashion brown, purple, green & blue English Damasks” and “Very fashionable & genteel brocaded & striped, changeable cloth color’d, white, grey and black Mantuas & Lutestrings.”

As these examples make clear, purveyors of textiles, garments, and all sorts of accessories knew that prospective customers did not measure fashion solely in terms of the styles they saw others wearing in the colonies.  Instead, consumers looked across the Atlantic for cues, seeking to demonstrate that they shared the sophisticated tastes of genteel men and women who shopped in London and pursued cosmopolitan lifestyles in town and country.  Those tastes evolved quickly, as Tori discovered in her research.  How quickly they evolved was one of the defining features of the consumer revolution of the eighteenth century.  On both sides of the Atlantic, consumers updated their wardrobes much more frequently than they did a century earlier, fueled by a preoccupation with fashion and a desire to display their own status and good taste.  That gave Lee and other advertisers greater leverage in their interactions with prospective customers, enticing them with “the newest Fashions” to get consumers into their shops.

Welcome Back, Guest Curator Victoria Ostrowski

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , ,

Victoria Ostrowski is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is majoring in History and Elementary Education. She has studied abroad in Rome, Italy, where she was able to immerse herself in the history and culture of Italy. She wants to continue to travel and learn about the history of Europe. She also likes to work out, hang out with friends, and paint. She has two German Shepherds who love to go on trips to the park. At Assumption, she is part of the Education Club as well as the Alumni Club. She previously served as guest curator for the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project when she enrolled in HIS 400 Research Methods: Vast Early America in Spring 2021.  She made her current contributions to these projects when enrolled in HIS 359 Revolutionary America, 1763-1815, in Fall 2021.

Welcome back, guest curator Victoria Ostrowski!

November 21

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update, Guest Contribution , , , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR:  Victoria Ostrowski

New-York Journal (November 21, 1771).

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

“An apprentice-lad … named Richard Sweetman.”

In the fall of 1771, Elijah Weed and Samuel Simpson placed an advertisement describing two runaways, Thomas Jones, an indentured servant, and Richard Sweetman, an apprentice.  The advertisement mentioned that Sweetman was sixteen years old and learning to be a shoemaker.  This stood out to me because it was so different from the experiences of teenagers today.  At sixteen, most teenagers go to high school before embarking on their jobs.  Some receive vocational training and others go to college.  They do not become apprentices at age sixteen or younger, bound to masters who teach them a trade until they turn twenty-one years old.  According to an article about “Colonial Teenagers,” children “grew into adulthood more quickly than they do today, and by the time a child entered their teen years, they were already on a path toward their life’s occupation.”  In addition, “young men usually learned their trade through some form of apprenticeship.”

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

Although he had not yet completed his apprenticeship, Richard Sweetman acquired sufficient skill that Elijah Weed and Samuel Simpson described the runaway as “a stuff-shoe-maker by trade.”  Their advertisement did not elaborate on the reasons that Sweetman fled, but the “sour countenance” that they attributed to him may have been the result of dissatisfaction with the treatment that he received from the master who was supposed to provide training, lodging, food, and other necessities during the time of his apprenticeship.  If Weed or Simpson had been cruel or negligent, Sweetman might have decided to depart.

Weed and Simpson cataloged a variety of items that Sweetman took with him, many of them garments that almost certainly did not belong to him.  He may have taken them with the intention of disguising himself or selling or trading them.  He also carried “sundry cordwainers tools” that he likely stole.  Rather than sell or trade those items, he may have thought that he could support himself by making and repairing shoes once he arrived in a place that he believed that Weed and Simpson would not locate him.

For their part, however, Weed and Simpson cast their net widely.  They resided in Philadelphia, but placed an advertisement in the New-York Journal to alert readers there and throughout the region to keep to keep their eyes open for a runaway apprentice who may have been traveling with an indentured servant with a distinctive walk due to one leg being shorter than the other.  The power of the press worked to their advantage.  Their advertisement did not reveal any of Sweetman’s grievances that might have prompted him to run away, but it did enlist the assistance of readers who could engage in surveillance of strangers they encountered in hopes of detecting the apprentice and earning a reward for his capture.

 

Welcome, Guest Curator Victoria Ostrowski

Carl Robert Keyes Uncategorized , , ,

Victoria Ostrowski is a senior at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is an Elementary Education and History major. She has studied abroad in Rome, Italy, where she was able to immerse herself in the history and culture of Italy. She wants to continue to travel and learn about the history of Europe. She also likes to work out, hang out with friends, and paint. She has two German Shepherds who love to go on trips to the park. At Assumption, she is part of the Education Club as well as the Alumni Club.

Welcome, guest curator Victoria Ostrowski!