Virginia Gazette [Purdie]

June 30

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (June 28, 1776).

“Constitutional Post-Office, Williamsburg, June 28, 1776.”

The colophon that ran across the bottom of the final page of the June 28, 1776, edition of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette testified to the multiple roles that the printer played in the community: “WILLIAMSBURG: Printed by ALEXANDER PURDIE, at the CONSTITUTIONAL POST-OFFICE.”  Note that Purdie did not describe his location as printing office but rather as the local branch of the Constitutional Post Office approved by the Second Continental Congress as an alternative to the imperial postal system in the summer of 1775.  Purdie took the same approach in giving his location in an advertisement for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, two military manuals, and writing paper in the May 17 edition, stating that he sold them “at the CONSTITUTIONAL POST OFFICE, Williamsburg,” rather than at his printing office.  The two locations were the same, but Purdie chose to emphasize the responsibility entrusted to him as a supporter of the American cause.

In addition, he ran advertisements to conduct business on behalf of the Constitutional Post Office, underscoring his position to readers of his newspaper.  Some advertisements featured a dateline that included the location and date, such as John Moody’s notice that the smith and farrier opened a shop.  That dateline stated, “WILLIAMSBURG, June 28, 1776.”  For his advertisement placed as a deputy to the Postmaster General, Purdie included more than just the town in the dateline: “Constitutional Post-Office, Williamsburg, June 28, 1776.”  He advised readers and especially the postmasters in several towns in Virginia that the “Postmaster-General … empowered and directed me to receive the quarterly accounts” from a dozen offices and “to settle with the riders” who carried mail between them.  In turn, “it is expected the several postmasters will strictly comply with those instructions” to maintain the services of the “American Post-Office.”

That advertisement and the colophon helped to make Purdie’s politics clear to readers, distinguishing his Virginia Gazette from John Dixon and William Hunter’s Virginia Gazette, also published in Williamsburg but not at a branch of the Constitutional Post Office.  The competing newspapers often took a more measured approach in covering current events, perhaps because Hunter was a Loyalist.  In addition, Purdie’s Virginia Gazette had yet another new masthead.  The decorative type enclosing “THIRTEEN UNITED COLONIES. United, we stand—Divided, we fall” appeared in the masthead of only three issues before being replaced with a more sophisticated image depicting a bear and a stag, symbolizing the British Empire, flanking a snake, a symbol of the colonies that previously appeared in mastheads of other newspapers.  Below the bear, the snake, and the stage, a ribbon featured the motto “DON’T TREAD ON ME.”  As a printer and as a postmaster, Purdie signaled his allegiance to the American colonies.

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (June 28, 1776).

June 23

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (June 21, 1776).

“I was a few days ago mortified with a report that he was brought to Williamsburg as a Tory.”

Marital discord often found its way into advertisements in early American newspapers, usually via notices placed by husbands to announce that their wives abandoned their households and warning merchants, shopkeepers, and others not to extend credit to them.  The husbands thus controlled the narrative that appeared in print, though they could not exert the same amount of influence over gossip that circulated.  On rare occasions, wives published responses that justified their actions and revealed abuse, neglect, and other bad behavior on the part of their husbands.  In the summer of 1776, however, Elizabeth Minson placed an advertisement about her husband, Henry, in Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazettewithout first having been a subject of an advertisement placed by him.  She suspected that some readers might be familiar with Henry because “for a number of years past [he] has been captain of several vessels in the employ of many gentlemen on James river.”

Her husband, Elizabeth lamented, “has thought fit, to leave me, his disconsolate wife, with his five children, without assigning any reason for so doing.”  Under normal circumstances, that would have been distressing enough, but the war made the situation even worse.  “[T]o add to my afflictions,” the aggrieved wife declared, “I was a few days ago mortified with a report that he was brought to Williamsburg as a Tory, and have never since heard of him.”  Despite that report, she did not believe that her husband had been imprisoned or otherwise detained.  Instead, she suspected that he resided in Hampton or Norfolk and asked readers to inform her of Henry’s whereabouts.  Did Elizabeth intend to seek out her husband, reunite him with their five children, and compel him to resume his responsibilities as head of household and provider?  Or did she have another motive for publishing this advertisement?  Although she reported that he had abandoned his family “without assigning any reason,” she acknowledged the “many proofs of his affection for me, and tenderness for his children.”  That caused her “to believe he has some private reasons for his being guilty of this inhuman act.”  Whether “this inhuman act” referred to deserting his wife and children or siding with the Tories was not clear.  In addition, Elizabeth did not explicitly reveal her own views on politics.  Perhaps she published her advertisement as a strategy for protecting herself, her children, and the family’s property, hoping that Patriots would leave them alone because she expressed dismay at the report that her husband was a Tory and that Loyalists would similarly not bother them out of respect for Henry’s supposed allegiance.

May 24

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

Supplement to the Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (May 24, 1776).

“For a catalogue, and terms, apply to the PRINTER.”

In the spring of 1776, Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette carried and advertisement for “A VALUABLE LIBRARY of BOOKS, consisting of Law, Physick, Divinity, &c. &c.”  Using “&c.” (the abbreviation for et cetera commonly used in the eighteenth century) indicated that the library included books on many other topics.  The advertisement did not list any titles but instead instructed interested parties to “apply to the PRINTER” to receive a catalogue and learn more about the terms of the sale.  Purdie may have generated additional revenue by printing the catalogue for the anonymous advertiser …

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (May 25, 1776).

… or his competitors, John Dixon and William Hunter, may have printed the catalog.  An advertisement with nearly identical copy simultaneously ran in their newspaper.  It announced, “A VALUABLE LIBRAY OF BOOKS TO BE SOLD.”  It also told readers how to learn more: “For a CATALOGUE, and TERMS, apply to Printers of this Gazette.”  Perhaps the catalogue was an example of the “PRINTING WORK done at this Office in the NEATEST Manner, with Care and Expedition,” that Dixon and Hunter promoted in the masthead.  Both advertisements included a notation to remind the compositor to run the advertisement for four weeks.  The two advertisements almost certainly referred to the same “LIBRARY of BOOKS” for sale and the same catalogue.

The anonymous advertiser arranged for an additional form of marketing media, a catalogue, to supplement the notices that appeared in the newspapers printed in Williamsburg.  That catalogue may have been a small pamphlet, though it could have been a broadside printed only on one side or a broadsheet printed on both, depending on how many books it listed and the preferences of the advertiser and the decisions of the compositor.  The advertiser most likely did not have catalogues printed in both printing offices.  That meant coordinating the delivery of the catalogue from one printing office to the other.  No matter which printing office produced the catalogue, it increased the amount of advertising media available and circulating in Virginia in the 1770s.  Newspaper advertisements suggest that other kinds of marketing materials were more prevalent than the number of those that have survived in research libraries, historical societies, and private collections.

May 17

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (May 17, 1776).

“COMMON SENSE … to be sold at the CONSTITUTIONAL POST OFFICE.”

In an advertisement in the May 17, 1776, edition of the Virginia Gazette, Alexander Purdie, the printer, listed a trio of books and “WRITING PAPER, in small quantities, to be sold at the CONSTITUTIONAL POST OFFICE” in Williamsburg.  Those books included two military manuals, “Simes’s MILITARY GUIDE” and “Stevenson’s MILITARY INSTRUCTIONS,” as well as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, a popular political pamphlet that boldly advocated for declaring independence rather than seeking redress of grievances within the imperial system.  All three works, each of them related to the war, had been published in Philadelphia and transported to Williamsburg.  This was a rare instance of Common Sense being advertised along with other books rather than featured exclusively.

Common Sense appeared first in the advertisement, a fitting placement considering other content in that issue of the Virginia Gazette.  A report from the provincial convention informed readers of a resolution, approved unanimously on May 15, that “the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body “TO DECLARE THE UNITED COLONIES FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, absolved from all allegiance to, or dependence upon, the crown or parliament of Great Britain.”  The following day, the Committee of Safety, members of the General Convention, and residents of Williamsburg gathered for a ceremony at which the resolution was “read aloud to the army,” followed by a series of toasts to “The American independent states,” “The Grand Congress of the United States, and their respective legislatures,” and “General Washington, and victory to the American arms.”  A “discharge of the artillery and small-arms, and the acclamations of all present” followed each toast.  In addition, the “UNION FLAG of the American states waved upon the Capitol during the whole of this ceremony.”  Those present embraced Paine’s arguments for independence that had seemed too radical to many only a few months earlier.

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (May 17, 1776)

That Purdie sold the pamphlet and the military manuals “at the CONSTITUTIONAL POST OFFICE” also resonated with readers.  They knew that the Second Continental Congress established the Constitutional Post Office as an alternative to the imperial post, appointing Patriots as postmasters.  In addition, Purdie introduced a new masthead for the May 17 edition of the Virginia Gazette.  The previous one featured an image depicting the arms of the monarch and the motto, “En Dat Virginia Quartam” or “Behold, Virginia gives the fourth.”  That referred to the colony as a dominion of the crown along with Great Britain (England and Scotland) and claims to Ireland and France.  The new masthead, however, did not include an image.  Instead, a border of decorative type enclosed, “THIRTEEN UNITED COLONIES” and “United, we stand—Divided, we fall,” a message that echoed the one represented by the severed snake that other printers previously incorporated into the mastheads of the Massachusetts Spy, the New-York Journal, and the Pennsylvania Journal.  As Purdie advertised Common Sense, several elements of his newspaper revealed his endorsement of arguments presented in the political pamphlet.

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (May 10, 1776).

May 3

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (May 3, 1776).

“Thirteen months Gazette due mrs. Rind’s estate, 13s. 6d.”

Most early American printers extended generous credit to newspaper subscribers, sometimes allowing them to fall years behind in making payment.  They frequently placed notices calling on subscribers to settle accounts in their own newspapers.  A notice in Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette in the spring of 1776, however, requested that subscribers to a newspaper that ceased publication submit what they owed.

That newspaper had also been known as the Virginia Gazette.  William Rind commenced publishing Rind’s Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg on May 16, 1766.  He changed the name to Virginia Gazette in the fall of 1766.  Following his death in August 1773, his widow, Clementina Rind, published the newspaper for just over a year until her own death in September 1774.  John Pinkney then printed the newspaper, according to the colophon, “for the benefit of Clementina Rind’s estate” or, later, “for the benefit of Clementina Rind’s children.”  He became the sole publisher in April 1775.  Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette folded in the winter of 1776.  The issue for February 3, 1776, is the last known edition.  At the time, it was one of three newspapers named Virginia Gazette printed in Williamsburg.

The notice that ran in Purdie’s Virginia Gazette called on the “gentlemen who are still indebted to the estate of mrs. Clementina Rind, deceased, and mr. John Pinkney, for Gazettes … to send their respective balances” to “the administrator.”  For their convenience, they could dispatch them via “those gentlemen who are chosen delegates for their respective counties” who planned to travel to Williamsburg for meetings in May 1776.  A note at the end of the advertisements reminded subscribers that “Thirteen months Gazette due mrs. Rind’s estate” amounted to thirteen shillings and six pence and “Sixteen [months of the Virginia Gazette] due mr. John Pinkney” amounted to sixteen shillings and eight pence.  Those periods matched the amount of time that Clementina Rind printed the Virginia Gazette and then John Pinkney printed it, indicating that some subscribers had not paid for years, even when asked to settle with Rind’s estate.  Other newspaper printers experienced similar difficulties in collecting subscription fees, prompting some to threaten legal action in their notices.  In this instance, the administrator instead noted the “large debts still due from the said estate.”

March 24

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 22, 1776).

“He ought to stand in the same respectable point of view with all friends of America.”

As the imperial crisis intensified and became a war, some colonizers published newspaper advertisements intended to rehabilitate their reputations.  Many of the signers of an address to Thomas Hutchinson took to the pages of the newspapers published in New England to apologize and to explain the circumstances that led to their error.  In response to other incidents that called their support for American liberties into question, Asa Dunbar published “RECANTATIONS” in the New-England Chronicle, Lemuel Bower and Joseph Lyon both expressed regret for not showing support for nonimportation agreement in advertisements in the New-York Journal, and John Bergum promised to “conduct myself as a true friend to America” in the Pennsylvania Evening Post.

Samuel Kinkead got into similar trouble in Virginia in January 1776.  An advertisement in the March 22 edition of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette reported that Kinkead “stood suspected of being unfriendly to the American cause, on account of some expressions he dropped in company with some gentlemen” in West Augusta.  William Christian and George Gibson, and “several other officers, examined the witnesses who had heard his expressions.”  At the conclusion of their interviews, “the whole of us were satisfied that [Kinkead] meant that he ought to stand in the same respectable point of view with all friends of America as he formerly did.”  This advertisement delivered important news, at least from Kinkead’s perspective, so he may have been grateful that it ran first among the paid notices in that issue of the Virginia Gazette.  It thus served as a transition between news and editorials that kept readers informed about politics and the war and the advertisements placed for a variety of purposes.  This notice, like so many others, delivered local news to readers, bypassing the printer who made editorial decisions about what to include elsewhere in the newspaper.  Kinkead did not address readers himself as others had done, but he may have considered it more effective for Christian and Gibson to vouch for him.

March 17

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

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 15, 1776).

“Mr. Bird … has been so remarkable for keeping a good house.”

When Adam Bird commenced operating the “TAVERN at AYLETT’s” in the spring of 1776, he took to the pages of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette to invite patrons to his establishment.  He assured prospective customers that “no pains or expense will be spared to accommodate travellers in the best manner.”  To that end, he had “laid in a large stock of the best liquors” for their enjoyment.  In addition, he “had the house repaired, and comfortable rooms, with fire-places, for lodgers, provided.”  Whether or not readers had previously visited the tavern at that location, Bird hoped that the improvements he made would entice them to visit.  “Those who will be pleased to favour him with their company,” he pledged, “may be assured of the best entertainment” as “their obedient servant” catered to them.  Bird made common appeals that tavernkeepers and innkeepers incorporated into their advertisements.

He also included an uncommon element that distinguished his advertisement from others.  As an addendum, William Aylett gave his endorsement of Bird and his management of the tavern.  “Mr. Bird has been some time in a publick way,” Aylett explained, “and has been so remarkable for keeping a good house that I was at some pains to prevail on him to take this place.”  In other words, Aylett, who may have had experience as a tavernkeeper himself or may have been merely the proprietor of the building, was familiar with Bird’s previous experience running a public house and that prompted him to invite Bird to open an establishment at the “TAVERN at AYLETT’s.”  He intended to leverage Bird’s reputation through vouching for him, aiming to convince prospective customers that they would indeed enjoy eating, drinking, and lodging at the tavern.  Aylett nearly gave a guarantee, declaring that he could “warrant for [Bird] giving satisfaction to his patrons.  Prospective patrons who did not know Bird, the new manager at the “TAVERN at AYLETT’s,” but did know Aylett, the proprietor, may have found the endorsement more enticing than Bird’s overview of the services he provided.

March 8

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

GUEST CURATOR:  Massimo Sgambati

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (March 8, 1776).

“I WILL give good wages for a journeyman SHOEMAKER.”

In this advertisement in the Virginia Gazette, Francis Moreland searched for a “journeyman SHOEMAKER.” The specificity of a journeyman implies that Moreland wanted to hire a shoemaker who was quite skilled rather than a young apprentice who still had much to learn. In eighteenth-century America, according to Patrick Grubbs, there was a difference in the levels of craftsmanship. The master oversaw production, owned the shops, and trained journeymen and apprentices. The journeyman was a skilled worker who had finished an apprenticeship, but did not have master status. An apprentice was a beginner learning the trade under a master.

“Cordonnier et cordonnier-bottier [Shoe and boot making]” (1765).  Courtesy Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project.

To help us better understand a shoemaker’s shop, Thomas Ford provides an image in The Leatherworker in Eighteenth-Century Williamsburg. In this image we see the inner workings of the customer-shoemaker relationship. Shoemaking as a craft grew across the colonies during the eighteenth century, not just in Virginia. In Philadelphia, Grubbs explains, the occupation grew from a handful in 1680 to over three hundred in 1774, due to a rise in demand and the colonists deciding it would be better to shop domestically for shoes. Craftsmanship was important in the eighteenth century, including in the market for shoes. Although some shoemakers made large quantities of shoes, colonists did not have access to mass produced shoes in the same way that modern consumers purchase Nike and Adidas, so they often relied on their local shoemakers to meet their needs.

**********

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

When I asked students in my senior capstone research seminar about advertising and consumer culture in early America to choose advertisements about consumer goods and services for the portfolios they created throughout the semester, I did not necessarily have employments advertisements in mind, but I allow for flexibility and creativity in selecting and interpreting newspaper notices for their portfolios and for publication via the Adverts 250 Project.  As I have written on other occasions, one of my favorite parts of enlisting my students as junior colleagues in the production of this digital humanities work is the opportunity to see sources that are so familiar to me through new eyes.  I likely would have passed over Moreland’s advertisement, but Massimo demonstrated its relevance to our readings and discussions about colonizers participating in consumer culture.  Consumption, after all, occurs in a reciprocal relationship with production and distribution of goods, as T.H. Breen highlights in The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, a book we read and discussed in our seminar.

Massimo chose one of three employment advertisements in the March 8, 1776, edition of Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.  In another notice, Thomas Warren sought a “BRICKLAYER, who is a good workman,” for the next season. He limited his search to those “coming well recommended.”  Robert Anderson also wanted “well recommended” applicants to respond to his advertisement for a “GOOD HOSTLER” to care for horses.  The “journeyman SHOEMAKER” would have been the only one of the three who served an apprenticeship and may have worked more closely with customers than the bricklayer and the hostler.  On the other hand, Moreland may have had other plans for a new employee. In another advertisement in that issue, William Aylett informed the public that he “WANTED, for the army, a large number of SHOES.”  Moreland may have had his journeyman shoemaker craft shoes for individual clients or he may have tasked him with producing a quantity of shoes to supply the army, a precursor to modern mass production.

February 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

“He remains the publick’s most obedient humble servant.”

When Archibald Diddep, a tailor in Williamsburg, wanted his customers to settle accounts, he resorted to an advertisement in Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.  Merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and even printers frequently placed advertisements calling on their customers to pay for the goods and services they purchased on credit.  Sometimes they threatened legal action against those who did not submit payment shortly after such notices appeared in the public prints.  Diddep, on the other hand, used another strategy.

The tailor devised an advertisement that expressed his appreciation to his customers and solicited further business among the readers of the Virginia Gazette, nestling his address to those who owed him money among those other aspects of his notice.  He opened by stating that he “RETURNS his employers in general, and his old customers in particular, the most cordial thanks for past services.”  He then pledged that he “shall be ready to axecute any command which they may hereafter intrust him with.”  Yet he also wanted them to be aware of his circumstances that made it especially important that they make timely payment for the good service they received from the tailor.  “As his family is extensive, journeymens wages very high, and his creditors exceedingly solicitous for their due,” Diddep explained, “he hopes those whose accounts have been long standing will not take it amiss should he earnestly entreat them to make immediate payment.”  In other words, he did wish to bother customers who owed him money, but he wanted them to understand that he had a large family to feed, employees who earned a good living to pay, and creditors who were pressuring him.  The tailor hoped such appeals, playing on sympathy, would prove more effective than threatening to sue.  He also introduced a new policy, announcing that he expected customers “will not hesitate to tender down the cash so soon as their work is done” in the future.  Diddep politely discontinued credit at his shop.  Even with that softer touch, he did not conclude by focusing on finances.  Instead, he seized one last opportunity to generate business and highlight the quality of the service he provided.  “Ladies riding habits are still made by him,” he reminded readers.  For those who would give him business, he “remains the publick’s most obedient humble servant.”  It was a much softer approach than other newspaper notices that demanded customers settle accounts.

January 5

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

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

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (January 5, 1776).

“The PRINTER is reduced to the necessity of demanding half the year’s subscription money.”

In the final issue of his Virginia Gazette for 1775, Alexander Purdie called on subscribers “to pay in their subscriptions, to enable me to lay in a stock of paper for the winter,” and “all persons indebted to me for BOOKS, STATIONARY, [and] ADVERTISEMENTS” to settle their accounts.  He asserted that it was “impossible to carry on such an expensive business, to the publick’s or his own satisfaction, without punctual payment.”

A week later, Purdie expressed even more alarm in a notice in the first edition of his Virginia Gazette for 1776.  “CONSIDERING the great rise in the price of PAPER, the high expense attending the transportation of it to this place from Philadelphia, and the difficulty there is to procure it almost on any terms,” he explained, “the PRINTER is reduced to the necessity of demanding half the year’s subscription money from every new subscriber to his GAZETTE.”  Newspaper subscribers often enjoyed generous credit, but Purdie made clear that was not a viable option.  He simultaneously renewed his call “that those who owe him for the last 11 months” since he commenced publication of hisVirginia Gazette “send in their subscriptions” and “those that subscribed later … pay in to Dec. 31st … that he may begin a new account, this NEW YEAR, with all his customers.”  Like many other printers, Purdie believed that he performed a valuable service for the public, “hop[ing] to be able to furnish them always with pleasing intelligence, even in these boisterous times.”  Many readers may have considered “boisterous” an understatement as they read news and editorials about the war that commenced at Lexington and Concord the previous April.

Where Purdie placed his advertisement within the issue testifies to its urgency.  Like other newspapers of the era, his Virginia Gazette consisted of four pages printed on a broadsheet and folded in half.  Printers usually printed the first and fourth pages on one side, let it dry, and then printed the second and third pages on the other side.  That meant that the news and advertisements that arrived in the printing office most recently appeared on the second and third pages, inside the folded newspaper.  Purdie’s Virginia Gazette had a heading for “ADVERTISEMENTS” in the final column of the third page.  He could have followed the example of other printers and given his notice a privileged place as the first item under that heading.  Instead, he made it the first item in the first column on the fourth page.  He placed his notice in the upper left corner of the final page, making it the first advertisement readers encountered then they turned to that page.  That also guaranteed a spot for the printer’s notice.  Purdie made it a priority rather than risking that news he had not yet received would be of such significance to justify crowding out his notice.  Purdie made a savvy decision in choosing where to place his notice calling on subscribers and other customers to settle accounts.