William Bayley

June 6

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (June 6, 1774).

“Stove Grate Warehouse, in Beaver-street, (late Parker’s printing-office).”

William Bayley hawked a variety of merchandise to decorate a home according to the latest styles at his “Stove Grate Warehouse” in New York, far more than the name of his shop suggested.  In an advertisement in the June 6, 1774, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, he listed an array of items recently imported from London, including a “New and general assortment of hard-ware, toys and trinkets; plated, japan’d and brown tea urns and coffee pots of the newest fashions; [and] a large assortment of paper hangings [or wallpaper] of the newest patterns.”  Bayley also stocked a “small assortment of china” and “a number of other articles too tedious to mention.”  He catered to taste while giving consumers choices for outfitting their homes for their own comfort and to impress visitors.

To give prospective customers a glimpse of what they might encounter at his “Warehouse” of decorative arts, Bayley adorned his advertisement with a woodcut depicting an ornate mantel with a stove grate.  Perhaps a similar image appeared on a sign that marked the location of his shop.  The border that enclosed it suggested that might have been the case. Incorporating such an image into his advertisement represented a significant investment for Bayley.  He had to commission the woodcut plus pay for twice as much space in the newspaper, yet he must have considered it worth the expense to increase the chances that customers would come to his new store in the space previously occupied by Samuel F. Parker’s printing office.  Given that the “Stove Grate Warehouse” was a new endeavor, Bayley may have considered even more necessary to make an impression in the public prints, strategically choosing a visual image over the lengthy lists of their inventories that other entrepreneurs, including James Morton and Richard Sause, published in the June 6 edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  In the early twentieth century advertising executives coined the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but Bayley and other advertisers already deployed that concept during the era of the American Revolution.

November 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

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

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (November 9, 1772).

“L / Leather dog collars / [Leather] Bottle stands.”

Several merchants, shopkeepers, and other entrepreneurs included lengthy lists of their merchandise in the November 9, 1772, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Richard Sause, a cutler, listed scores of items in a dense advertisement that consisted of a single paragraph.  William Neilson did as well.  John Morton resorted to two dense paragraphs, a longer one for his general merchandise and a shorter one with a headline, “CHINA,” to direct prospective customers to those items.

In contrast, other advertisers attempted to make it easier for readers to navigate their notices and spot items of interest by dividing their advertisements into two columns with only one item per line.  Shaw and Long published a short advertisement for wine, beer, spirits, tea, and groceries that featured two columns.  Robert G. Livingston, Jr., stocked all sorts of textiles and housewares, neatly arranged in two columns in a lengthy advertisement.  Similarly, William Prince, a gardener, listed a “large collection of Fruit Trees” as well as “Timber trees and flowering shrubs” in an advertisement that extended an entire column.  He included headers for various kinds of trees, ranging from “Apricots” to “Pears” to “Apples.”  Prince also gave prices for some of his trees.

Among those advertisements, William Bayley experimented with another method of making his merchandise accessible to prospective customers.  In addition to using two columns with one item per line, the merchant also alphabetized his wares.  In 1772, that approach was rather extraordinary.  Booksellers occasionally took that approach in their newspaper notices and book catalogs, but not always.  Merchants, shopkeepers, and others beyond the book trades, however, did not alphabetize their wares, making Bayley’s approach innovative.

Bayley inserted headers for each category, starting with “B” for “BATH stove grates” and “Brass ditto.”  (Advertisers often saved space by deploying ditto.  Readers knew that Bayley meant “Brass stove grates” as an alternative to “BATH stove grates.”)  He concluded with “W” for “Wire fenders,” the only item under that letter.  Bayley did not strictly adhere to alphabetization under the various headers.  For instance, “Copper sauce pans” appeared under “C” before “Cases with silver handle knives and forks.”  The various “Brass” and “Japan’d” items also appeared in groups but not alphabetized.  “Brass headed shovels & tongs” ran above “— Dog collars” and “Japan’d tea tables” ran above “Plate Warmers.”  Each category was short enough that Bayley likely did not consider it necessary to be rigid about alphabetizing the items under each header.

Bayley devised a format that made his advertisement more readable for consumers while also directing them to similar and related items.  He may not have been the first to introduce readers to an alphabetized list of general merchandise, but few advertisers had used that method when Bayley experimented with it in 1772.  Even if prospective customers did not require the aid of alphabetization in advertisements, Bayley still delivered a format that differentiated his newspaper notice from others, perhaps making it memorable as a result.