For Patriotic Marketing, Travel Back to 1776

My newspaper was stuffed with July 4th advertising circulars and I couldn't help but avoid the countless radio and television ads touting "Star Spangled Savings" and "All American Discounts". Everything from grocery items and bed mattresses to automobiles and vinyl siding were on sale over on this 2008 July 4th holiday weekend. That got me wondering, "What was on sale in July of 1776?"

This morning, with my ears still ringing from the blasts of last night's July 4th fireworks celebration, I finally found time to write about some interesting things I learned yesterday about life in 1776. It was what appeared in Dixon & Hunter's Virginia Gazette on July 20, 1776 that is probably the most influential advertisement ever placed. Read on...

Around 7:30 a.m., as I was tossing a purple 'power worm' in the pouring rain on my friend Matt's boat on Morse Lake during a bass fishing tournament, my thoughts drifted as they usually do when I'm not catching fish. I began thinking about a radio ad for a "Fourth of July Sale" for a home repair center. Another holiday. Another opportunity for retail businesses to exploit the long holiday in an effort to lure (no fishing pun intended) consumers.

So, after returning home having only caught one keeper largemouth and finishing dead last in the tournament, I was hoping I'd have better luck fishing the Internet for information about marketing and advertising in 1776.

It took awhile, but I finally "Googled" the right phrases that produced a collection of articles, research papers, discussions and images of the history of advertising. While there is evidence of advertising products and services dating back to 4,000 B.C., Advertising as we know it in the United States, first appeared in print in 1704. The first newspaper advertisement, an announcement seeking a buyer for an Oyster Bay, Long Island, estate, was published in the Boston News-Letter.

It was Ben Franklin, though, who started including paid advertisements in his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette in 1742. Franklin's paper and others contained advertisements that only included text. Ads with illustrations and graphics began appearing in the late 1700s and more prominently around 1830.

Newspapers allowed people and businesses to expand their marketing beyond the common signs, window ads, posters and advertising bills (or flyers). Instead of reaching local townspeople or spreading information by word of mouth to a small target audience, newspapers allowed business owners to reach a few hundred or even a few thousand people throughout the 13 Colonies and in much larger cities such as Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

Advertisements weren't regulated though and everything was fair game. The majority of ads at that time were centered around slavery. During this dark time in our Nation's history, slave-owners bought and sold slaves. They also placed advertisements offering rewards when their slave's ran away or seeking rewards when they captured runaway slaves. Many newspapers, such as the Hartford Courant did in 2000, eventually apologized for profiting from running such advertisements.

Other prominent ads from the 1770s were more focused on products and services. Ships advertised their sailing dates so that businesses could ship their goods to other countries or arrange for products to be shipped back to them. They also advertising for sailing crews and space for passengers if available. People sold livestock for slaughter and horses for transportation. A watchmaker who offered his watchmaking and repair services. Richard Brooke advertised his cobbler services this way.

For Sale
A shoemaker who understands mens' and womens' feet completely. He has about five and a half years to serve and worked and worked many years with Mr. Didsbury. For terms, apply to subscriber near Fredericksburg. Richard Brooke.

One of the most interesting advertisements I discovered was from a gentleman who was selling admission to his own death. Having felt that he had accomplished all that he wanted to in life, he planned an exhibition where he was to shoot himself with his revolver, once in the stomach and once in the head. He even warned the public against attending another man's hanging demonstration at the same time as his - calling it a fraudulent event. Pretty bizarre. I wonder whatever happened to the man...and the money he collected?

But it was the one full-page advertisement that appeared in the Dixon & Hunter's Virginia Gazette on July 20, 1776. I'm not sure that it was intended to be an advertisement. But, that's what it was. The advertisers identified a need to solve a problem. They consulted with each other to develop a plausible solution. The developed a product and marketed that product to the people of the thirteen colonies. The problem - tyrannical rule. The solution - independence and the right to self-govern. The product they needed to sell was the Declaration of Independence.

According to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Alexander Purdie's Virginia Gazette (Friday, July 19, 1776) briefly noted the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by Congress.

On Saturday, July 20, the Council of the State of Virginia ordered that the full text be published, and it appeared in John Dixon and William Hunter's Virginia Gazette that same day. Dixon and Hunter had established their newspaper a year earlier with the motto "Always for Liberty and the Public Good."

The Declaration was publicly proclaimed in Williamsburg on July 25, at the Capitol, the Courthouse and the Palace "amidst the acclamations of the people, accompanied by firing of cannon and musketry, the several regiments of continental troops having been paraded on that solemnity". Alexander Purdie included the full text in his Virginia Gazette issue dated July 26.

A few years ago, I portrayed George Reid in the Indianapolis Civic Theater musical production of "1776". Reid was Delaware's Crown Attorney General and one of Delaware's appointees to the Congressional Congress and signers of the Declaration. I admit that I did not take the time then, nor had I ever taken the time to read the complete text of the Declaration of Independence. I took the time yesterday - all of five minutes to review the greatest, most poignant document in our young nation's history. I encourage you, too, to take the time.

As I sat in a friend's backyard last evening enjoying pulled pork barbecue and other great homemade dishes, I watched our kids running and playing on swing sets and the adults eating, laughing and partaking in adult beverages. But, I couldn't help but think about what I had learned during a couple of hours surfing the Internet and the few minutes it took to read the text of the Declaration. As a people, we enjoy many great freedoms that we take for granted. I thought about my brother in law, Major Scott Sendmeyer, U.S. Army who is currently stationed in Mosul, Iraq, training the Iraqi troops how to fight for and defend their freedom.

Using such a great National holiday to market discounts on furniture, cars, computers, triple-pane windows and other products wrings a little trivial in my mind right now. However, without the work of our Founding Fathers like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and the other signers of the Declaration, and so eloquently written by Thomas Jefferson, we could not not enjoy such a freedom.

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."