The Adverts 250 Project explores the history of advertising in eighteenth-century America. It features a daily image of an advertisement published in a colonial newspaper 250 years ago that day. Brief commentary accompanies each advertisement.
Daily updates are supplemented with longer posts that analyze individual advertisements in greater detail, highlight other marketing items from the period, or examine issues related to research and accessibility of historical sources.
The Adverts 250 Project also publishes a daily digest of advertisements from the Slavery Adverts 250 Project.
Students from Colonial America, Revolutionary America, and Public History courses at Assumption College serve as guest curators for both the Adverts 250 Project and the Slavery Adverts 250 Project during the semesters those courses are taught. See the list of Guest Contributors for more information about undergraduate guest curators.
Unless otherwise specified, all advertisements come from newspapers that have been digitized and made available via Accessible Archives, Colonial Williamsburg’s Digital Library, and Readex’s America’s Historical Newspapers.
The Adverts 250 Project is conducted by Carl Robert Keyes, associate professor of history at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts.