“All I know is what I read in the newspapers!”

-Will Rogers

If you are looking for a job, a house, or a car most likely you will pick up a newspaper to start your search. A large part of many newspapers is the “classifieds.” One might think that they had been around as long as the newspaper itself. However the “want ad” was the innovation of a nineteenth century deaf printer.

Earlier, in the Colonial period it was sometimes hard to tell the advertisement from the news in American newspapers. The ads were set up like reading matter. Many publishers ran “announcements” as a matter of courtesy to other businesses. Advertising space was often offered as a return benefit to businesses for taking a subscription. The advertising announcements were set up and included in with the rest of the news. There were few illustrations or “cuts” of any kind in the paper. Ad copy that arrived late was often printed in the margins of the paper.

Because advertising was not a great revenue source, printers often sold their own line of goods and were their own best advertiser. Most often the printer sold a sideline of books, pamphlets and stationery. Ben Franklin knew how to cram a lot into one paragraph. One of his ads read,

Just import’d from Lond. and to be sold by B. Franklin, at the Post Office, near the Market in Philadelphia. All sorts of fine Paper, Parchment, Ink-powder, Sealing Wax, Wafers, fountain Pens, Ink and Sand Glasses with Brass Heads, Pounce, and Pounce Boxes, Curious, large Ivory Books and Common ditto, large and small slates, Gunters Scales, Dividers, Protractors, Pocket Compasses, both large and small, fine Pewter Stands proper for Offices and Counting Houses, fine Mezzotinto and grav’d Pictures of Mr. Whitefield. Where may be had great Variety of Bibles, Testaments, Psalters, Spelling Books, Primers, hornbooks, and other sorts of stationery ware.”

In addition to the commercial advertisements, legal notices were common. Rewards for runaway bonded-servants and slaves were required by law of the owners. Some ads were emotional pleas for the return of a “beloved” servant and a large reward was offered. When a master offered only “six cents” it seemed certain he didn’t care if the servant returned or not.

Paper was in short supply and more than one printer advertised for rags which he needed to make paper. The Chelsea Courier of Norwich Connecticut suggested that husbands say to his wife, “Molly, make a rag bag and put it under the shelf where the family Bible lies.” The Massachusetts Spy at Worchester called on “the fair Daughters of Liberty not to neglect to serve their country by saving for the Paper Mill all Linen and Cotton Rags.”

In Massachusetts the Legislature put a tax on advertising. The Boston Gazette got around this unpopular tax by writing a story on “the Liberty of the Press” and “the sixteenth article of the Bill of Rights.” In the article the Gazette reported, in complete detail, on every single advertisement that was “omitted” from the paper because of the tax.

Illustrations and large bold type began to appear in advertisements. Robert M. Hoe developed a revolving cylinder press. He took the type from a flat bed and placed it in locked channels on a rotating drum. This innovation in press technology almost killed advertisements wider than one column. To make large cuts adhere to the cylinder was an intricate process and costly. Advertisers often would print large initial letters made up of smaller letters. Thus a seventy-two point capital “A” would be created in a layout by arraigning many “A’s” of a smaller point size.

Soon, subscription price alone could not pay the cost of the newspaper. Advertising became a profit center. Businesses discovered they really needed it and the cost went up with the demand. The small business and individual also needed a way to advertise. Small advertisements were often hard to find on a disorganized page. It took William Wolcott Beadell to bring order to the want ads.

William Beadell was born in 1865 in Dubuque, Iowa. As a boy he lost his hearing to spinal meningitis. His mother taught him to read lips. A friend’s father published the local newspaper and he was allowed to play there. He was taught to “stick type” which was hand setting type letter by letter in a composing stick. As he grew older, he was allowed to write and edit some stories.

He graduated from Gallaudet College in 1891. His interest in newspapers was rewarded. His father bought him the small town newspaper of Yellow Creek, Illinois. Beadell didn’t like the name of the town and as a new resident and young editor he ambitiously set about to change the name of the town. The Yellow Creek had clams and some of the clams had pearls. He convinced the citizens to change the name of the town and his newspaper became the “Pearl City News.”

He bought, developed, and sold other newspapers before purchasing the Arlington, New Jersey newspaper, “The Observer.” This newspaper was a struggle. He had to successfully compete with the larger newspapers in New York, Newark and Jersey City. The key was small-localized classified ads. A page of small ads was more profitable than a single full-page ad.

Other newspapers copied his success and soon the classifieds became a part of almost every newspaper. Beadell died in 1931.

WANTED - more people of talent and innovation to enter the printing and publishing business.”