Post riders announced their arrival by blasting on a horn and carried in their pouches not just the “public prints”-newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides-but personal mail as well. The first image in the banner is the Roman deity Mercury, the messenger of the gods and the god of trade and commerce the second is the Philadelphia waterfront, bustling with ships the third is a galloping post rider, delivering the Mercury to subscribers far distant from the city. The elaborate woodcut banner on the front page nicely illustrates the newspaper’s commitment to news and commerce. This issue is also typical in that it includes an essay, a style Bradford began to use in the 1720s when he published young Benjamin Franklin’s satirical “Busy-Body papers.” This particular essay is on manners.Īmerican Weekly Mercury was aimed mainly at the commercial class, with shipping notices and ads for the mercantile trade. England was at war with Spain in 1741, so the paper also has a substantial amount of war news from the Caribbean. Like most newspapers of the time, it includes mainly European news, but with some attention as well to news from Boston and New York. This issue of the American Weekly Mercury is from the last year of Andrew Bradford’s proprietorship. The American Weekly Mercury was the only newspaper outside Boston until 1725, when Andrew’s father started the New York Gazette. He intended that the paper would seek readers and advertisers beyond the city of Philadelphia-in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even New York. Andrew Bradford’s decision to use the word “American” in the name of his newspaper was telling. His father, William Bradford (1663-1752), had opened the first print shop in the new city of Philadelphia in the 1680s, before moving on to New York, where Andrew grew up. With an estimated 37.7 M people living with HIV/AIDS and 1.5 M more becoming newly infected with HIV in 2020 alone, the battle is far from over.įreddie was taken from us too young, but there is still time to make a difference and change the destinies of millions around the world.The first newspaper to appear in America outside Boston was the American Weekly Mercury, launched by Andrew Bradford (1686-1742) in Philadelphia in 1719. In fact, the more that is raised and the more donations we get in, the more our overheads go down.

The current MPT overheads are just under 7p in the £/pound, which means that for each pound donated, over 93p goes to funding the work of the global charities FIGHTING AIDS WORLDWIDE - and we intend to keep it that way. The MPT predominantly funds smaller organizations it assesses and vets as they effectively work at grassroots level, where governments, larger NGOs and markets don’t often reach. The MPT has reached millions in the fight against HIV/AIDS worldwide, providing £17 M to over 1.5 K projects in 57 countries (and counting!). The Trust is a core part of rock band Queen and Freddie’s legacy, with the passion and power behind the music forming the bedrock of the MPT. Following the moving and hugely successful Tribute Concert in 1992, Brian May, Roger Taylor and Jim Beach set up The Mercury Phoenix Trust (MPT) in memory of the iconic Freddie Mercury who died from HIV/AIDS in 1991.

Pottstown mercury