200-year-old Philadelphia newspaper reveals link to construction of College

by Anna Groos

A surprising package ...

When advertising and public relations professor Hugh Munn opened a package sent by his old friend and former neighbor Rhonda Ungericht, he wasn’t sure what to make of its contents – a tattered, yellowed newspaper, titled “The Aurora General Advertiser,” published March 23, 1802.

“I wasn’t sure where the paper was published, and what – if any – significance it had to me,” Munn said.

Munn was baffled, until he read the handwritten note Ungericht had attached. Her note directed him to read the third announcement from the top, in the fourth column, on the front page.

The headline stated simply, “SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE”.

What followed underneath was an official notice, issued in Charleston by South Carolina Governor John Drayton, that the state was seeking proposals for the design of a college to be located in Columbia. The announcement offered a $300 prize (about $3500 today) to the architect who submitted the best original plans, and it stipulated what the plans should include:

“... the building must be so calculated as to be capable of accommodating the greatest possible number of students, besides having rooms adapted to the studies and exercises of the institution, and for the accommodation of the professors.” (typography corrected)

By the time Munn finished reading the announcement, he had begun to make sense of its significance – the tattered newspaper represented a link to USC’s earliest days, when it was established as South Carolina College. Its request for architectural plans was published just three years before builders broke ground on South Carolina College’s first building, located on today’s Horseshoe.

But there were still questions to be asked – where was the Aurora General Advertiser published, and where else did the college’s founders publicize the design competition? Was the newspaper authentic?

Most of these questions were answered when Munn shared the newspaper with Allen Stokes of the South Caroliniana Library, USC’s library of special collections and University archives.

A lesson in history: USC’s earliest days

First, Stokes confirmed that the newspaper was authentic. Ungericht had discovered and purchased it on www.rarenewspapers.com, a site she was using to research her family history.

Stokes, who has studied the university’s history extensively, was familiar with the design competition and knew that the college’s first board of trustees had publicized the competition in at least two newspapers, the Aurora General Advertiser and the Washington Federalist. He’d never seen a physical copy of the ad until Munn showed him the Advertiser.

He was also able to share some information about the newspaper. Interestingly, the Aurora General Advertiser was published in Philadelphia at a printing company that Benjamin Franklin is believed to have founded. In fact, Franklin’s own grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, had once served as publisher of the Aurora General Advertiser.

It may seem surprising that the college’s board of trustees advertised for an architect in a publication as distant as Philadelphia, but author John Morrill Bryan explains that it was natural to look near and far, as architects were hard to come by at the turn of the 19th century.

In the early 1800s, individuals or organizations seeking to build a major structure were limited to three options, described in Bryan’s An Architectural History of the South Carolina College 1801-1855: They could rely on “imported architectural pattern books”, wait for an “itinerant designer” to come through town, or actively recruit a designer by publicizing their need in newspapers in the major cities that existed at that time.

The college’s first board of trustees pursued the third strategy: it purchased ads in Philadelphia’s Aurora General Advertiser and in the Washington Federalist. That decision was a strategic move, suited to the times.

“Today, this ad could appear online and be read globally. But our founders showed insight as to how they might reach their target audience,” said Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Mass Communications and Information Studies.

Both papers ran the exact same ad. Karen Mallia, an assistant professor of advertising, remarked on the college’s strategy.

"Two hundred years later, direct response advertising is still all about the power of ‘the offer’ and targeting your strongest prospects. This ad is evidence that the most effective advertising principles don't change – only the medium does,” Mallia said.

Did the ads work? The results of the design competition

Bryan’s book estimates that ultimately 10 men submitted building plans for the board’s consideration. Rather than adopting one plan in its entirety, though, the board used elements of two men’s plans and thus divided the $300 prize between these two men: Robert Mills of Washington and a “Mr. Clark”, whose city of origin is unknown.

One can guess that Mills, being of Washington, may have learned about the design competition through the ad in the Washington Federalist. Could Clark have read the ad in the Aurora General Advertiser? Perhaps, but we’ll probably never know for sure.

In any case, this newspaper is a tangible reminder of the planning that took place two hundred years ago, when the College of South Carolina was still an idea in the imaginations of the first board of trustee members.

What now?

Munn has donated his copy of the Aurora General Advertiser to the South Caroliniana Library, where it will be stored in an airtight container and will be available for researchers. In addition, a digitized copy of the paper will be displayed in the J-School in the near future.

“We want to display this prominently to show the powerful role that journalism and advertising played in the earliest days of South Carolina College, just as our college and our students are an integral strength of the University of South Carolina today,” Bierbauer said.

	Anna Groos is a graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications working on her Masters of Mass Communications degree. A 2004 graduate of Wake Forest University, she worked for several years as an outreach counselor for Child Care Resources, Inc., a non-profit organization in Charlotte.