The presence of the almanac in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century households from right across the social scale has long been noted by historians of print culture. Characterised as publications within the important category of 'pocket usefulness' by James Raven, 1 almanacs were a vital source of information within an agricultural society.
If the almanac was not always to be found in the pocket, then it may have moved no further than the table--'Of all books the Almanack is the most indispensable.
So constant is the need for it that, unlike other books, it is not deposited on the shelf, but lies ready to hand on the table. Clair elaborates:. One of the almanac's great apologists and entrepreneurs, Charles Knight, included a more conceptualised account of the nature and function of the almanac by way of introduction to the monthly calendar that was being introduced into the Penny Magazine in Knight was here pursuing his extended project of managing the cultural advance of the almanac, especially within the artisan classes, in the wake of the repeal of the almanac duty in , a shift towards deregulation that he had vigorously supported.
Such descriptions of the role and function of the almanac have considered the genre as essentially forming a reference book, largely ignoring the quite different, but equally omnipresent, manifestation of almanacs as broadsheets to be found in offices, public gathering places and factories as well as in the domestic interior. Because of the ephemerality and haphazard survival of broadside almanacs, this essay too limits its interest to 'book' or pamphlet almanacs which will be considered within the broad context of rapid change within the production of print culture.
Yet obviously broadsheet almanacs Use this link to get back to this page. In the s and s, people would write to the Almanac to ask about weather conditions for specific days, months in advance. Brides wanted sunshine for their wedding days; rabbis would ask for the exact time of sunset in a certain city, so they could plan the lighting of altar candles.
Sagendorph, at her behest, studies his weather records of the years and recommends the third Saturday. Sure enough, the first and second Saturdays turn out rainy in the Hudson Valley, and the third is clear. But people still turn to the Almanac for an idea of what the year to come will be like, not unlike the way they look to the groundhog to find out how long winter will last.
I would just put it in a category of folk knowledge about weather that is sometimes really useful but, in terms of details, it has never been as good as it claims to be. The perception that it was is a big part of why the Almanac has endured.
Discussing the weather was also, and remains, a deeply rooted part of culture. Many people spend most of their time in climate-controlled environments. And yet people remain obsessed with the weather. The almanacs featured in this exhibition are examples of the popular almanacs that were well known in Europe and developed in America in the s.
At this time the popular almanac developed into a unique form of folk literature that included the astrological and weather-related information that were part of the historical almanacs, but also included statistics and home remedies, and expanded the literary portion to include jokes, fiction and poetry.
The first known printed book in British North America was an almanac, printed in Almanacs were printed in virtually every American town that had its own printing press.
They were found in homes where the only other book was a Bible. Part of what contributed to their popularity and widespread appeal was their availability: American almanacs were published in a wide variety of languages including Cherokee, Chippewa, Choctaw, Delaware, Ottowa and Shawanoe dialects, as well as in Dutch, French, German, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Russian, Italian, Polish, Danish and Hungarian.
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