Show that rn Great an American institution 4 au 1 ti M hat S ti tj 0 iba the A A poor lithard Ri thard 1733 Z 49 ea JL X 61 almanacs Al manack rot byear of canil 3 31 belne the fall affet L EM YEAR W U y eilf 1 rv ke A 0 4 0 cc D M 7 jb 34 14 here is U anto aed the luna ons eel pres il ciol 39 vj T d W ha sp g cwm A peas sunad m alt I 1 lad r pay am a tash wolff 9 cde C de wa F t ed to 04 14 tude of fo ty de erces rt r t mad am afable ria X jaa W S film ry loan E A 54 L FEA at k NM 1 I aa a 4 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON q OT the least of the reasons for ie mem bering the man whose birthday N we celebrate on january 17 Is that he gave us that veritable american institution the almanac although B franillin Fra tillin printer was not the first of his stained tribe to is sue one of these little books in this country his poor richards alma nack set the style for innumerable imitators and successors and it had a record which makes it unique among such publications frankiln started it in 1733 published it annually for 35 years and robert B often sold as many as 10 copies each year it was the undisputed best seller of its time and according to his biographer bernard fay in franklin the apostle of modern times little brown and company it was the pivot of his commercial success and of his popularity in america the lodge the junto the library had only a local influence but the almanac was sent all over the country although only a very few persons ou owned tied libraries in eighteenth cen tury fury america every one possessed two books the bible and the almanac the former told you ou what to worship and what to do and the latter when and how the almanac was the guide to both the country and the city people neither poor nor rich could do without it this almanac carried the name and ideas of franklin everywhere he ile had expressly written this book to present his ideas in a bold and lively manner the same ideas he expressed secretly at the lodge or the junto or slipped into bis his newspaper in phrases of double meaning what franklin didn dian t dare aay the good fellow poor richard said for him his merita meditative tive instinct which dominated his news I 1 paper was so obvious that it would have been dangerous to publish biting criticism on eions and the church but he gave it free rein in his almanac here in this vulgar environ ment under the cloak of joking and ribaldry the good man could speak his mind the inter national vogue of this little book cannot be attributed to any other thing although franklins is perhaps the most fa almanac the world has ever known he was not of course the originator of this form of literature almanacs of one sort or another date back to the earliest civilization both the greeks and the romans are said to have had them and there are records of their use during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in 1684 1664 a group of london wags chief among them robert fler rich the poet issued poor rob ins Al manack manach a burlesque on the astrological almanacs filled with clever ridicule and some very broad jokes such an almanac was an ile ined mediate late hit bit and although herrick Herric fc tired of it after a few years its publishers kept it going for more than a century and a halt balf As will be seen later poor robin was to have an ft important bearing on american almanacs despite poor robin s popularity it did not materially affect the fortunes of the old style astrological almanac and by the end of the seventeenth centar century y there were at least a dozen of them being published in great britain one of them Merll nus liberatus started by john partridge in 1680 prospered for nearly SO 30 year years then a most unusual fate overtook it in 1708 1709 dean swift the savage satirist wrote a solemn prediction I 1 that partridge would die on august 29 and on august SO 30 he followed this up by publishing a it statement that true to the prediction partridge had indeed died even the astrologers publishers accepted the statement as true in vain partridge protested that he was very much alive but swift came back at b him im w with fill a long and laudatory obituary 1 Poo Partridge was so harassed by the task of 1 conj cang people he had not died and would Antl nue issuing his almanac that eventually he love ive up in despair and suspended its publication I 1 meanwhile over across the atlantic the eng lisa colonists were seeing the beginnings of what was to become an important american tion according to some authorities the first american almanac came from the printing press at harvard college in iwa with that puritan leal ical background naturally it was a strictly serf serl ous affair as were others issued in various places in new england soon thereafter they contained mainly astronomical calculations and scientific items however in 1687 john tully of saybrook conn issued a mildly humorous almanac which was only fairly successful because the sellon minded new englanders doubted its usefulness more satisfactory to them was the ames alma nac first issued in 1726 by dr nathaniel ames be ile had an inquiring mind an interest in matters and some sl ill in writing poetry all of which were ere reflected in the almanac h IMS bl ALUA WARMAn is cents 3 1 cover of the first issue of franklin s poor richard s Al At manack it 2 frontispiece of the pennsylvania german almanac issued in 1779 by francis bailey at lancaster pa which is sam saw to contain the first reference to washington as the father of his country 3 cover of the old farmers almanac established by robert B thomas in 1792 and still issued annually he and his son after him issued for nearly SO 60 years but real almanac history in america begins with benjamin franklin during his visit to london 1724 25 he had noticed the large sale of these little books had enjoyed equally the wit of poor robin robins s Al manack and the wise max ims of the english apollo a serious and lit arary almanac issued by a certain richard ders so when he returned to america and founded his own printing shop in philadelphia he had his partner thomas godfrey write an almanac which he published for three years from 1729 to 1731 ue ile also printed an almanac for J jermann and imported copies of poor robin from england to sell in his print shop which was also a book store to economize on the expense of a writer thirty pounds sterling was the price in general he decided to write one himself thus bus adding the material and moral profits of an author to the gains of a printer says fay in deela ng upon a name for his book he be borrowed from two english almanacs which had impressed him most poor robin and richard saunders and the result was a little volume which bore this pretentious title poor richard 1783 1793 an al manack for the year of christ 1733 being the first after leap year wherein Is contained the Lu Lunati nations oris eel apses judgment of the weather spring tides planets motions and mutual aspects sun and moon moons s rising and setting length of days times of high water fairs courts and observe able days fitted to the latitude of forty degrees and a meridian of five hours west from london but may without sensible error serve all the adjacent places even from newfoundland to south carolina by richard saunders philom philadelphia printed and sold by benjamin franklin at the new printing office near the market the almanac had a promising start for says fay pay rr franklin anklin gave his verve free rein rude picturesque and rich in humor his almanac described the life and preoccupations of the american colonies in raw colors and bold strokes it was an adequate expression of this country where the people worked hard and economized penny by penny where the great happenings of the year were the snow in december the freezing f weather in january the harvests of september and an occasional daring joke on the minister when nhen his back was turned I 1 he further guaranteed the success ut I 1 hi his s ven ture by a cyp cal franklin stunt in st starting arting his almanac he was entering into competition with another pennsylvania almanac publisher titan leeds who had succeeded his father dan lei lel leeds remembering dean swifts bredle prediction of the death of unlucky john partridge franklin in announcing the forthcoming a almanac in his newspaper paper the gazette included in its contents a prediction of the death of his friend mr titan leeds which the stars bad had made known to him beyond a doubt and mr leeds knows it very well too this vas m as the reason why poor richard who was not rich and had to make a living had taken up the pen to issue an almanac 0 course leeds as furious at mis wis giu esome prophecy and much to franklin s delight played into his rival rivals s hands by answering him it was the best sort of advertising for the new ven venture ture and rr franklin anklin took care to keep the controversy alive it lasted for eight years and ended only when hen leeds did finally die but by that time poor richards almanac was well started on the road to the amazing success which it en joyed for the next quarter of a century begun as a 24 page booklet and sold at three shillings six sixpence pence per dozen seven cents a copy after 1747 it was increased to 30 pages decorated with pretty wood cuts given a more and more elegant tone and called poor rich ards improved since the price was not in creased even with these improvements frank lans little book defied all competition and it Is not to be wondered at that it sold as many as copies annually of course it had plenty of imitators a veri verl table host of poor josephs joseph s poor wills will s poor tom toms s poor job s poor roger rogers s and poor thomas s one almanac publisher of philadelphia called his book abraham weather wise and a new york printer brought 0 out ut a book called copernicus Weather guesser one of these early almanacs deserves lasting tame fame if for no other reason than that it was the first publication to give currency to washington s title of the father rather of his country in 1779 an almanac published in german and issued by francis bailey in lancaster pa appeared with a frontispiece printed from a crude wood cut in which were depicted depleted several symbolic figures in the upper left hand corner of the drawing was shown fact as an angel bearing in one hand a medallion of washington with a laurel wreath upon his head and in the other a trumpet from which comes the words des landes vater the I 1 ather of his ills country although almanacs increased in number dur ing the early days of the republic many of them passed out of existence after a brief career because better educational facilities and a more widespread scientific knowledge made the corn com mon people less dependent upon the almanac as a source of Inform information atlon but there Is one sur alnor of the colonial tradition which has had an unbroken existence of more than years and which is today the nearest approach we have to poor richard richards s almanac that Is the old farmers almanac established in 1792 by robert bailey thomas who was said to have resembled franklin in the profession and tice of a certain homely philosophy of life franklin to be sure was a genius and thomas was simply a man of talent who knew how to make the most of the talents he had the farmers almanac was the first to ex elude from its pages the man of signs or the moons moon s man the figure of anatomy that hitherto adorned all almanacs each sign of the zodiac governed an organ or part of the file body and in selecting a day to treat any ailment or to let blood it was necessary to know whether or not the moon was in that sign As time went on the theory teory of the close relation between mans body and the r signs igns of the zodiac fell into disrepute and the anatomy became a laughingstock still the people demanded their time honored monstrosity and al manac makers until the farmer s appeared con linued to include the moons moon s man 0 but often with apology published in boston the old farmers farmer s al manac Is still a family bible in many a new england home it has a elcula tion of more than where the coming of the little yellow backed book at the beginning of each year is agn n event to be looked forward to the cover design has remained but little changed through the years it bears the portrait of its founder robert thomas displayed in an arabesque appo site that of benjamin rr franklin anklin similarly ex habited and the familiar pictures of plowing haying harvesting and watering viat ering the stock at a frozen watering trough are shown in th inners to represent the tour four seasons just as they have for generations 0 by western newspaper union |