 Cover of Ames Almanack in 1761 | |
| Author | Nathaniel Ames (1725-1764) Nathaniel Ames (1764-1775) |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Almanac |
| Published | 1725-1775 |
Ames' Almanack (almanac) was the first almanac printed in the British North American colonies. While Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack is more widely known, the Ames' Almanack had a much larger readership. Franklin's publication had a circulation of 10,000 copies compared to 60,000 for the Ames' Almanack. [1]
Nathaniel Ames, a second generation colonial American, was the founder and publisher of the Ames' Almanac. [2] The first edition was published when Ames was seventeen. His family owned Ames Tavern, which was often advertised in the almanac. [3] Upon Ames' death in 1764, his son, also Nathaniel, took over and continued to publish the almanac until 1775. [4]
The younger Nathaniel strongly supported the antifederalist cause, unlike his brother, Fisher Ames, who was a Federalist congressman. Correspondence between Ames and Roger Sherman in 1753 attests that Sherman wrote some of the mathematical portions of the almanac. [5]
With no real intellectual property enforcement, readers frequently copied from the almanac. This led to bickering among printers as to who published the genuine edition of Ames' Almanack. Ames was asked to certify the original version. [6]
Ames wrote during a time of growing American nationalism and this was reflected in the annual almanacs. [7] In 1775, when the American Revolution began, the almanac published a manual on how to make gunpowder so that every man could supply himself "with a sufficiency of that commodity." [8] As George Washington wrote to Congress, the Continental Army was "exceedingly destitute" of gunpowder. [9]
Ames took a stand on the religious Great Awakening running through the colonies in the early 18th century. The Great Awakening challenged the traditional authority of the congregationalist church. George Whitefield, an English evangelist, stirred up controversy in the colonies with his sermons. In 1741, Ames satirized critics of Whitefield in "To the Scoffers at Mr. Whitefield's Preaching." Four years later, Whitefield came to Ames' hometown of Dedham to give one of his sermons. [10]
The Old Farmer's Almanac, a popular annual publication in existence since 1792, copied the format used in the Ames' Almanack. This included page headings with the corresponding zodiac sign; left margin noting movable feasts, lines from a poem relevant to that month; phases of the moon; weather predictions; and anniversaries. [11]
Some early colonists used the blank pages of the almanac to keep personal diaries. The American Antiquarian Society collection in Worcester, Massachusetts holds at least two of these diaries, including that of Reverend Thomas Balch (1759). [12] Ebenezer Gay, a pastor at the Church at Hingham in Hingham, Massachusetts similarly recorded his visits to Boston and days of prayer in his copy of the Ames Almanack. [13]
George Whitefield, also known as George Whitfield, was an Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement.
The Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late 20th century. Each of these "Great Awakenings" was characterized by widespread revivals led by evangelical Protestant ministers, a sharp increase of interest in religion, a profound sense of conviction and redemption on the part of those affected, an increase in evangelical church membership, and the formation of new religious movements and denominations.
An almanac is a regularly published listing of a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar. Celestial figures and various statistics are found in almanacs, such as the rising and setting times of the Sun and Moon, dates of eclipses, hours of high and low tides, and religious festivals. The set of events noted in an almanac may be tailored for a specific group of readers, such as farmers, sailors, or astronomers.
The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia.
The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic launched major colonization expeditions in North America. The death rate was very high among early immigrants, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.
Poor Richard's Almanack was a yearly almanac published by Benjamin Franklin, who adopted the pseudonym of "Poor Richard" or "Richard Saunders" for this purpose. The publication appeared continually from 1732 to 1758. It sold exceptionally well for a pamphlet published in the Thirteen Colonies; print runs reached 10,000 per year.
The First Great Awakening or the Evangelical Revival was a series of Christian revivals that swept Britain and its thirteen North American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. The revival movement permanently affected Protestantism as adherents strove to renew individual piety and religious devotion. The Great Awakening marked the emergence of Anglo-American evangelicalism as a trans-denominational movement within the Protestant churches. In the United States, the term Great Awakening is most often used, while in the United Kingdom, the movement is referred to as the Evangelical Revival.
The Pennsylvania Gazette was one of the United States' most prominent newspapers from 1728 until 1800. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, the newspaper served as a voice for colonial opposition to British colonial rule, especially to the Stamp Act and the Townshend Acts. The newspaper was headquartered in Philadelphia.
John Nelson (1654–1734) was an English colonial merchant, trader, and statesman, active in New England.
The terms Old Lights and New Lights are used in Protestant Christian circles to distinguish between two groups who were initially the same, but have come to a disagreement. These terms originated in the early 18th century from a split in theological approach among Calvinist denominations concerning the nature of conversion and salvation. Since then, they have been applied in a wide variety of ways, and the meaning must be determined from each context. Typically, if a denomination is changing, and some refuse to change, and the denomination splits, those who did not change are referred to as the "Old Lights" and the ones who changed are referred to as the "New Lights".
Nathaniel Ames, a colonial American physician, published a popular series of annual almanacs. He was the son of Nathaniel Ames first (1677–1736) and the father of Nathaniel and Fisher Ames. The family was descended from William Ames of Bruton, Somerset, England, whose son William emigrated to Massachusetts and settled at Braintree as early as 1640.
The Hutchinson letters affair was an incident that increased tensions between the colonists of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and the British government prior to the American Revolution.
Nathan Daboll was an American teacher who wrote the mathematics textbook most commonly used in American schools in the first half of the 19th century. During the course of his career, he also operated a popular navigation school for merchant mariners, and published a variety of almanacs during the American Revolution period.
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution is a 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning book of history by Bernard Bailyn. It is considered one of the most influential studies of the American Revolution published during the 20th century.
James Franklin was an early American printer, publisher and author of newspapers and almanacs in the American colonies. James published the New England Courant, one of the oldest and the first truly independent American newspapers, and the short lived Rhode Island Gazette.
Colonial American astronomy can be traced to the time when the English began colonizing in the New World during the 16th century. They brought with them their interest in astronomy. At first, astronomical thought in America was based on Aristotelian philosophy.
A tradition of almanacs published for the purposes of North America began in New England in the 17th century. A New World's dwelling would seldom be found without the latest print of North American almanac and The Pilgrim's Progress.
The history of Dedham, Massachusetts from 1700 to 1799 saw the town become one of the largest and most influential country towns in Massachusetts. As the population grew and residents moved to outlying areas of the town, battles for political power took place. Similar battles were taking place within the churches, as liberal and conservative factions bristled at paying for ministers with whom they had differences of theological opinion. New parishes and preciencts were formed, and eventually several new towns broke away.
The Ames Tavern was a tavern in Dedham, Massachusetts. Founded as Fisher's Tavern in 1649 by Joshua Fisher, it eventually passed into the hands of Nathaniel Ames through a complicated lawsuit based on colonial laws of inheritance. It was eventually owned by Richard Woodward, who renamed it the Woodward Tavern by the time the convention that adopted the Suffolk Resolves met there.
Early American publishers and printers played a central role in the social, religious, political and commercial development of the Thirteen Colonies in British America prior to and during the American Revolution and the ensuing American Revolutionary War that established American independence.
