The Farmers’ Almanac will publish its last edition this year, ending a run that began in 1818. So how will we know when to plant our crops going forward? Don’t worry: there’s still the Old Farmers’ Almanac, which is now functionally the Only Farmers’ Almanac. Today we’re talking about the once-crowded landscape of American almanac publishing and flipping through a few examples from the late seventeen and early eighteen hundreds. In addition to covering agriculture, there were popular almanacs on medicine, navigation, abolition, and Christianity—and even satirical almanacs that parodied the genre. Designed to entertain as well as inform, these volumes offer a fascinating look at the everyday lives of average Americans hundreds of years ago, plus a wealth of folksy wisdom that may still apply today. Listen to learn more about a disappearing genre on this bucolic new #brattlecast.
Brattlecast #90 - Go West!
Ken takes a journey from West Street out to Western Massachusetts and finds a bonanza of early material on the Westward expansion. Not long after the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition, there were magazines selling the idea of missionary work, opportunity, and adventure in the Pacific Northwest, brochures encouraging people to settle and farm in the Midwest, and travel posters created by railroad companies to promote the newly created National Parks. These engaging pieces of ephemera can give us a new perspective on how it might have felt to live through this often romanticized era of American history.