No other publication attracted as loyal a following, nor had as widespread a reach, as the almanac. Every fall local newspapers throughout colonial America contained advertisements heralding the latest editions of the many different local almanacs. The annual announcements served as a siren call, beckoning local merchants, artisans, and farmers alike to the printer's office to purchase their traditional almanac, while salesmen arrived, acquiring almanacs in bulk before heading out to the frontier to peddle their best-selling item. Full of must-have information, like the days local courts convened, the rising and setting of the sun, and the dates of holidays, along with entertaining stories, medicinal cures, astrological prognostications, and favorite recipes, no other single genre of book was purchased as frequently as the almanac, nor was the market for any single item as fully developed or competitive as the almanac market. Yet these almanacs, pervasive in their local markets, could not be sold in other markets because of their highly localized information. A farmer in Pennsylvania could not profit from lunar and solar calculations for Boston, nor could a Bostonian benefit from knowing when a local court met in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The Revolution left most of the almanac's content unchanged. For all the upheaval it wrought, apparently that conflict did not alter America's litigious society or the movement of the sun, moon, or stars. Yet the changes that did occur and, more important, where and when these changes happened, provide insight into the creation of the new nation.
The most notable, yet subtle, shift appeared in the calendar, which formed the core of every almanac. The British calendar had peacefully resided in every almanac before the imperial crisis, but over the course of the Revolution, it shifted from a celebratory focus on English events, mostly monarchical, to a new, American perspective. Unlike government decrees mandating celebratory days, the almanac makers were free to determine what dates to include in their almanacs. Furthermore, because days, events, and astrology shifted from year to year, printers could not use standing type in their calendars. Therefore, every year they conscientiously constructed the calendar for the upcoming year. Inertia never controlled the almanac and because of the almanac's profitability and popularity, it can be inferred that popular sentiments implicitly shaped the calendar's outlook. Every fall during the imperial crisis, almanac makers and publishers needed to survey their contentious audience and determine how to make their almanacs as popular, or as inoffensive to as many, as possible. Although the nationalization of the almanacs occurred regionally during the War for Independence, by the 1780s virtually every almanac celebrated the declaration of independence in addition to many of the battles from the Revolutionary War. The shared celebration of the war and of independence in these localized publications helped foster a shared sense of national community.
Philadelphia and Boston served as printing centers for almanacs, accounting for over 70 percent of all the almanacs printed. Philadelphia is remembered as the home of the Continental Congress and birthplace of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of 1787. It also is synonymous with early American almanacs, thanks in large part to Philadelphia printer cum politician Benjamin Franklin, who produced Poor Richard's Almanack (1732175 7). But at the time of the imperial crisis, Franklin had given up printing, and the almanac market was far more robust than it ever had been during his years as a printer. In Franklin's time, there were perhaps five or six competing almanacs, but by the imperial crisis Philadelphia printers produced, on average, twelve different almanacs annually, accounting for over 40 percent of all almanacs in the colonies.
The New England market produced no less than a dozen different almanac makers and accounted for 30 percent of all almanacs produced. Here, almanac maker Nathaniel Ames of Massachusetts created a massive following, which his son, Nathaniel Ames Jr., inherited in 1765. At the time, it is likely that Ames's almanac outsold any other almanac produced in the colonies. Throughout the imperial crisis, Ames Jr. turned his almanac into a political pamphlet. This trend was soon duplicated by other popular compilers like Benjamin West and Nathaniel Low, both also of Massachusetts. During the Revolution, the New England almanac was transformed from an innocuous serial to a political pamphlet to a source of news dissemination and progenitor of national identity. Often the almanac published accounts of battles, and images of George Washington, Horatio Gates, and John Hancock adorned the frontispiece. Thus, almanacs established a nationalizing trend later replicated in the other areas of the country during the early Republic.
The vitality of the almanac market did not wane after the Revolution. With the retirement of Ames and his peers, the early Republic witnessed the rise of a new generation of popular almanac makers. Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught free black living in Maryland and Washington, D.C., proved to be one of the most popular compilers in the 1790s.
The market explosion that characterized the early Republic also affected almanacs. Between 1765 and 1785, printers produced just over seven hundred almanacs. In the fifteen years immediately following the departure of the last British troops from New York City, production increased by over 140 percent, resulting in almost one thousand almanacs. In the early nineteenth century, American printers produced on average almost one hundred different almanacs a year, often in areas that had not even had printers prior to the Revolution. Such a large circulation of often overtly nationalistic almanacs helped create a national community bound by a shared calendar focused on independence.