University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons
The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Unique at Penn Books and Manuscripts
6-2-2015
David Rittenhouse's Teenage Almanac?
Mitch Fraas University of Pennsylvania, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/uniqueatpenn
Part of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Library and Information Science Commons, and the United States History Commons
Fraas, Mitch, "David Rittenhouse's Teenage Almanac?" (2015). Unique at Penn. 28. https://repository.upenn.edu/uniqueatpenn/28
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/uniqueatpenn/28 For more information, please contact [email protected]. David Rittenhouse's Teenage Almanac?
Abstract Essay about the acquisition of a manuscript autograph page possibly written by a young David Rittenhouse.
Keywords Astronomy, almanac, Early America
Disciplines History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Library and Information Science | United States History
This working paper is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/uniqueatpenn/28 ABOUT Search… Go
David Rittenhouse’s ♣ WELCOME 02 Welcome to Unique at Penn, part of Tuesday teenage almanac? the family of University of JUN 2015 Pennsylvania Libraries blogs. Every week this space will feature descriptions and contextualization of POSTED BY MITCH FRAAS IN POSTS ≈ LEAVE A COMMENT items from the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. The site focuses on those materials held by Penn which are in some sense “unique” - drawn from both our special and circulating collections, whether a one-of-a-kind medieval manuscript or a twentieth-century popular novel with generations of student notes penciled inside. See the About page for more on the blog and to contact the editor.
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The start of a new month (rainy and cold here in Philadelphia) has reminded me Etta Winigrad: Artist of the to write about a new almanac fragment here at Penn. In November of last year, Figurative and the Fantastical
the Penn Libraries purchased a unique and somewhat mysterious eighteenth A Collection of Korekushon century manuscript. Consisting of a single bifolium (a sheet folded to make four
pages) it was likely produced in Philadelphia (or somewhere else of a similar ♣ ARCHIVES
latitude) in 1746/7. It appears to be part of an almanac containing eclipse August 2019 charts, predictions for weather, and astrological signs, removed from what must February 2019 Follow once have been a larger manuscript volume. Astronomical and almanac manuscripts from colonial Philadelphia are not common though there was a August 2018 robust trade in print almanacs and lunar charts throughout the city in the period December 2017 with at least four different almanacs each year by mid-century [1]. November 2017
July 2017
October 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
March 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
June 2015
March 2015
February 2015
— UPenn Ms. Coll. 1052 January 2015
October 2014 What initially drew my attention to the manuscript was its attribution to David September 2014 Rittenhouse, the famous Philadelphia astronomer, inventor, and treasurer of the July 2014 Continental Congress. His masterful 1771 Orrery is today here in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. To be clear, the attribution of this manuscript to June 2014
Rittenhouse is decidedly uncertain. There is a small pencil annotation of May 2014 unknown date on the side of the bifolium listing him as the author. April 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013 October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
Arguing against the attribution is the fact that the manuscript contains the lunar April 2013 tables and almanac for 1747 indicating likely creation in 1746 when Rittenhouse March 2013 would have been only 14 or 15 years old. The only substantial collection of Rittenhouse astronomical manuscripts is at the American Philosophical Society February 2013 which holds three of his notebooks from the last quarter of the century. A look at January 2013 the handwriting in these neither convinced me nor completely dissuaded me December 2012 from the attribution. That Rittenhouse could have composed or copied a set of lunar tables and almanac as a teenager is not necessarily as far-fetched as it October 2012 seems. Later reports of his early years noted that at the age of 14 many of the September 2012 fences and plows with which he worked were covered with notations and August 2012 mathematical formulas, by the age of 17 he had even constructed a fully July 2012 functional clock by himself [2]. June 2012
May 2012
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Penn in Hand Another, somewhat more likely possibility is that the manuscript is a copy or partial copy of a printed almanac circulating in the period. The chart for the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts month of January, for instance, is very reminiscent of the print almanacs of the time – beginning with an aphorism or epitaph followed by a series of predictions ♣ LATEST FROM and notes about the days of the month. Given this, I think it likely that at least PENNRARE part of the text was copied by a young Rittenhouse (or someone else) from a Move Forward May 25, 2020 printed almanac. Lydia Sigourney’s Rags and Ribbons May 20, 2020 There were at least four or five different almanacs printed each year in Musical Bridge May 18, 2020 Philadelphia with more in New York and Boston. What’s interesting and remarkable is that the text in the manuscript does not match any of these ♣ SUBSCRIBE TO UNIQUE AT surviving American almanacs for 1747 that I have been able to locate. Of the PENN almanacs likely to have printed in Philadelphia for that year, only one has failed to survive in any copies, the Franklin-published 1747 American Country Almanac which has never been traced [3]. From the description of the New York issue of the American Country Almanac for that year which survives in one copy at the Huntington, it seems unlikely that this is a copy of that particular text [4]. — January, from Poor — January, from the Richard’s Almanac for Philadelphia issue of the 1747. Printed by Franklin. American Country Almanac UPenn Curtis 345. for 1748. HSP copy (Evans Digital) — January, from the Philadelphia Pocket Almanac for 1747. Printed by Franklin. UPenn Curtis 161.
One of the pleasures of working in libraries is acquiring manuscripts like this one, about which much remains unknown. I hope that this post generates interest in the manuscript and inspires a student or researcher to take a closer look and delve into its origins and what it might be able to tell us about astronomical commonplacing and almanac creation in colonial America.
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[1] For two recent excellent pieces on the place of Almanacs in the early American world see, Patrick Spero, “The Revolution in Popular Publications: The Almanac and New England Primer, 1750—1800” Early American Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 41-74 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23546600 and Matthew Shaw, “Keeping Time in the Age of Franklin: Almanacs and the Atlantic World,” Printing History 2 (2007).
[2] See the Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse (Philadelphia, 1813), p. 96.
[3] In his survey of Franklin’s printing, Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia printing, 1728-1766 (Philadelphia, 1974) [no. 392] Clarence Miller lists this as possible but doubtful based on the fact that though Franklin-issued copies of the American Country Almanac survive for 1746 and 1748, he did not advertise one for 1747 and the New York copy at the Huntington does not have Franklin’s tell- tale anatomical woodcut.
[4] With many thanks to Vanessa Wilkie and Steve Tabor at the Huntington for their help with this.
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About Mitch Fraas Mitch Fraas is a curator at the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. View all posts by Mitch Fraas » ← Previous post Next post →
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