1700-tals-iPhone

By now, I hope you'll forgive the ahistorical slip that led me to enlist the iPhone as a way of imagining just how resourceful an early almanac could be. It was so much more than a book. Comparing it to the iPhone helps expand our vision about how an almanac worked and what it could do for its buyers. It wasn't simply a compendium of reading material. Just as an iPhone connects users to an outside world and provides a feast of tools designed to make our lives easier, the almanac held the same promise. More than that, it was central to early American life and culture because it had so little competition. There was nothing at the local book shop that could do all the things the almanac did.

Not surprisingly, Washington turned to the annual edition of The Virginia Almanac for his diary. Aside from assigning a heading for his memoranda pages that read \"Where & How my time is Spent,\" Washington's entries resembled those of most of his contemporaries, especially in the days before the Revolution when he was preoccupied with managing his large Virginia estate. 

In a typical glimpse, Washington recorded the first few days of July 1771 as follows:

July 1. Rid into the Neck to my Harvest People, & back to Dinner. Mr. Robt. Rutherford came in the Afternoon & went away again.

2. Rid to Harvest Field in the Neck & back to Dinner.

3. Rid to the Harvest Field in the Neck by the Ferry & Muddy hole Plantations. In the Afternoon Mr. Jno. Smith of Westmoreland came here.

4. At home all day with Mr. Smith. In the Afternoon Jno. Custis came.