The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

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marks next to other lines, likely expressing whether the reader agreed or not with
what was printed.
Wealthier owners sometimes had extra pages bound with the issues, and
kept accounts or more complete diaries within their almanacs. For both rich and
poor, the almanac became more than simply a one-way medium from the writer to
the reader. Almanacs actually allowed for creative thinking and input on the part of
the reader, even if no one else ever read their words. Writing helped create a
perception of the self-as-individual, a consciousness of interaction between people,
and an increase in overall awareness. 87 Reading and writing are the acts of people
who are capable of thinking for themselves. While theorists have attached this
ability to the printed word and literacy, it is important to note that it does not
correlate directly with the invention of the printing press, but more specifically with
the spread of printing and corresponding literacy. 88 The introduction of printing
and almanacs in Virginia of the mid-eighteenth century marked an important
watershed for printing, literacy, and the corresponding political culture.
Several almanacs from Virginia’s leading citizens have survived, complete
with their notations. Robert Wormely Carter—a member of the colony’s wealthiest
family—recorded the health of his wife and children and attempted cures in his
copy of the 1774 Virginia Almanack. (Carter noted that pumpkin soup seemed to be
helpful in treating measles.) When he noted in his pages what presents he should
buy for his family, he included a memo to buy an almanac for his father, Landon
Carter, the son of Robert “King” Carter. 89 When George Washington began
keeping a daily diary, he used a copy of the Virginia Almanack that had been bound
87 Ong, Orality and Literacy, 178-9, notes that while writing can be consciousness-raising, it
can also increase division and alienation.
88 Carothers, “Culture, Psychiatry, and the Written Word,” 312-319.
89 Shaw, “Almanacs and the Atlantic World,” 2. Carter’s surviving almanac is the Virginia
Almanack … 1774 … (Purdie & Dixon, 1773), and is at the American Antiquarian Society.