<\/p>\n
Many times this program has referred to old almanacs, but never, I believe, have we ever mentioned one that was published outside the U.S.<\/p>\n
A frequent contributor to this program is Gordon Costley, who for many years lived on the West River Road on a farm now a part of the Wyandotte Mill property. Gordon now lives in Palmy~a. Recently he gave me an old almanac published in England in 1896. It was also actually circulated in New York, because, like so many almanacs, it was put out by a manufacturing company – in this case by Lever Brothers, whose main plant was in England, but whose American office was in New York. Since at that time Lever Brothers’ leading product was Sunlight Soap, this book was called the Sunlight Almanac.<\/p>\n
Because of its American connections, almost 40 of the book’s 480 pages dealt with items conceming the U.S. It gave U.S. postages, when letters were two cents and postcards one cent. It listed all states of the Union, then totaling 44. The six territories that have since become states, to make the present 50, are Alaska, Arizona, Oklahoma, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Utah. It lists presidents and vice-presidents from Washington to Cleveland, the Cabinet officers in 1896, and U.S. exports and imports of 1895 in total dollars. Especially interesting is the fact that while they omitted many items included at that time in U.S. almanacs, this one did include facts now not easily found about the Civil War. One is a list of men furnished to the Union Army by the loyal states. Of interest, we especially note that Maine ranked second among the New England states in that respect. Massachusetts, of course, led New England, with 146,000 soldiers in the war. But Maine sent more than 70,000 men, while both New Hampshire and Vermont each had a little more than 33,000, Connecticut 58,000, and Rhode Island 23,000.<\/p>\n
If less than 50 pages were devoted to the U.S., what was in the other 430 pages? Information about the British Empire made up a major portion, with a few items of international significance.<\/p>\n
The year 1896 was near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign. She had then been on the British throne for 59 years, and would be there five years longer until her death in 1901. We still hear much about the Royal Family. Just who constitutes it?<\/p>\n
This almanac tells us who they were in 1896. Victoria’s consort, Prince Albert, had died long before, but there still were sixteen persons of Victoria’s family. Oldest was the Princess Royal, who in 1896 was the Crown Princess, later to be Tsarina of Russia. Second was Edward, Prince of Wales, who would succeed Victoria as King Edward VII. Third was George Frederick, the Duke of York. Then came six other princesses, three princes, three dukes, and one duchess.<\/p>\n
In today’s democratic Britain, the ruling influence is the House of Commons, elected by the people of defined districts. The House of Lords has been stripped of its once great power, which in 1896 included veto power over most legislation in the Commons. This almanac makes mere mention of the House of Commons, but it lists the full membership of the House of Lords. Most of us have heard the term, Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual – that is clergymen of the Church of England, who held seats in the House of Lords, were led by England’s two Archbishops, Canterbury and York, and with them were 25 bishops. The almanac gives the pecking order of the House of Lords as follows: first, the Lord High Chancellor; second, six princes of the blood; third, the two Archbishops; fourth, 23 dukes; fifth, 22 marquises; sixth, 123 earls; seventh, 29 viscounts; eighth, 25 bishops; ninth, 312 barons. Altogether, the British peers numbered 543. When there were added the 38 Scotch and 89 Irish lords the total was 670.<\/p>\n
A lower order of British distinction than the nobility is knighthood, permitting the holder to be addressed not as My Lord, but as Sir, with only the first name following. For instance, after Churchill was knighted, he was officially called Sir Winston, not Sir Churchill. The old almanac tells us that in 1896 Britain had ten orders of knighthood. Best known to American readers were the Knights of the Garter, a very high honor conferred by the throne upon persons who had made conspicuous contribution to the Empire. Prominent also were the Knights of the Bath, and holders of the Victoria Cross.<\/p>\n
Now in 1977, Britain’s overseas empire has become almost wholly independent, but eighty years ago she had 50 colonial governors, stationed in such colonies as Canada, Burma, India, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, Cyprus, the Fiji Islands, Mauritius, and islands in the Caribbean. There were five governors in different parts of Africa.<\/p>\n
The Head of State in Britain, corresponding to our President is the Prime Minister, who in 1977 possesses much of the power that, at the time of the American Revolution, was still held by the king. Today Queen Elizabeth is little more than a symbol of the realm. She has much influence with the people but little power. In 1896 the Prime Minister was the Marquis of Salisbury.<\/p>\n
In 1896, Britain had the largest standing army in the world. Stationed either at home or in some one of the colonies were 719,000 troops. Their maintenance came to nearly two million pounds a year – equivalent to about ten million dollars. The Navy was even more expensive because the cost of new ships was added annually to maintenance. In 1895 it cost 16 million pounds, or about 80 million dollars. It included 29 first class battleships, popularly called Dreadnaughts, among which best known were the Hood, the Renown, and the Royal Oak. There were 12 second class battleships, 90 cruisers, and more than 200 smaller craft.<\/p>\n
There are several pages in this almanac of brief biographical data about important persons allover the world. As you would suspect, more than two-thirds on the list were British. They included not only statesmen like Asquith and Balfour, Gladstone and Bismarck, but writers like George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and Rudyard Kipling; builders of empire like Cecil Rhodes; religious leaders like Pope Leo XIII; scientists like Louis Pasteur, and composers like Giuseppe Verdi. The list contained the names of very few women, but it did name Sarah Bernhardt and Frances Willard. Among some thirty Americans on the long list were Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, Nathaniel Hawthorne & Whitelaw Reid.<\/p>\n
Like most of today’s almanacs, this one of 1896 had a section devoted to sports. But what sports? Four entire pages about cricket, with a long paragraph devoted to the recent Australian tour of a British team. In boxing Jim Corbett had just beaten Mitchell for the world heavyweight crown, and was about to meet Bob Fitzsimmons who would take the championship away from him. The almanac devoted two whole pages to cycling, which was fast becoming a competitive sport in the U.S. as well as in Europe.<\/p>\n
What the almanac had to say about football had, of course, nothing to do with the American game, but was the internationally better known sport of soccer. The British championship in 1896 was to be played on a new field laid out on the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London. There was great rivalry among the teams officially representing England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.<\/p>\n
Saint Andrews was then the world’s leading golf course, where the British championship tournament was always played. Not a word does the almanac say about what have now become the great open tournaments in the United States, but attention was duly given to the annual golf match between Oxford and Cambridge. A half page is devoted to the annual rowing contest between the two universities, won in 1895 by Oxford.<\/p>\n
That the almanac was not intended for the lower class in British society is shown by references in the long section on Household Management. It was assumed that every home should have at least one servant, preferably more. Listen to this: “A household should have several servants, for if there is only one, it is difficult to plan the work. With more than one, there can be a clearly defined division of labor.” Then follows a list of duties that should be placed on butler, housekeeper, cook, maids, coachman, and gardener. Suggestions about servants’ wages were that a cook should have from 15 to 18 pounds a year, with also an allowance for beer money. That meant that a full-time cook would get, besides lodging and meals, no more than $90 a year, plus a few pennies a week for beer. Housemaids should be paid about 12 pounds a year, or $60. A really good gardener might cost as much as $75 a year. Every British servant expected a month’s vacation, every other Sunday off, and one other off day each week.<\/p>\n
Commercial laundries were not common in Britain in 1896, and washing was done mostly at home. Even families without a servant sometimes employed a washerwoman to come in for one day a week, or sent a basket of clothes to the washerwoman’s home, but if there were servants, as this almanac assumed, the washing was done in the household. This is what the almanac says about it. “Until recently no branch of household labor was more tiresome than washing, and it was difficult to persuade servants to do it willingly. Now it is possible to make washing clothes no harder than cleaning a room.”<\/p>\n
How could the almanac say that? By getting in a plug for the almanac’s sponsor, of course. The next sentence boon of Sunlight Soap said: “Now all can have the great<\/p>\n
Finally let us note what the almanac suggested for four meals on a Sunday in winter:<\/p>\n
Breakfast: Haddock with Worcestersauce, cupped eggs, toast, marmalade.
\nDinner: roast goose with apple sauce, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, mince pie, rice pudding. Tea, jam, muffins, butter. Supper: Collardhead, pickles, cold pudding, cheese, biscuits (crackers).<\/p>\n
And filled up with those four meals, on a winter Sunday, we must say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1977<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1120, Broadcast on April 3, 1977<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27136,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}