>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. >> Stephanie Stillo: So welcome everyone to our Thursdays at Three talk here in Rare Books. We are very delighted to have you here this afternoon. Today, we have Alexander Knirim. We're still working on his last, I am still working on his last name. He's a doctoral student at the Department for Early Modern History at the University of Beirut in Germany. He currently occupies the position of Bavarian Fellow at the Kluge Center here at the Library, and I have to say he has been truly a delight to work with over the last couple month. So you are in for a treat. Alexander's work focuses largely on Atlantic history in the 19th Century, particularly German communities in British North America in the early United States, and thinking about the way that print media impacts those communities, and his project for Kluge is entitled German Imprints in British North America in the 18th Century and the Construction of a German-Speaking Community. What I find so exciting about Alexander's work is that it offers us, I think, a new vantage from which to look at really familiar material, right. We think we know about almanacs, right, and Alexander is here to teach us more about things that we feel familiar with. Shamefully, I have never really stopped to think about the role of German almanacs in colonial America, shamefully. So when he told me about his research, I was tremendous excited about the possibility, for him certainly and what he can uncover, but again, selfishly, what we can learn about our own collections, thinking about them in this new way. So we're very pleased to be able to give Alexander a place to discuss his ongoing projects and to get feedback from such a wonderful and knowledgeable audience that we have here for the Thursdays at Three. So just very quickly a few organizational and procedural points. I realize that most of you are veterans of our Thursdays at Three talks, but for those of you that are new, just a couple things. Alexander will speak for about 40 minutes, and after which we will take questions. I realize that we are all tremendously eager about the 18th Century, but if we could please keep the questions until the end, that would be terrific. It'll keep us on schedule. We do have several items that are out for display that have to do with Alexander's research. Again, as I say, we are excited that you are excited, but let us handle the material. We will turn pages for you, and we will share as much as we can. With that, please help me welcome Alexander. [ Applause ] >> Alexander Knirim: Stephanie, thank you so much for those kind words. I try to keep up to them. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm very glad to be here at the Rare Books and Special Collection Division of the Library of Congress today presenting to you a talk title, Before you Read, You Should Look, Front Cover Images of German Almanacs in Early America. What I'm going to do in the next 45 minutes is to present and compare front cover images of German language almanacs printed before the end of the Revolutionary War. Before I start, I want to thank Michael North, who suggested the talk in the first place, and Eric Fraser, who was extremely helpful with any questions I had in the course of my research. I also want to thank all the staff of the Rare Book Division who were so supportive, and if I would thank everyone in the way they deserve, we would celebrate Christmas in here, so I skip that a little. For everyone who never has done research in the Rare Book Division, I just want to encourage you to go and use the wonderful materials they can offer you. I also want to thank the John W. Kluge Center and the Bavarian American Academy in Munich, Germany, which offered me the opportunity to come to Washington. Here, your eyes see for the first time an almanac usable for this part of the world but produced after the German have it, which I hope in this county, which is so far away from our homeland it's going to be not unpleasant. Those are the words which whom the first German language almanac announced it's appearance in the British colonies in North America until the title [foreign language], what can be translated as the German [inaudible] carrying with it the moral calendar . This was in 1731, and at the end of the Revolutionary War, over 50 years later, German language almanacs had become well established calendars in the then freshly forged United States of America. The path from a British to the [inaudible] was rocky and especially in the time around and after the war a controversial one. But, nevertheless, almanacs survived and played as well in the 19th Century a key roll in American history, and they have done so until today. But while many of you know Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard Almanac, most of you are probably not aware of German language almanacs and their publication history in North America. What defines a German almanac in the 18th Century? What made it German rather than British or British North American. First of all, they were published in German. The other important thing is that they followed the design of almanacs produced in the German-speaking territories in Europe so that German settlers could easily handle the almanacs calculated for the new lands they were going to live on. It is also worth mentioning that all German almanacs were printed in Fraktur, a typical type, a typical German type for this time. English settlers in many cases were using Ithaca. Benjamin Franklin, who printed in German as well as in English, obtained some German meaning Fraktur types to print German books and pamphlets in the style that Germans were used to. And even then, it was hard for him and his associates to compete with printers like [inaudible], which were the most serious competitors to Franklin's press regarding German settlers. About nine German almanacs were produced in North America before the end of the Revolutionary War. Of course, they didn't appear all at once and while some were printed annually for decades, others were only published for a short time. Finding those almanacs today is not always easy. Almanacs could be produced at relatively low cost and were often thrown away after the year they were printed for. And for some almanac series, it is impossible to reconstruct the whole circulation. Another problem is that sometimes the name of an almanac changes slightly although layout and printer say the same. What appears to be a new almanac is sometimes an older one with a slightly different name. Let me give you an example. One almanac in 1778 is named [foreign language], brand-new North American calendar, and two years later, the name is [foreign language], so brand-new, improved and reliable North American calendar. The changes are not large, I have to admit, but in the Library catalogue, you are not able to find the almanac without the proper name, and cataloguers often have not recognized that these almanacs with different titles are part of the same series. Almanacs were widespread and produced in large numbers, and together with nongovernmental texts, they were commonly among the first publications of printers. Over the last 20 years, researchers have analyzed almanacs from various perspective, discussing the shift of language, grammar, and the different topics, which were discussed in those almanacs. Today, I am going to pursue a different angle, the development of the front covers of German almanacs in the 18th Century. What we have here on this slide, is the first cover of the [foreign language]. As you can see short titles were [inaudible]. So 1778, and what we see here is a typical title page of an almanac, which commonly appears as the third page, if we count the front cover as page one, giving us the full title, the year, how many days this year has. So if it is a common year, 364 days, or a leap year with 366. We can also find the number of the issue, the table of contents, the place it was produced, who produced it, and in many cases, there's also an indication of where you can find it other parts of British North America. Obviously, a lot of those details are missing here in this example, and the explanation is that this is not the title page but the front cover. On this cover page, the printer, Matthew Barctus [phonetic] apologizes to the reader and promised to offer a proper front cover in the next issue. The excuse he gives to you, the reader, is that the engraver was not able to finish the cover page in time, so he only could publish it in a plain font. What Barctus mentioned here explicitly copper engraving, we should be aware that in the British colonies different styles of engravings were used. Copper engravings, which were produced for instance by Matthew Clarkson on Second Street in Philadelphia, they are very rare at the period. Far more common were woodcuts, a technique, which was broadly used in the United States after the 20th Century. This almanac, which is dated 1718, is the earliest issue with the proper front cover, which can be found here in the Rare Books Division of the Library of Congress. Matthew Barctus obviously got his engraving, and really it is an interesting one. What we can see here is the following. A man, having only one healthy leg and the other one replaced by a wooden stick is delivering a sealed paper to two people while leaning on a spear. On it's back, he has a bag. The person, who seems to receive the letter, appears to be a man dressed like aristocrat of the time, wearing a wig and holding a stick in his left hand. In the front, we can see a snail. The other person is a woman, maybe also wearing a wig and a long robe, which is falling on the ground. And if you think that this person is not like a woman to me, let me show you this almanac printed in German in 1816. As you can see, the persons look very similar to the ones we have seen before in the one from Barctus, and even though we have more people receiving the letter in this example from 1816, here we can easily determine that person we can see on the front cover is a woman. But, let us go back to the one from 1718. The title of this almanac is written on the front cover as [foreign language]. And above the delivery man, you can read [foreign language] which can roughly be translated as the lame messenger. The [foreign language] was one of the most successful almanac in the region between modern Switzerland, southern Germany, and France. The first one was established in 1677, and afterwards, many other almanacs were produced under the same name, and the tradition goes on until today. With that in mind, the image Barctus has chosen for his almanac has to be considered as a common topic for many German settlers arriving in North America. [Inaudible] as many German settlers in the 18th Century came from southwestern German where this kind of almanac was popular. Even though there's an ongoing discussion about the use and the development of almanacs like [foreign language] in France, Germany, and Switzerland, the impact of the front covers of German almanacs produced in early America have not been discussed in detail aside from some remarks by [foreign language] and [foreign language]. And, as the front cover image combined with the title is quite a popular one, I'm going to show you that even without the title we can find images that have recourse to the [foreign language]. In 1739, Kristof Saur started his almanac called the [foreign language] without the front page. And this is not a good example. I used this one from 1747. And the front cover itself was added to the almanac five years earlier in 1742, so before that in the first three years there is simply no front cover. It became one of the most successful German almanacs in the 18th Century in British North America. Saur Sr. and his son, Saur Jr., are both crucial figures when we talk about German printers at that time. Not just because the almanacs were one of the most successful German printings in the colonies with a circulation up to 10,000 per year, but also because of the influence on the German settlers living not only in German-where but elsewhere in Pennsylvania and beyond. As we mentioned earlier, first the father and then his son had a long-time rivalry with Benjamin Franklin and some of his fellow printers in Philadelphia, partly because Franklin accused Saur of not wanting German settlers to assimilate into British American society. You have to be aware that in the second half of the 18th Century, about 50 percent of the Pennsylvania population was German or at least trace their origin back to German ancestors. By way of comparison, in the U.S. Census of 2000, about 15 percent of all Americans had German ancestors. And as we have introduced the two printers, Saur Sr. and Jr., already, we're now going to take a look on the almanac [foreign language] calendar. What we can see on this slide is one of the first issues of the [foreign language] calendar, and what we can observe at the first glance is that we have much more going on here than we have seen on the two almanacs before. We can divide this almanac roughly into three sections. One, is the scene in the front of the almanac, the depiction of the city and finally the section showing us in the heaven. What we see in the front is a scene where two people meet. One of them seems to be arriving by ship and was just brought ashore in a small boat, which is now tied to a pier. He is handing over a letter to the other person, who is very difficult to identify. He or she, that is not clear, is wearing a long robe, a hat, which is not so familiar, as for instance the tricorn the other man wears, and in the left hand, she or he is holding a stick, receiving the letter with his or her right hand. While the letter is passed over, the man who is delivering it points with his left arm in the direction of the countryside. In the front, we can also see a dog. What is the lands the man is pointing? The answer to this question is giving us from the city in the background. The city we see is Philadelphia, and it is particularly interesting to observe that the development of the city was shown to us by Saur. First, the senior, since 1758 his son going by the same name, taking the development of the city into consideration, adding new churches and buildings in the 1760's and 1770's. But I will come back to that in a few minutes. Let us finish the general depiction with a look at the upper part of the front cover. Occupy nearly half of the available space, what we see is a cloudy sky and to Hermes holding a [foreign language]. It looks like Hermes is walking on a rainbow and has more wings on his feet, hand, and hat. His hands, in his hands, he is holding a banner that is flying over his hat. The banner shows us after 1760 different messengers in different issues of the almanac. On the right side, we see the sun shining, and on the left side, we see clouds, and in later examples, we find they are the moon and the stars shining. Let us know analyze this type of page step by step, starting with the front area. When we look at the different topics presented to us by the printer, it seems to remind us of the front cover we've seen before. The handing over of the letter, the [inaudible] and partly even the clothes of the people involved looking a lot like some of the elements we saw in the [foreign language], but we are missing one important, very important feature, the wooden leg. So what do we have here? How can we explain what the printer is presenting to us? Is there a connection to other German almanacs? We can assume that Saur Sr., who was born in German near Heidelberg was familiar with the concept of the [foreign language] or the [foreign language]. At least this type of almanac was widespread in the region in the 17th and 18th Century. Using a familiar image to sell a German almanac to German settlers in the British colonies in North America was a smart thing to do. Many of the early settlers came from the western and southern regions of the German-speaking territories in Europe, and for that reason, we're probably familiar with the concept. The image of the [foreign language] became popular after the 30 Years War in the 1600's when many wounded or maimed soldiers were used as messenger. Although they were far slower than the messengers on horseback, they were at the same time considered as carriers of true messages that everyone could rely on. So, using a familiar image for the illustration of an almanac is smart. People could recognize the affiliation and would probably feel attracted by it. If there were a wooden leg in the image, the explanation would be easy. Sadly enough we don't have it. For that reason, a direct connection between the ink and the border in Saur's almanac seems unlikely, but aside from the question of the wooden leg, the layout strikes as familiar. Could there be a connection to the ink in the border without him being present? It must be admitted that the ink in the border was not really relevant to the delivery of news in the British colonies where most news arrived by ship. The whole narrative of a wooden leg seems to be redundant regarding the fact that it makes no difference when you are using a ship if you have a healthy, wooden, or even no leg at all. Another explanation could be the hope for peace in the colonies. When Saur started his almanac in the 1730's, there was still an ongoing discussion about the defense of the colonies in which Saur and many Germans around him stood close to the Quakers and their pacifist approach. As far as we know, Saur was clever enough to use a familiar concept without explicitly showing the part which would contradict his idea of a peaceful society. In the end, we cannot be certain whether Saur really used the concept of the ink and the border to better his chances of selling the almanac. The very idea of a messenger delivering news is omnipresent in the context of the front cover, but if it was connected to the ink in the border or an enhancement of it, is a question probably were never going to answer. Let us know take a closer look to the city. As mentioned before, the front cover shows us the skyline of Philadelphia. But what is really interesting apart from the simple view is that Saur's adjusted the skyline over time. After the first almanac was produced Saur Sr. states with the first layout until his death in 1758. His son then started to make small changes. First, in 1760, so he added some buildings to the city, highlighted here, and in 1770, he redesigned some buildings, so changed the shape of the steeples. But let us focus on the city itself first. Up to 1760, the front cover looked like we have seen it before. The city was now shown in a detailed way. We can see two towers or steeples and two paths leading to the point where we, the observer, stand. At the time when this front cover was used, there simply were not many buildings to display. Only a few had been built when the front cover first appeared at the beginning of 1742. At that time, [inaudible] produced from a woodcut which was most likely made by Saur himself. The steeple tower on the left is probably the state house, which later, after the declaration of independence [inaudible] was called independence hall. The structure started in 1732 and was finished in 1741, so very close to the publication of the first front cover. Even though the famous bell was not added before the 1750's. The staple on the right side is most likely the first Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. We don't have any other map of the 1740's, which can prove my hypothesis, but in comparison to the front cover as it appears in the 1760's, the towers are still displayed. So they are taken with into the new design. This offers us the opportunity to compare the front cover with this map, which was drawn 10 years after the first almanac was published in the 1750's. We can assume that Saur stayed with the two buildings he included in the issue before the 1760's, and when we look on the map produced by George Heeb [phonetic] and Nicholas Scull, here in a reproduction from the 1900's, which shows not just the skyline of Philadelphia but also explains what churches and important buildings we can see. We are able to determine which steeples are shown to us by Saur in both almanacs, and considering the time the buildings were constructed and their appearance in the city, we can identify the State House and the First Presbyterian Church as the two prominent buildings on the front cover up to 1759. One of the other steeples appearing after 1760 can easily be recognized as Christ Church, since we know that this was the tallest building in Philadelphia and in fact in North America at the time. That leaves one tower or steeple unidentified. Though we can be quite confident about the ones we have identified so far, the fourth one is much more difficult, and we are not able to state whether it is the court house or the Quaker meeting house. But we have to admit that Saur's front cover lacks the accuracy for us to be sure which steeple belonged to which church. We can narrow it down and build a coherent argument, but as Saur never stated himself what he intended to show us, we have to be very careful regarding appearances of the city. If we now look at the front cover as it appears after 1770, we can see that the number of towers is still the same, but the design has changed, and there is no path leading any longer to the two people, which we can spot in the front. But we see that the harbor has grown, and we have more docks between the meeting point and the city. The last front cover was probably not produced any longer by Saur Jr. himself but by Justice Fox, who was apprentice and worker in the Saur Press and besides his skill in producing woodcuts, he was also the one producing the ink for the Saur Press, ink which was still famous at the beginning of the 19th Century. Now we take a look on the top of the front cover. As pointed out before, it changes over the time slightly, and the banner, 1760, and the night sky, 1770, were included up to 1770. But most importantly we have Hermes, and not an angle as Everan H. Castle [phonetic] has described it in one of the first analyzers of this almanac in 1882. Hermes as a symbol can be found quite often in almanacs in British North America. Safe travels through the countryside and most importantly over the ocean were crucial to the life of the people and the Hermes is the symbol for traveling and for trade, so it was an important reference. We have to be aware that although one hand reached the colony safely, it didn't necessarily mean that one would never cross the Atlantic again or that one wouldn't need people to cross it [inaudible] directly or indirectly. For printers and for any other settlers, trades were crucial because almost everyone in the colonies relied on goods coming across the Atlantic. Saur himself relied on special paper from Europe because he tried to establish a colored almanac, which required different kind of paper that was not produced in the colonies. Also, regarding news, all the settlers, not only in Pennsylvania, relied on the ocean. Almost all the information coming into the colonies was brought in by ship, even to some extent news from Boston or New York were shipped to Philadelphia. News often travelled faster via ship. And as well, these ships coming from the West Indies brought news and goods, which were sold in British North America. In Henry Miller's newspaper, the [inaudible], approximately 40 percent of the newspaper was reserved for advertisements of all kinds, and many of the goods, like sugar or rum that were imported from the Caribbean Isles. Safe travels were a thing everyone should wish for, and settlers in the British colonies were particularly relying on that. What is missing from the cover at least with respect to other almanacs is a zodiac. The zodiac can be found on many other almanacs, and we cannot determine why Saur excluded it. One explanation could be his religious belief, but we lack any information in this regard. But as we missed the zodiac, we have a rainbow that the Hermes seems to walk on. The banner we can find since 1760 do not change from issue to issue but were changed according to events happening in that time. It starts with [foreign language], wars and rumors of wars. In 1765, it reads [foreign language] and in 1767 with the end of the struggles after the French and the Indian War, the motto said [foreign language] hopes and better times. As already pointed out, afterward Saur changed motto back and forth in accordance with the political situation. Now that we have talked about the [foreign language] almanac, we will take a look on the [foreign language] from Enrique Miller or Henry Miller. A printer originally from Switzerland who crossed the Atlantic several times and lived as well in London for a couple of years. The first example was published in the year 1763 in Philadelphia, then still under the name [foreign language]. The front cover appears for the first time in 1767 at least here in the Rare Books Division of the Library of Congress and is on display. Miller was one of the first important printers in Philadelphia. He published in both English and in German and offered translation into French and Dutch. The front cover from this almanac reminds us partly of the front cover of the [foreign language] but from a different perspective. While Saur with whom Miller was not particular friends and in fact Miller brought forward public accusation against Saur, calling him pedantic and boastful, while Saur shows a view from north of Philadelphia, Miller shows us the one from the other side of the Delaware River. Although the view seems not to be 100 percent accurate, on the front part of the cover, we can see, we look very closely, a pier of a ferry. It's hard to see, which appears to be one of the two ferries, I have a closeup here, still then it's very difficult to realize, which appears to be one of the two ferries crossing the Delaware River from New Jersey to Philadelphia. We can see both of those fairies in this map from Nicholas Scull, one of the most cartographers for Philadelphia and the entire region up to the 1760's. Though the map was published in 1762, the very year when the almanac was produced for the first time, Scull died in 1761, one year before the map was published. It is probably Daniel Cooper's ferry, which you can see here. When we compare the perspective from the map and the front cover, it seems to be about right, but the really important reference for this front cover image is another map by George Heeb and Nicholas Scull from the 1750's, which we have seen before, an eastern prospect of the city of Philadelphia. If we compare the front cover, we realize that Miller took almanac everything from the map of Heeb and Scull, and since we know that Miller advertised the shop of the editor of this map, Matthew Clarkson, we can conclude that Miller was aware of this map and for that he used it as inspiration or maybe even [inaudible] produced by Clarkson. Although we have to remember that the map with the skyline of Philadelphia was drawn in Philadelphia but sent to English and printed there, the front cover of the almanac was produced in Philadelphia. So what is then comparable? As we can see, the ferry [inaudible] can be spotted in both images. Here we have it. Also, the river, here again. Also, the river with it's ships looks familiar, and then, of course, there is the skyline of Philadelphia. Even though the front cover of the almanac is not an exact copy of the map, we can compare the elements of the scenes one on one. What we see is from left to right. The State House Quaker Meeting House, courthouse, the Christ Church, again as the largest building it's quite recognizable, then followed by the Academy, the Presbyterian Church, and the Dutch and Calvinist Church. Also, we can spot the High Street or Market Street, which gives us the opportunity to identify the rest of the city bridge, and while we do that, about here, where the yellow or orange arrow is, is the printing shop of Henry Miller, so the printer of this front cover. At the top of the almanac, we can see, as we have seen it at the [foreign language] day and night. On the left side, the sun is shining, and at the top right corner, we have the moon and the stars. Between those, we can see the sky and the zodiac showing us the ram, the bull, the twins, the crab, and the lion, so he lists them in the chronological order. Unlike the Saurs, Miller stayed with the arrangement of the front cover for the whole time he published his almanac. This one probably looks familiar. The next almanac was produced in Philadelphia by Anthony Armbruster in the 1750's and 1760's, and it's called [foreign language]. It first was produced by Armbruster in Philadelphia and after his death by Francis Bailey in Lancaster. Armbruster was supported by Benjamin Franklin. Not only with advice but in particular with money, as we can see on the contract between the two concerning a loan Franklin gave to Armbruster. The example we see here is from the year 1753, and as we can observe, it defers in many ways from the almanac we have seen so far. At the first sight, this almanac has little in common with the ones we saw before. A lot of different scenes are taking place, and as we have done before, I want to start with what is happening at the front. We have two people who look like they are arriving in a country. The one in front looks like a typical gentleman of that time, and we have seen something comparable before when we look at the almanac of Saur. It appears to be a European, and it's looking in the direction of the countryside in front of him, which lies on the right-hand side. He seems to cover his eyes, and in his left hand he holds a book, which is open. Behind him, we spot what appears to be a woman depicted like, and I have to put as many hyphens up as I can, Indians are from time to time depicted in European images of that time. She is barefoot and wears no shirt, and she appears to have [inaudible] around her body and ankles. A rider seems to approach both, offering them a paper on which is written calendar in German. In contrast to the content of the [foreign language], the rider indicates that the almanac contains information which are far more topical than the news delivered from [foreign language]. Another hint given by the rider could indicate that the intended audience of the almanac in contrast to the [foreign language], which was considered an almanac for common people or peasants, the rider could be seen as an indicator that the almanac was designed for a more sophisticated readership, the horse contradicts the snail we have seen on the [foreign language] as a symbol for slowness and also steadiness, and as we have seen it at the cover of Barctus. Behind the rider, we see a few ships along the coast, and on the left side is a ruin and a statue. The ruins though do not strike us like lost cites from precolonial times but rather remind us from idolized ruins we can find in central Europe in the middle of the 18th Century, trying to imitate and idolize to those in Italy and Greece. There are several possible explanations of these ruins, but as they remind us of imagined ruins built south of the alps, it could also be a reference to cultures in Central and South America, again in an idolized way. What makes this slightly more plausible is the village of natives in the background, which is presented to us with a wooden house and an Indian in front of the village only wearing what appears to be a grass skirt and having a bow in his hand. The Indian seems to point in the direction of the city, which can be described as a Christian city in light of the crucifixes on top of some towers or steeples. In the front of the city, we see a fortification. As we know that Armbruster printed in Philadelphia, we now could assume that this is an image of that city, but it does not seem possible to prove this hypothesis. We know that there was a battery in front of Philadelphia down the Delaware River, and Indians were also living west from Philadelphia. We could reach though, the conclusion that we are again seeing Philadelphia on this front cover. But we don't have the same reliable source to prove it as we have with the almanacs from Saur and Miller and the map of Heeb and Scull. Looking into the sky, we have an angle, and not Hermes as we've before, blowing a trumpet from which comes the word [foreign language] or peace. The words coming out of the trumpets were changed from time to time as we have see it in the [foreign language] with the banner over Hermes, but I will come back to this in a few seconds. On the left side, we see the moon, representing the night, and on the right side the sun, representing the day. We also have a zodiac showing us again the beginning of the cycle as we have seen it before. But I want to concentrate on the [foreign language] for a moment. The [foreign language] shows us a man in profile. He is crowned with something looking like a [inaudible] and around him we can read [foreign language], so George II, king of Britain. But let us compare this one from the 1750's with a later version from 1779. What we have here is the same front cover used as Armbruster's death by Francis Bailey, who was printing it in Lancaster and not longer in Philadelphia, and we realized that this is exactly the same image as we have seen before except that the writing around the hatch of George isn't there any longer. And we see beside him the word Washington. [laughter] And the angel proclaims [foreign language], the father of this country. In 1783, though the writing is completely gone and the angel states [foreign language] as Saur's Hermes has shown us on his banner in the 1760's during the French and Indian war, now of course referring to the Revolutionary War. In conclusion, we can see that the front covers of German language almanacs in the British colonies in North America address the wide variety of images, themes and topics. That Philadelphia has such a huge impact on several of these almanacs is understandable considering the important role the city and it's harbor have for immigrants, particularly for immigrants from Germany. Almanacs were widely distributed among German settler, and many, although they were living and working on new land, remembered their homeland and wanted to have something familiar to read. It is not a coincidence that all the almanacs presented today defer in their appearance from the ones printed in English, as we have seen for instance looking on Franklin's Poor Richard. The collection to the origins of German American settlers can be grasped in many of those pictures, referring to German heritage not only with the use of German language but also quoting images from almanacs printed in German territories. But interestingly enough, the images offered to us by those almanacs, whether in fact it's Philadelphia or the coast with Indians and ruins are all leading the settlers in one direction, into America. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> We have time for a couple of questions, and then people are invited to come and take a look at the various scenes in Philadelphia in manuscript. You can understand why it is such a joy to them in our reading room because you could remained occupied with one almanac for hours. >> Alexander Knirim: Is this an invitation or? >> Absolutely. >> Alexander Knirim: Oh, okay. >> So if you have questions, please raise your hand. >> I was struck by the amount of British imagery that appeared in the ship, where the [inaudible] coming off the ship, there's a [inaudible] in the background, and then of course later as he's coming out, George II is given a prominent place. What can we learn from that about the sense of identity in these communities, and these were obviously people who were still very connected to their German heritage, and yet they [inaudible] symbols of the Britishness in their depicture. >> Alexander Knirim: They most certainly do. So what happens is, that is the main question of the whole project I'm working on is the question, what are those settlers feeling like. So they obviously are not any longer German, but they are mostly referred to as citizens of the British crown, and they saw themselves as well as such citizens, but the reference of the Germaness is mostly an outside perspective so many people refer to them, many British people refer to them as the Germans, on the other hand among themselves they were far more discussing what really they are, but it's true, they are often, when they speak to a [inaudible] and also to other people referring to themselves as people of the British crown. And Saur, for instance, was very supportive at the beginning of the Revolutionary War of the British side and not from the ones of the revolution years. So that is, that is why that is so common [inaudible] as well a lot of British ships which were used to bring over German settlers. >> Alexander Knirim: But the German crown, [inaudible] British crown is German. Everyone from Wartenberg would contradict that pretty much, yeah. So that is the whole problem we have to address when we talk about that time, we have no Germaness. So and then people from Anova, it's not the same as someone from Prussia, and from Wartenberg, or from Bavaria, so there were various lines, and language is one binding part of it but not the only one. >> But the [inaudible] of the German states was according to the religion of the ruler, and the Germans are much more, you know, akin to the rule, and if the ruler is the crown, there is risk to the ruler who is the crown. I mean the Germans are, you know, very, very much into who is in charge. >> Alexander Knirim: Yes, they are, and the [foreign language] from 1555, which you're referring to, is an act of law, which actually made some people move because the religion changed sometimes. >> Exactly. >> Alexander Knirim: But I would contradict that as someone from Wartenberg or from Bavaria would see a king from Anova sitting on the British throne as his ruler, I would contradict that. >> Because they were able to get out of Wartenberg because of the [inaudible]. >> Alexander Knirim: Saur did. >> Yes, they were able to get out because of the machinations within the crown and the fact that they were getting them, the Protestants, to Pennsylvania. >> Alexander Knirim: Yes. That is another part of the story of why William Penn is so important and the Dutch people are so important as well, but as said before, someone who lives in Wartenberg, he probably could be aware of the ruler of Britain, but that is not for him a way of being attached to him in any way. >> May I [inaudible]. >> Alexander Knirim: Yeah? >> Just say I'm [inaudible] and very curious about the idea of the lame messenger. >> Alexander Knirim: Yeah. >> Could you tell us a little bit more about this idea of a snail in the messaging. >> Alexander Knirim: So as I said, when a messenger comes up after the 30's Years War when part of Central Europe are, yeah, destroyed, and wounded and maimed soldiers are use, the snail is also as the hare is a reference for fast news, the snail is a reference for steadiness, you can rely on those informations because they travelled so slowly that when they would be wrong, the information would have got to you probably before the actual information had reached you, so that is why it was so important and what we can see at least when we look at those in German and France, that those were then created also for not so wealthy people, we can see that from the information given within the almanac. So it was more information of how to harvest corn, for instance, and not so much on [inaudible] questions and anything else. >> I'm going to ask the last question, and then we'll make time for people to have a chance to see the material. This is more about the production of the pieces. From what they look like, they look like woodcuts, yes. Have you ever seen, are the dates and the lettering done with [inaudible] are they dropping the dates of the almanac in type for one year and then, so that balloon that says 1779 or whatever [inaudible]. >> Alexander Knirim: It's mostly spared and then put there afterwards, yeah, so they can use the same font cover over and over again without-- >> Making it a double impression-- >> Alexander Knirim: Yes, exactly. >> I think [inaudible]. >> Alexander Knirim: So the space is there, and then they can print it in. >> Uh-huh. So I think, let's first thank our speaker and then-- [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.