The American Anti-Slavery Almanac
The Anti-Slavery Record for 1835 had very little mathematics or data of any type. The
edition included abolitionist articles such as “The Flogging of Women”, “Mr. Weld’s Address”
and “Facts from Kentucky.” The only mathematics that appears in the first edition is a list of
receipts for the organization on the back cover. In the 1838 Almanac, just three years after the
previous publication, articles and drawings are scattered between mathematical data. One of
these articles is called “Abolition – A religious enterprise.” Also among data, we see several
abolitionist drawings, including one entitled “Young Horse Racers torturing a free citizen for
Amusement.” The mathematics begins with information on the tides. There are tables with tides
at Boston. To calculate the tides in other locations one only had to add or subtract a certain value
in another chart. Also, this almanac had information about the eclipses for the year. One article,
“Equation of Time,” discussed clock-time noon versus sun-time noon. There were also weather
forecasts for all twelve months of the year (example: “Warm with rain”).
The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1839 was very similar to that for 1838.
However, now mathematics was applied to rates of postage as well:
1 letter
<1 oz
Newspapers
<30 miles
30-80 miles
80-150 miles
150-400 miles
>400 miles
6 cents
10 cents
12 ½ cents
18 ¾ cents
25 cents
<100 miles/within state
>100 miles
1 ½ cents per sheet
2 ½ cents per sheet
In The American Anti-Slavery Almanac from 1838 to 1839 the most noticeable difference is the
use of mathematics in politics. For instance, the political register was set up in a chart with many
symbols representing bills that each politician voted for. For example, the symbol “†” next to a
politician’s name meant that he voted for Pinckney’s gag resolution. Charts and tables were also
used to keep track of the majority in the political register.
Year
North
South
Majority
1789
35
30
5
1793
57
65
12
1803 1813
77 103
65
79
12
24
1819
105
81
24
1823
124
90
34
1833 1839
141 142
99 100
42
42
As is evident by the dramatic changes in the almanac from 1835 to 1839, the publishers of The
Anti-Slavery Almanac used mathematics to promote their abolitionist views and to show that
there were scientific supporters of abolition.
Kristen Kell
February 9, 2004
Source: N. Southard, ed., The American Anti-Slavery Almanac, D. K. Hitchcock: Boston, for
1835, 1838, and 1839.