A Divinity for All Persuasions: Almanacs and Early American Religious Life by T. J. Tomlin (review)

“First Frogs Peep’d,” a Massachusetts farmer wrote sideways along the margins of his copy of Nathaniel Ames’s An Astronomical Diary; or, An Almanack for the Year of our Lord Christ 1759. “I Sarv’d Grand Jurior at the Superior Court,” went another terse entry. “At Night then fell a Snow near Knee deep Level.” “Capt. Ralph Wheelocks Wife Died.” Valuable for their data on the early American environment, economy, politics, society, and family, these quirky—even quaint—colonial texts seldom provide the sustained religious content found in the introspective diaries and journals of prominent figures such as Francis Asbury or Sarah Osborn, the subjects of two outstanding recent biographies. And the seemingly vapid “filler” (12) content—a wide range of borrowed or penned maxims, poems, essays, and humorous anecdotes—that surrounded the annual calendar pages has rarely been considered on its own and almost never examined for its religious significance.¹

This is the uncharted terrain into which T. J. Tomlin ventures in his concise, beautifully written, painstakingly researched, and carefully argued monograph, A Divinity for All Persuasions. Based on a close reading of nearly two thousand almanacs published from 1730 to 1820, Tomlin contends that this “most ubiquitous genre” of the early American book trade was “amiably interwoven” (1) with vital religious themes. Almanacs reveal an unexpected “pan-Protestant sensibility” (1) that remained largely “unaffected by and unconcerned with” (8) the maelstrom of ecclesiastical conflicts that marked the long eighteenth century. Beyond the fractious marketplace of denominational competition created by the rise of early evangelicalism lay a more pervasive popular piety rooted in reason, straightforward Protestant doctrines, and commonsense morality.

Tomlin’s book begins with a lucid overview of the methods employed by the compilers, philomaths, and printers who collaborated to produce almanacs and of the robust marketplace that by 1800 was publishing enough of them to place a copy in every household in the young United States. Almanac makers including Benjamin Franklin lured readers with filler designed for “instruction as well as amusement” (24). They carefully selected non-calendar content that they believed would resonate with their readers. Since so much filler emphasized religious themes, almanacs quickly developed into a “barometer of public opinion” (28) on matters of ordinary and ultimate concern.

The main chapters move briskly through thematic discussions of astrology, death and dying, morality and religious authority, Catholicism, and world religions. Compilers crammed their almanacs with “natural,” rather than “judicial” (30), astrological content; plumbing the occult or “hidden” (32) workings of nature, they sought to educate readers on the sympathetic movement of celestial bodies that revealed God’s work in creation. Extending earlier studies by Carolyn Merchant and Richard Godbeer, Tomlin argues convincingly that, far from being a subversive form of folk religion, almanac astrology drew readers into the “genre’s larger pan-Protestant logic and structure” (53).² Almanacs also reinforced prevailing attitudes toward death and judgment, even as they heralded new ideas about heaven as a place of reunion with friends and loved ones that would come to dominate American culture during the decades leading up to the Civil War.³

Almanac filler presumed a deep biblical literacy among readers. Compilers regularly promoted a rational faith, carefully avoided theological debates, and enjoined their audiences to be wary of impassioned religious “enthusiasm” (116). Although virulently anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic and overtly hostile to atheism, almanac makers nonetheless catered to the reading public’s fascination with exotic non-Christian religions. Much of what passed for authoritative information on Hinduism and Islam devolved into lurid stories of bizarre and often violent religious beliefs and practices. But these same reports appearing in almanac filler could also be turned around to support arguments in favor of a “universalizing natural religion” (156) available to all people.

Tomlin devotes only occasional attention to the manuscript marginalia and interleaved diary pages that regularly appeared in almanacs. Beyond...