The Night Full of Stars

[Sam Talley]

                                                         The Night full of Stars

We’ve all laid out on a clear night and looked at the moon and stars. And I’m sure the pioneers did also. But what did their limited resource books allow them to know? Has anyone got access to school books of the mid-1800s that discuss the moon and stars?  

[Murray A. Gewirtz]

         "Last night as I lay on the prairie

          And gazed at the stars in the sky

          I wondered if ever a cowboy

          Could drift to that sweet by and by.

 

          Roll on, roll on

          Roll on little dogies,

          Roll on, roll on;

          Roll on, roll on

          Roll on little dogies,

          Roll on."

The Cowboy's Dream

[Sam Talley]

That's the cowboy I was thinking about. But how much did he know?

[Ralph Bernklow]

Those people lived by the seasonal changes. If you didn't know about the sun, moon, and the stars, you could starve!!

[Sue Cauhape]

This is just a supposition, but I doubt if the average person knew about supernovae or asteroids. Crab nebula, anyone?

[anthony martin]

  Sam,

    Your average almanac had lots of useful information that was astronomically related and most was for practical application.I have two books on astronomy,one printed in England in the 1850's and another printed here in the early 1870's so a surprising amount of pretty accurate knowledge was available.I'd venture to say that given the widespread use of almanacs then the average Joe probably had more "practical"if basic smarts about movement of the heavenly bodies than many current folks.

     Sue,

       You commented "Crab nebula anyone?"Can I have Lobster Newburgh instead?

[Sue Cauhape]

With butter or a wine sauce? 

You're right about the almanacs. Farmers and ranchers didn't live without them. But I'm wondering what was available to the kids in the schools, both urban and those little one-room schoolhouses. There may have been good accurate information in astronomy books of the time, but did they get widely circulated to the masses. And could the masses read well enough. We take reading material, in all forms, so much for granted. Any information is available at the click of a mouse or leafing through a book, but then, both reading material and literacy was spotty at best.

[anthony martin]

  Sue,

    If my increasingly alarmed observations are consistently the case in Western Europe and North America it seems that literacy is currently"spotty at best".It's rather scary out there!

   Have you ever looked through old McGuffy readers and Ray's Arithmetics?There's some pretty literate and or practical  material there.I collect old 19th century school texts and am impressed with the material.Oh,and I'll take that lobster any way you choose to prepare it.

   As for almanacs even kids were taught early on to reference them.

     I will also add that even in rather small schools a great deal of material was taught.This was a time when the average 19th century mind embraced the pace of discovery and new development with open arms as it was viewed then in a very positive light.The magazines and newspapers were full of it and the average mail order house then stocked an amazing variety of printed material that catered to this thirst for knowledge.

[Sam Talley]

I'm not a country boy so I hardly ever heard mention of the Farmer's Almanac except when the TV weatherman wasn't too sure of himself and would say "according to the Farmer's ........". Those days were back in the 1950-60s. Now they got all the science and satelites. How do the old Farmer's forcasts bear up nowadays?

[Stan H]

I can recall during a vist to my father's uncle on his farm in Oklahoma back in 1948, every night after supper he would take down the Farmer's Almanac and check to see what the next day would bring. I don't think the man went to the outhose without the Almanac also. It was read more in that old farmhouse than the Bible, which was third, behind the Sears catalogue.

 

Funny how some memories stay with us. I had not thought of this for along time, but this discussion brought it back.

 

 

[Sue Cauhape]

Martin, I see your point. Frankly, I'd like to return to those kind of school days. From what you describe, the children learned "how to learn," and then they were allowed to do it. And the books available seemed to be quality material. Or is that the rosy view of 20-20 hindsight? It seems that despite the mountains of educational materials in all media, we're having trouble sorting out the gems from the dross. 

Speaking of lobsters, there's a great little restaurant in Mina, NV that specializes in lobster. I'll check out my google sources for more information on "the Great Lobster War."