Benjamin Franklin and the Poor Richard Ephemeris.

Benjamin Franklin had become a successful publisher with his printing of the Pennsylvania Gazette, but his second most profitable venture was the Poor Richard Ephemeris. There were many aspects of the ephemeris that were not written by Franklin himself like the aphorisms, which were quite popular.

To what degree Franklin was an astrologer is difficult to determine, for practicing astrology was deemed a practice akin to witchcraft in that era. The Acts against witchcraft of 1542 and 1563 made it possible for an astrologer to be prosecuted. Many people paid a stiff price especially when their predictions were political in nature. Buckingham's John Lamb was stoned to death in 1628 and it was not uncommon for a frenzied mob to riot and destroy property at the mention of satanic astrological witchcraft being practiced. Franklin was steeped in the politics of his era, thus making the marriage of astrology and politics not only controversial, but exceedingly dangerous. Luckily, the populace of the 1600's and 1700's  did not readily make the connection between astronomy and astrology, or math itself may have been deemed illegal. Almanacs seemed to be the only literary device that could be openly exposed to the public for its emphasis was for industry, farming, meteorology, and the all important duty of feeding the populace.

Franklin wrote:

In 1732 I first published my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continu’d by me about 25 Years, commonly call’d Poor Richard’s Almanack. I endeavor’d to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such Demand that I reap’d considerable Profit from it, vending annually near ten Thousand. . . . I consider’d it as a proper Vehicle for conveying Instruction among the common People, who bought scarcely any other Books. I therefore filled all the little Spaces that occur’d between the Remarkable Days in the Calendar, with Proverbial Sentences, chiefly such as inculcated Industry and Frugality, as the Means of procuring Wealth and thereby securing Virtue, it being more difficult for a Man in Want to act always honestly, as (to use here one of those Proverbs) it is hard for an empty Sack to stand upright.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

                                                                         1758