Foldable Banneker Almanac pdf files. Designed for 18"x12" (folio oversized) paper, and 2-sided printer. Set print settings to "scale to print," "autorotate or flip on the long edge"
Print all sheets.
Fold the sheets. Each sheet needs to be folded in half, twice. Start with the first sheet. Find the title page and arrange the sheet so that the Title Page is in the lower right corner.
First fold: Fold sheet in half, top half under bottom half, and keep the title page in the bottom right corner.
Second fold: Do it again! Fold the sheet in half, left side under right side, and keep the title page in the bottom right corne.
Repeat the process with all sheets in the quarto. Keep them in order, so that the title page sheet stays on top.
Trim & bind: with scissors or a paper cutter, trim the top edge of each folded sheet. To bind, staple or stitch, or use a hole punch and ribbon to tie.
This foldable edition of the 1793 Benjamin Banneker Almanack & Ephemeris uses the digitized version of the almanac available from the Smithsonian Institution, National Musuem of African American History & Culture, and the Digital Volunteers Transcription Center: https://transcription.si.edu/project/8045. The project builds upon the digital humanities project from Illinois State University, "Shakespeare in Sheets," https://about.illinoisstate.edu/ShakespeareinSheets.
This project was inspired in part by the Special Collections Archive at Hornbake Library, https://lib.umd.edu/special, which includes among its holding two almanacs printed by Benjamin Banneker. We use it in conjunction with the extensive collection of almanacs available via the Library of Congress, which includes 152 resources online from 1700-1799 and 14 digitized almancs from 1600-1699 and can be filtered by region. Another set of resources is available via the Internet Archive, which includes many, and also offers a helpful finding guide for this earlier period, the Preliminary Check List of American Almanacs.
The overview below suggests some of the contexts within which this project might be used.