The Mass Produced Calendar – 30th October, 2016

I realize that there is a lot to research with regards to my calendar. Therefore, rather than do minimal research on a broad range of topics, I think I will instead focus on one or two of my major points and delve into how they contribute to our class discussion on wilderness. Still, in order to be thorough, I need to touch on the others that I do not explore. The very concept of a paper calendar is, in and of itself, an interesting idea. It is a highly commoditized item that, really, in today’s world is not a necessity when we have constant access to digital calendars. The addition of the Group of Seven’s works of art, and indeed, any image onto a calendar, is an attempt to give calendars value and visual appeal. Without these, the calendar would merely be a numbered grid on nice pieces of paper.

            I tried to find an academic paper or book on the history of printed calendars through the UVic library and google scholar to provide a historical context on why they became popular but to no avail. So, I just googled “History of Printed Calendar” and came across a blog post from the CalendarClub UK website from January 8^th, 2012. According to the post, the oldest printed calendar the writer was able to locate was from China in the year 877. The onset of the printing press lead to the widespread availability of the printed calendar. It wasn’t until 1909, Joseph Salmon made the first set of calendars that resemble what we now know as wall calendars – images and dates combined in a flip-book format (“The History of Printed Calendars”).

            We know that keeping track of time has been an integral part of human nature throughout our evolution. What this blog post makes clear, however, is that this urge to track time has been accompanied by images – things that we deem beautiful – for centuries. Since images were introduced to calendars, these time-trackers have become a household staple, with anything from weekly family planners, inspirational quotes, and, indeed, famous works of art, adorning our living rooms, bedrooms and fridges.