WI: An "American Republican Calendar?"

What if soon after the American revolution, the new United States adopted a new calendar similar to the French Republican Calendar?

It must use the signings of the Declaration of Independence as "day one year one". It must use ten hour days, ten day weeks, and 30 day months, with five additional days at the end of the year. Six every leap year.

How long would it last? How would it effect the culture of the United States?

ArKhan said:

What if soon after the American revolution, the new United States adopted a new calendar similar to the French Republican Calendar?

It must use the signings of the Declaration of Independence as "day one year one". It must use ten hour days, ten day weeks, and 30 day months, with five additional days at the end of the year. Six every leap year.

How long would it last? How would it effect the culture of the United States?

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Considering the US is one of the only western country to still use the Imperial system, you would have to get the government to adopt metric first.

I can't recall the exact phrasing, since this is going back to my school days for a topic I don't explore myself, but the difference between the America revolution and the French revolution is that the American revolution was much more conservative than the French revolution, which was very radical. If you wish, you can call the American revolution outright conservative: the order was maintained, social strata et al, the difference being that it was no longer British, rejected royalism, and adopted democracy. The French revolution overthrew everything. It could be compared to the Communist revolutions in that regard of trying to change how everything existed overnight, and trying to alter human nature and nature itself. And that of course doesn't work, not necessarily because of the idealism of the revolution, but because things are so often a certain way just because that's how they work out or work best. The laws of nature make things fall into a niche where they fit and things work with them. When they're tinkered with, the fallout and repercussions show that they were a certain way for a reason. The French Republican calender is one of those things.

The only way I could see the calender thing is with a radical American revolution. The issue then being how to get a radical revolution in America.

Possible names for months?
1. "Independence" (July 4 to August 2)
2. "Liberty" (August 3 to September 2)
3. "Happiness" (September 3 to October 3)
4. "Republic" (October 4 to November 3)
5. "Democracy" (November 4 to December 4)
6. "Union" (December 5 to January 4)

The entire smacks too much of an overweening power of the government to ever be supported by Americans. The American Revolution was founded on the ideas of the British Enlightenment. It was very Lockean.

The French Revolution though was very Roussean whose ideas of the "General Will" were much more totalitarian. The French revlutionaries (Jacobins particularly) didn't just want a change in government, but to profoundly change their society.

The only way an American calendar could commence is if private citizens began using the date (perhaps by one of the larger newspapers), and it somehow became fashionable and more people began using it. I really find it difficult to believe it would ever become dominant. Most likely it is only a fad and ends up being abandoned before the government ever adopts it for their own recordkeeping (and even if the government did, it would not be able to pass legislation to make the use of it mandatory).

Blackfox5 said:

The entire smacks too much of an overweening power of the government to ever be supported by Americans. The American Revolution was founded on the ideas of the British Enlightenment. It was very Lockean.

The French Revolution though was very Roussean whose ideas of the "General Will" were much more totalitarian. The French revlutionaries (Jacobins particularly) didn't just want a change in government, but to profoundly change their society.

The only way an American calendar could commence is if private citizens began using the date (perhaps by one of the larger newspapers), and it somehow became fashionable and more people began using it. I really find it difficult to believe it would ever become dominant. Most likely it is only a fad and ends up being abandoned before the government ever adopts it for their own recordkeeping (and even if the government did, it would not be able to pass legislation to make the use of it mandatory).

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While the "British Enlightenment vs. Totalitarian Rousseau" bit should really be nuanced a bit, I tend agree.
In the context of Revolutionary America, the main point about a new calendar would be "why bother?".

To go off what Norton said, the ARW was not so much a revolution as a pure independence struggle. A lot of the societal foundations and forms of government were already well meshed into the future US. It's why things were relatively stable in transitioning toward forming a country of their own.

To accomplish a sort of motive for a radical reforming of society, you would need a POD that alters British colonial society or some other figure that's as popular as Washington with radical ideas that would have the political clout to centralize the states. In a lot of ways the US formed through cooperation, which doesn't lend well toward the shenanigans that occurred in France. The closest ideology I can think of would be some form of Deism that seeks to utterly transform colonial society in the aftermath of independence.

othyrsyde said:

To go off what Norton said, the ARW was not so much a revolution as a pure independence struggle. A lot of the societal foundations and forms of government were already well meshed into the future US. It's why things were relatively stable in transitioning toward forming a country of their own.

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Well, to be fair, a degree of revolutionary rhetoric was there. But yes, in general it was not really about changing the world to the deep root.

ArKhan said:

Possible names for months?
1. "Independence" (July 4 to August 2)
2. "Liberty" (August 3 to September 2)
3. "Happiness" (September 3 to October 3)
4. "Republic" (October 4 to November 3)
5. "Democracy" (November 4 to December 4)
6. "Union" (December 5 to January 4)

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I'd recommend doing like the French calendar and actually making up words to avoid confusion ("come back in happiness or perhaps in mid-liberty").

an exemple using as template the French calendar but with Anglo-Saxon roots instead of latin:

winter
1- sleetary
2- snowary
3- coldary

spring
4- saedil
5- blaedil
6- baeril

summer
7- sowly
8- haetely
9- waestemly

autumn
10- feallettanber
11- fogber
12- Forstber

I can see, if Republican extremism becomes stronger, a new calendar being adopted with 1776 as the "Year 1". But since Thomas Jefferson would likely be a major player in the adoption of such a calendar, there is no way we would see anything so irrational and impractical as ten hour days, ten day weeks, and thirty day months. Jefferson, being Jefferson, would lock himself up in Monticello for a few months and emerge with the most carefully designed and rigorously thought out calendar the world has ever seen, corresponding with every astronomer and almanac-maker on both sides of the Atlantic while thinking the whole thing through.

I really don't see this as remotely plausible within the confines of the culture of the American Revolution, unless you go back and change quite a bit. I think Sowell describes the differences between the American and French Revolutions well enough when he describes them as Constrained and Unconstrained, respectively. In short, the Americans are just too Burkean for this sort of thing to fly.

As others have pointed out: this is not very likely, considering the differing natures of the American and French revolutions. The two most likely (prominent) supporters of such a thing would be Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine - and neither advocated anything like it IOTL.

Anaxagoras already noted that Jefferson would never go for decimal time measurement: it was just utterly impractical. You can get the decimal system for standardized weights and measurements adopted. Jefferson proposed this IOTL, and a more radical America could go for it.

In addition, it was common in the early USA to prefix acts of Congress with statements like "in the year seventeen-eighty-one, and the fifth year of American Independency..." -- that practice could well continue, making 1776 a sort of 'new beginning'. But I don't see it replacing the existing calendar. The American revolution was generally too moderate for such things to find any substantial enthousiasm. Even a 'more radical' revolution would still not lead to that kind of change.

Widukind said:

As others have pointed out: this is not very likely, considering the differing natures of the American and French revolutions. The two most likely (prominent) supporters of such a thing would be Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine - and neither advocated anything like it IOTL.

Anaxagoras already noted that Jefferson would never go for decimal time measurement: it was just utterly impractical. You can get the decimal system for standardized weights and measurements adopted. Jefferson proposed this IOTL, and a more radical America could go for it.

In addition, it was common in the early USA to prefix acts of Congress with statements like "in the year seventeen-eighty-one, and the fifth year of American Independency..." -- that practice could well continue, making 1776 a sort of 'new beginning'. But I don't see it replacing the existing calendar. The American revolution was generally too moderate for such things to find any substantial enthousiasm. Even a 'more radical' revolution would still not lead to that kind of change.

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Dunno. A new Era (as opposed to a new calendar) that picks 1776 as year 1 but leaves everything else as it is might be doable.

Falecius said:

Dunno. A new Era (as opposed to a new calendar) that picks 1776 as year 1 but leaves everything else as it is might be doable.

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I believe that such a dating system is still used on official governmental documents, like a presidential order, etc. Bascially 'from the founding of the Republic'.

Ab Res Publica Condita?

This is interesting. Are there any other cases where there was an attempt to change the calendar and time-keeping units for an attempt on social engineering?

AddisonTheIndomitable said:

This is interesting. Are there any other cases where there was an attempt to change the calendar and time-keeping units for an attempt on social engineering?

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North Korea comes to mind.

With a new calender there could be an American new year type of thing.

David S Poepoe said:

I believe that such a dating system is still used on official governmental documents, like a presidential order, etc. Bascially 'from the founding of the Republic'.

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I think the usual wording is "the year of Our Lord the XXXX and of the independence of the United States the H-hundred and T-ty D-th". For instance the Constitution is dated "the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance [sic] of the United States of America the Twelfth"

So maybe we'd abbreviate this year as IUSA 238.
Personally I prefer the Holocene Era.

Anaxagoras said:

I can see, if Republican extremism becomes stronger, a new calendar being adopted with 1776 as the "Year 1". But since Thomas Jefferson would likely be a major player in the adoption of such a calendar, there is no way we would see anything so irrational and impractical as ten hour days, ten day weeks, and thirty day months. Jefferson, being Jefferson, would lock himself up in Monticello for a few months and emerge with the most carefully designed and rigorously thought out calendar the world has ever seen, corresponding with every astronomer and almanac-maker on both sides of the Atlantic while thinking the whole thing through.

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There is nothing irrational or impractical with ten hour days and ten day weeks. In fact it is in line with the metric system of measurements, which is the most rational and practical system. Time is the only important area where metric system of measurement was not introduced.