![]() ![]() The writing of this unknown author informs us of two things: we have had New Year’s resolutions for over 200 years, and people in the early 19 th century-much like those today-used them as an excuse for misbehavior up to New Year's Eve. #New year resolutioners full#The full phrase is found in the January 1 st issue of a Boston newspaper from 1813, in a short article titled “The Friday Lecture”:Īnd yet, I believe there are multitudes of people, accustomed to receive injunctions of new year resolutions, who will sin all the month of December, with a serious determination of beginning the new year with new resolutions and new behaviour, and with the full belief that they shall thus expiate and wipe away all their former faults. Shortly after this the words new year began to appear before resolution. An article from Walker’s Hibernian Magazine in 1802 states that “the following personages have begun the year with a strong of resolutions, which they all solemnly pledged to keep”, before enumerating a series of obviously fictitious resolutions (“Statesmen have resolved to have no other object in view than the good of their country…the physicians have determined to follow nature in her operations, and to prescribe no more than is necessary, and to be very moderate in their fees.”) Made to Be Broken It was common enough by the beginning of the 19 th century that people would make (and fail to keep) such resolutions that the habit was satirized. ![]() Halkett titled this page “Resolutions”, and wrote them on January 2 nd, which would possibly indicate that the practice was in use at the time, even if people did not refer to it as a New Year’s resolution. A 1671 entry from the diaries of Anne Halkett, a writer and member of the Scottish gentry, contains a number of pledges, typically taken from biblical verses such as “I will not offend any more”. It would appear that New Year's resolutions have existed for quite a long time. Modern lists of resolutions have an interesting antecedent in a 1671 diary Earliest New Year’s Resolution ![]()
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