MSS 0093. Commonplaces, Albums, & Scrapbooks

This album bears an inscription on the first page, “For Mother, From Austin, With Kindish Christmas Greetings” and is predominantly comprised of chromolithographic trade cards, many originating from businesses in Philadelphia and St. Louis.

Two scrapbooks chronicling William Franklin Allen's 1937-1938 term in the U. S. House of Representatives for the state of Delaware, as well as his business affairs in Seaford, Delaware.

This friendship album belonged to Sarah Belville of Christiana, Delaware, and contains poems, tributes, and classical quotations from Belville's friends, who sometimes sign or initial, give their location, and date their contributions.

Lester F. Black penned the calling cards in this late nineteenth-century volume of thirty calligraphic samples, as well as a brief note on the final page.

This late Victorian-era scrap album, likely made by a young British boy, bears a black lacquered board cover adorned with a hand-painted bouquet of flowers, ferns, and foliage. Contents include die-cut color scraps of animals, flowers, and a color set of characters from "Ally Sloper," the popular Victorian comic strip. A set of colored transfer prints depict fables and nursery rhymes and a set of color-printed square cards depicts the Stations of the Cross.

This early nineteenth-century British scrapbook features both copied and original riddles and poems. Images included in this collection are political cartoons, fashionable ladies and gentlemen, architecture, animals, birds, flowers and fruit. Thematic arrangements of scraps include virtue, marriage, courtship, mourning and the loss of family members.

The C. B. Cottrell & Sons Co. printing specimens and trade catalogs includes approximately 133 items related to this printing press manufacturer spanning the period 1874 to 1910. Items found in the collection include trade catalogs, advertising cards, broadside and leaflet advertisements, blank stationery, memoranda, ledger sheets, invoices, receipts, and other printing specimens, and other materials related to the business.

This photograph album, which belonged to Robert C. Carter, contains thirty-one black-and-white photographs of the site of the St. Francis Dam disaster in the San Francisquito Canyon, near Los Angeles, California. The photographs were taken in 1928, shortly after the dam's failure. Several pictures contain young Carter and his family posing together or traversing the rocky site.

This Victorian scrap album bears a crossed out name on the inside cover, with the inscription "A present from his dear sister on his birthday Sep 17 Age 2 years 1880." The crossed-out name appears to be Charles Wright. The red and black cover with a gold embossed title "Album," features die-cut color scraps of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, flowers, cherubs, angels, and children; and visiting cards, prayer cards, and devotional cards.

Created by Phyllis G. Chew of Salem, New Jersey, these two scrapbooks of newspaper and magazine clippings document World War I, beginning in August 1914 and ending with the United States's entry in 1917.

This nineteenth-century children's scrapbook bears the initials "A.B." and the date 1891 in cross stitch on a small oval canvas label affixed to a red cloth cover. The scrapbook features both German and English trade cards; collectible scraps of flowers, animals, children, and flowers; visiting cards; New Year cards; color printed cartoons of Grimm fairy tales and rhymes in German; and other color printed images.

Anne Daley attended Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, Delaware, in the 1950s. She kept this autograph album with signatures and inscriptions from her friends during her freshman year, 1956.

This scrapbook of advertisements, trade cards, and collectible ephemera from the 1876 Centennial Exposition was created by Richard W. Davids.

This scrapbook comprises a single volume containing Lynn, Massachusetts, resident Alice Goodsell Dunn's (b. 1874) notes on British literary history and theater playbills collected from productions she attended in and around Boston, Massachusetts, between 1888 and 1897. Many of the playbills are accompanied by Dunn's handwritten notes and reflections on the performances.

This early twentieth-century British children's scrapbook, compiled by an unknown child, contains colorful die-cut scraps and collected images of children, flowers, animals, clowns, pastoral scenes, uniformed British military, folktale characters, depictions of children's games, depictions of Santa Claus, and other Christmas scenes.

Two of the three scrapbooks in this small collection are identified as having been made by Bertha Edgerton of Creston, Lake County, Indiana. The Bertha and Ruth Edgerton scrapbooks, made during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, contain collectible scraps and images from seed packets and catalogs, scrap sets, catalog illustrations and advertisements, and Sunday school cards.

This scrapbook of menu designs was created by French printing house Établissements Artistiques Parisiens in 1935 to showcase the firm's wide range of print styles and graphic designs.

This sketchbook was created by American journalist and author Mary Wager Fisher (d. 1915) and includes full-color drawings and pencil sketches from the 1870s and 1880s. Most of the drawings depict plants observed around Seattle, Washington, but Fisher also included sketches of buildings, household objects, and people observed elsewhere.

This nineteenth-century scrapbook bears the inscription "Freddie Norman Christmas 1878/ 69 Howe St. / City / from Emmie." The scrapbook features color die-cut images of ladies, children, animals, boats, flowers, birds, famous composers, and seashells.

This nineteenth-century scrap album, apparently compiled by a British child named "Fred," contains colorful scraps of animals, children, British sailors in uniform, rowers, flowers, birds, and other decorative items. There are also a number of small printed images, Bible verses, and Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and birthday greeting cards. The cover of this album is embossed black and gold on red cloth in a Japonesque design of the Aesthetic Movement.

This gift book was used as a scrapbook by Lillian Ann Gibbins to commemorate her graduation from St. Elizabeth Academy in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1926.