A graphic designer, illustrator, and cartoonist, Charles Forbell was a staff artist for the New York World as well as a regular contributor to magazines including Life and Judge, where he created series including "In Ye Goode Old Days" (Life) as well as "In Ancient Times" and "Ancient Sources of Modern Inventions" (Judge) throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century. Forbell also created the short-lived newspaper comic "Naughty Pete" in 1913.

07.02.09     Comments (1)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

Filled with photographs of herself, her friends and family members, Zelda Fitzgerald's scrapbook is playful, even giddy: one has the impression that Zelda Fitzgerald was always in some kind of flurry of activity — dancing, painting, writing, playing. Even her captions read as though they were intended for dramatic effect — which they probably were. The scrapbook itself was produced during some of Fitzgerald's liveliest and most productive years, but these were also the years in which the tension between her professed wish to be a "new" woman and the fact that her efforts were essentially dwarfed by her husband's career made for extraordinary personal (and interpersonal) conflict. She was hospitalized following a breakdown in 1930, and spent the remainder of her life in and out of psychiatric hospitals. While it is unclear whether she continued to contribute to her scrapbook during these later and difficult years, it is easy to imagine the degree to which she benefited along the way from the incomplete, fragmented nature of scraps.

(Special Collections, Princeton University Library.)

07.01.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

The scrapbook made by Marybelle Harn, a college student at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, included a dense yet rather artfully composed series of collages made from printed and eclectic materials—including (but not limited to) copious numbers of ticket stubs, postage stamps and candy wrappers. She was also a capable hand-letterer.

06.30.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

Billed as the first record book especially for adopted children, All About You commences with the day the adopted child formally enters his or her new home. Written by an adoptive parent and featuring an introduction by the Executive Director of the New England Home for Little Wanderers, the book came packaged with an information booklet with articles addressing "Why, When and How The Adoption Story Should Be Told."

06.29.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

By the Second World War, scrapbooks were more commonplace both at home and abroad. Publishers provided extensive instructions for how to produce a scrapbook: at once infantilizing ("Use large picture to begin the story") and ludicrous ("fill book with cartoons if story runs short.") these comparatively primer-style lessons on graphic design persisted throughout and beyond the duration of the War. Copious space for listing detailed activity in wartime did little to lessen the otherwise goofy spirit of many scrapbooks from this era. While overtly fawning in their praise of the steadfast soldier, these books were punctuated with cartoon spot illustrations and given comical titles ("G'I've Been Around") to diminish an otherwise sober topic: memories of the war.

06.26.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

The culture of "stunts" was a particular social oddity during the Jazz Age, and included such things as flagpole sitting and dance marathons, though simpler fare (sometimes characterized as jokes and frolics) were also part of this enduring ritual of silliness. Party favors often included fortunes, typically written in rhyming couplets or prose, as in this example taken from Elinor Moses' Stunt Book: "Oer a long-haired artist, you will lose your heart; you may wish to wed him; he's wedded to his art." Other party favors included trinkets and tricks to be performed. Later in the century, punch cards offered the same service, with rolled-up challenges waiting to be released upon the puncture of a pencil tip.

06.25.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

Agnes Medill, who never married, lived all 98 years of her life in Delaware, where she appears to have been devoted to the young men and women she met through the Boys and Girls Clubs, many of which she helped to organize. (During the 1918 school year alone, Medill organized at least fifteen clubs throughout Delaware schools, in such towns as Newport, Bridgeville, Stanton, Black Swamp, Redden, Georgetown, Greenwood, Townsend, Welsh Tract, Harrington, Newark, and Wilmington.) Her scrapbook is filled with photographs captioned in her own hand, and a robust assortment of news clippings reveals what appears to have been a sustained interest in reform, efficiency, and modernization. (She was also partial to domestic science.) Agnes was also active in some of the first 4H Clubs in the State of Delaware, and was an early advocate for sustainable farming practices: working with the United States Department of Agriculture, she lobbied on the importance of food conservation for the War effort.

06.24.09     Comments (2)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

Mary Hale Martin was a nutritionist for Libby whose book includes advice, statistics and space for immunization records along with an advertisement for Libby's Spinach. Gertrude I. Thomas was Instructor in Dietetics at University of Minnesota, and her "Adventure" book was an attempt to portray the epicurean experiences of the fictional Anabil "to present the food problems of the young mother in the order in which they arrive." The book also includes a page for Baptism details (or, as in the case of the book above, the baby's briss,) for baby's foot, thumb and hand prints; a weight and height chart and plenty of space for photographs.

06.23.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

Like the domestic mindset that dominated the purview of most Victorian-era women, memory books at mid-century often reflected the aspirations of the aspiring homemaker. My Graduation is punctuated with detailed illustrations of flatware styles, replacing the more classic scrapbook convention of inspirational quotes or ornamental flourishes. As if to further emphasize the exalted value of domestic achievement, the owner of one such book later reviewed and annotated the photographs in it, so that each classmate's marital status was duly recorded. Her own ambition is listed proudly, too: Housewife.

06.22.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit

Two oversized scrapbooks published in the 1940s employed a similar organizational system of including pre-printed envelopes instead of actual pages to be filled in. As the notion of privacy grew in popularity — locked diaries would become commonplace by the 1950s — scrapbooks grew to include these kinds of hidden compartments for papers and personal miscellany.

06.19.09     Comments (0)     digg | del.ic.io.us | reddit