Confessions books, common at the turn of the last century, were the likely progenitors of Slam Books: the idea in each was to poll one's friends and classmates on a variety of topics, from the banal favorite color, fruit, girl's or boy's name, for example to the prurient, truth-or-dare type questions that pique the hormone-forward curiosity of so many middle-and high-schoolers. Like memory books and scrapbooks, these informal polls tell us a great deal about the values and social mores of a generation now long gone. Regular readers of
The Daily Scrapbook may recall similar examples in
Kitty Baker's scrapbook, where both she and her friends duly recorded their favorite screen stars , for example. (Mary Pickford loomed large!) For more on the culture of the Victorian Confession Album, see: Matthews, Samantha: “Psychological Crystal palace? Late Victorian Confession Albums.”
Book History 3 (2000): 125-154
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