About Scrapbooks: The Documentary
Executive Producers: Noreen Morioka and William Drenttel
Director: Grady Candler
Best Boy: Teddy Blanks
Host: Jessica Helfand
Thomas Jefferson kept scrapbooks, and so did Mark Twain, Anne Sexton and Lillian Hellman — yet contemporary "scrapbooking" is a soaring, $2.6 million market — a world of scrap 'n' spa retreats, "croppin' cruises," craft supplies and trade shows. Scrapbooks today inhabit a radically new universe: it's an entirely new way of marking time, and this film shows how, where and why these crafted legacies have grown into a fascinating national obsession.
Parties interested in funding development of this project should contract Noreen Morioka at Noreen_m@adamsmorioka.com.
A New Book by Jessica HelfandComing this fall from Yale University Press
A gorgeous visual history of American scrapbooks and their evolution over two hundred years. 242 pages, 425 photographs printed in full color.
Combining pictures, words, and a wealth of personal ephemera, scrapbook makers preserve on the pages of their books a moment, a day, or a lifetime. Highly subjective, rich in emotional meaning, the scrapbook is a unique and often quirky form of expression in which a person gathers and arranges meaningful materias to create a personal narrative. This richly illustrated book is the first to focus close attention on the history of American scrapbooks—their origins, their makers, their diverse forms, the reasons for their popularity, and their place in American cultural life.
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The New York Times June 8, 2008
In this Op-Ed page SUMMERSCAPES, Jessica Helfand reflects on the fascinating "Stunt" Book kept by a young California debutante in the summer of 1920.
more news ->
came from a distinguished family in Natchitoches, Louisiana. She kept a detailed scrapbook of her adventures that profiles life in the south during the 1920s.
go to
lydia blanchard website ->