Scrapbooks and Albums, Theories and Practice:
An Annotated Bibliography

by Danielle Bias, Rebecca Black, and Susan Tucker

This bibliography takes into consideration the scrapbook's context within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We think of the scrapbook and the album as part of an individual response to photography, printing, and the desire to document oneself. Creating one's own web page, for example, is very much in the same tradition as scrapbook-making.

We have included only published works or papers presented at conferences for which proceedings are available. Please let us know of works we missed. See also our links to other cites online.
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-- Abbas, Ackbar. "Walter Benjamin's Collector: The Fate of Modern Experience." New Literary History 20, 1988: 216-236.

This article provides an introduction to the collector as a "dangerous but domesticated person," a metaphor used by such writers as Flaubert, Nietzsche, Conrad, and Fowles. Abbas discusses the rise of the collector from Renaissance Florence through the early twentieth century and then devotes attention to the reception of Benjamin's ideas. For persons interested in scrapbooks, the article helps in locating the relation between past and future, in examining Benjamin's theory on collecting and rewriting, and in setting the stage for any linkage between the person making a scrapbook and the person later (re)viewing it.

-- Allen, Alistair and Joan Hoverstadt. The History of Printed Scraps. London: New Cavendish Books, 1983.

This book presents an overview of the development of paper ephemera from the 1800s to 1930s in Europe and the United States. Production techniques and quality of paper ephemera are examined along with the development of ephemera collection as a hobby, particularly the collection of holiday cards, programs, invitations, and name cards. The greater part of the book is an illustrated catalog of selected scraps.

-- American Antiquarian Society. "Albums" in Under Its Generous Dome: the Collections and Programs of the American Antiquarian Society. Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1992. p. 131.

Within this guide to holdings of the American Antiquarian Society, a brief section is devoted to 80 albums in the Society's collection. As most repository's guides provide access to collections by names of the creators, this listing provides an alternate approach. See also, Gernes, by whom the Society's list was compiled.

-- Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. 1980. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981.

-- Belk, Russell W. and Melanie Wallendorf. "Of Mice and Men: Gender Identity in Collecting" in Susan M. Pearce, ed., Interpreting Objects and Collections. New York, Routledge, 1994.

-- Bennetts, Leslie. "African Dreamer." Vanity Fair 435, November 1996: 206-222.

The diary habit of photographer and artist Peter Beard is tucked within this biographical piece. His diaries are called "overstuffed volumes grotesquely swollen with the detritus of a life, each page densely layered with photographs and an astonishing assortment of other items....." Beard's own comments on these books sound much like many statements on scrapbooks.

-- Blais, Madeleine. "Division of Things Past: An Account of the Making and Unmaking of a Family Album." Lear's 5(11), January 1993: 64-5, 84-5.

This article tells of dividing a family scrapbook among the author and her siblings. Once the photos and other memorabilia were divided, they lost the full impact of their meaning and became misleading. The scrapbook lost its temporal context, seeming to have no logical beginning or end, and presenting an unrealistic picture of a perpetually happy and organized family. The scrapbook taken as a whole illustrated these sentiments along with the often difficult and confusing experiences the siblings faced as a family. Overall, this article provides an personal view on the importance of maintaining scrapbooks intact.

-- Boerdam, Jaap and Martinius, Warna Osterbach. "Family Photographs: A Sociological Approach." The Netherlands Journal of Sociology 16(2), October 1980: 95-120.

This articles examines the social behavior that underlies amateur photography within the family. Types of occasions photographed and reasons why these photographs are taken are examined. The social and technological evolution of family photography is also examined. Many of the authors' observations can be used in evaluating the photographs featured in scrapbooks.

-- Bogardus, Ralph F. "Their Carte de Visite to Prosperity: A Family's Snapshots as Autobiography and Art." Journal of American Culture 4, Spring 1981: 114-33.

This article discusses the photo album of an Alabama family created from 1930 to 1950. The author observes that the photos in this album record the family's increasing financial prosperity. The photo appear to become more conservative and less artistic as the family becomes more affluent. These changes are likely the result of time constraints, changing interests, and the geographic dispersal of the family.

--Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Cult of Unity and Cultivated Difference." In Pierre Bourdieu, et al. Photography: A Middle Brow Art. 1965. Trans. Shaun Whiteside. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1990. 13-72.

-- Boye, Marie-France. "Fragments de Voyages Amoureux." Maison et Jardin, 385: 84-9, July/August, 1992.

This article describes a scrapbook collection containing travel memorabilia. The creators of the scrapbooks, Carole and Jean-Philippe Gauvin, include traditional items such as postcards, maps, and photographs in the albums, as well as watercolors, sketches, and their personal thoughts about their travels.

-- Brunig, Jennifer. "Pages of History: A Study of Newcomb Scrapbooks."Archival and Bibliographic Series of the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women 4, 1993.

Brunig uses Newcomb College scrapbooks to explore the history of academic and social life for women, 1900-1918. Using a chi-square test, she compares expected and actual contents of 11 scrapbooks. She also looks at preservation needs and methods.

-- Bryant, Marsha. Photo-Textualities: Reading Photographs. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996.

This collection of essays explores the intersection of photographs and literary language (particularly in selected documentaries, novels, and hybrid forms of nonfiction), and the implications of such interactions. Marja Warehime's discussion of photography, time, and the surrealist sensibility is particularly helpful to an exploration of the compilation of albums. Stephen Watt's exploration of photographs in biographies considers the plurality of people (in actuality and from the standpoint of the same person at different ages) found in albums. Other essays are helpful in gaining a theoretical grounding in the visual literacy movement and attempts to deconstruct the camera eye of the photographer.

-- Buckler, Patricia Prandini. "A Silent Woman Speaks: the Poetry in a Woman's Scrapbook of the 1840s." Prospects 16(1991): 149-69.

This article discusses poetry contained in the personal memento scrapbook of Ann Elizabeth Buckler, produced from 1832 to 1855. The poetry, both written by Buckler and by poets of her time, examines many of the issues facing antebellum women, including marriage, motherhood, virtue, religion, and politics. The author comments that the scrapbook served not only as one of the few ways women could express themselves but also "as autobiographical testament, recording the life, feelings, ideas and personality of an individual who would otherwise remain anonymous."

-- Buckler, Patricia P. and Kay C. Leeper. "An Antebellum Woman's Scrapbook: An Autobiographical Composition." Journal of American Culture 14(Spring 1991): 1-8.

This article, also on the scrapbook of Ann Elizabeth Buckler, comments on the literary as well as the visual artifacts contained in the scrapbook. The authors also write of Buckler's need for the scrapbook to assist her in better understanding the complicated issues of her life. The visual artifacts and non-poetic writings also bring greater attention to Buckler's more personal concerns for family, friends, and her place in her community.

-- Buday, George C. The History of the Christmas Card. London: Rockliff, 1954; rep 1964, 1992.

-- Bunkers, Suzanne and Cynthia A. Huff, eds. Inscribing the Daily: Critical Essays on Women's Diaries. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.

This compilation of articles will be helpful to those looking at the scrapbook as autobiography and as a form of the diary. Lynn Bloom's article on private diaries as public documents, and Judy Temple's article on fragments are particularly helpful in providing insight into the need to see personal documents as revisions constrained by society and time, as well as creator. Helen Buss' use of the new historicism in understanding private writings also provides a helpful framework for viewing scrapbooks.

-- Burant, Jim. "More Than a File Cabinet: Scrapbooks as Personal Expression." Paper presented at the Society of American Archivist Annual Meeting, 1995.

Arguing that scrapbooks are among the most ubiquitous form of family record keeping, the author traces the history of scrapbooks through an exploration of 4 nineteenth century albums in the National Archives of Canada. The first is that of Lady Faulkand, made during her stay in Nova Scotia as the wife of the colonial governor; the second is that of Carolyn Escort, an amateur artist and officer's wife; the third, Lady Vallow Album, a member of a Quebec family; the fourth, the Thompson album compiled by a female member of the family of the fourth prime minister of Canada. Burant discusses sizes, appearances, and contents and notes that unique views of history are given in these books -- in terms of drawings, other images, as well as moral instruction. He then likens the scrapbook to the visual equivalent to the family phone and the video tape made of family events. His paper provides also insight into the acquisition problems and solutions (provenance and justification within collection policies).

-- Burant, Jim. "Record of an Empire, 1835-1896: The John A. Vesey Kirkland Album." Archivaria 22, Summer 1986: 120-128.

This article provides an account of the provenance and identification of the John A. Vesey Kirkland Album and Burant's research into the life of Kirkland through the album and other research. The article also provides a scholarly look at albums as seen from the viewpoint of archivists.

-- Canfield, Dorothy, and others. What Shall We Do Now? Five Hundred Games and Pastimes: A Book of Suggestions for Children's Games and Employments. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1907

Written for parents and older children, this book is designed to make "resourceful" children out of those needing "counsel and hints" concerning free time. Chapters concern various games -- those for parties, drawing, writing, picnics, outdoors, train rides, sickbeds, and so forth. Scrapbook making is considered an excellent activity for building a spirit of generosity and children are encouraged to make books for children in the hospital. The enthusiastic language and the references to various items to include in scrapbooks reflect on the relative rarity of color printing in the early twentieth century.

-- Chalfen, Richard. "Introduction to the Study of Non-professional Photography as Visual Communication" in Saying Cheese: Studies in Folklore and Visual Communication. Bloomington, Indiana: Folklore Forum, 1975. pp. 19-25.

This paper provides a description of "home-mode" visual communication, a medium mostly limited to photographs and home movies made by amateur photographers. The author argues that "home-mode" visual communication is a form of expressive behavior valued by small groups of biologically and socially related people. Chaflen also lists the several events and components involved in the process of creating visual communication. In so doing, he touches upon themes that explain the social and personal value of the photographs contained in scrapbooks.

-- Challinor, Joan R. "Family Photo Interpretations" in Kin and Communities. Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1979. pp. 239-63.

This article is a transcript of a symposium about social photography that was moderated by Challinor. Several scholars discuss still photography, movies about family relationships, the use of photographs in teaching community history, and family albums.

-- Child, Lydia Maria. An American Frugal Housewife. New York: S&W. Wood, 1845.

-- Child, Lydia Maria. The Little Girl's Own Book. New York: Edward Kearney, 1843.

-- Conservation of Scrapbooks and Albums: Postrpints of the Book and Paper Group/Photographic Materials Group Joint Session at the 27th Annual Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Juen 11, 1999. St. Louis, Missouri.Available through the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Washington, D.C., 2000.

-- Crozier, Ray. "The Unconscious Meaning of Objects" in Manufactured Pleasures: Psychological Responses to Design. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. 86-114.

This article examines the psychology of the material world. Drawing upon Freud, the author concludes that most objects obtain their significance based upon their implications for the self, a person's identification with others, and the identity presented to others. A brief section about color interpretation and insight about other materials saved by individuals tie this article to an interpretation of scrapbooks.

-- Csikszentmihaly, Mihaly. "Why We Need Things" in History From Things. Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1993. pp. 20-28.

This article provides a brief theoretical background for an understanding of the study of material culture. The author argues that this "addiction to materialism is in large part due to a paradoxical need to transform the precariousness of consciousness into the solidity of things."

-- Culley, Margo, ed. "Introduction." A Day at a Time. New York: The Feminist Press, 1985. 3-26.

This introduction to a compilation of diary excerpts discusses the shift in women's diaries around the mid-1800s from day-to-day records of events to tools for exploring and expressing the self. The author also discusses other aspects of women's diaries such as their roles as historical records and literature.

--DeCandido, Robert. "Out of the Question." Conservation Administration News. No. 53, April 1993.

This article traces the history of scrapbooks to the tables, or commpnplace books of the sixteenth century and looks at the overall history of scrapbooks. The author discusses 17th century albums of prints and the work of 18th century William Granger(hence, the term grangerizing -- the extra-illustrated book of the 19th century). The focus of the work is on preservation but overall the author presents a lively telling of both the history and the problems involved in the conservation of scrapbooks. There is a link on the home page to this article online.

-- Drucker, Johannna. The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909-1923. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Through a study of typographic experimentation, the author provides an analysis of art works produced in the 1910s and an inquiry into the transformation of critical practices in the following decades throughout the twentieth century. The chapter on semiotics, materiality, and typographic practice provides many arguments for seeing inventions in printing as important to artistic and literary endeavors of many sorts. The authority of language, residing in its capacity to signify, is explored in the works of linguists and artists. This work might be helpful, especially to those likening scrapbooks to collages or interpreting albums made from clippings and other cuttings from printed matter.

-- Ezell, Margaret J.M. and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe. Cultural Artifacts and the Production of Meaning: The Page, the Image, and the Body. Ann Arbor, The University of Michigan Press, 1994.

This book considers various ideological constructs of the written word and an understanding of published works as artifacts. Particularly helpful to those pondering over the accumulation of various forms of printing in scrapbooks are chapters dealing with the production of maps in early modern England, Mark Twain's responses to technology, and Emily Dickinson's hesitancy about publishing her poems. The latter chapter might also be helpful to those considering poems included in various commonplace books and friendship albums.

-- Fenn, Patricia (and Alfred P. Malpa). Rewards of Merit: Tokens of a Child's Progress and a Teacher's Esteem as an Enduring Aspect of American Religious and Secular Education. Schoharie, NY: Ephemera Society of America, 1994.

-- Fleishman, John. "The Labyrinthine World of the Scrapbook King." Smithsonian 22 (February 1992): 79-87.

This article describes some of the scrapbooks contained in the vast scrapbook collection of Theodore Langstroth II, the "Scrapbook King." The scrapbooks cover a variety of subjects, ranging from Japanese prints and turn-of-the-century opera to chewing tobacco labels and amusement parks. The article also provides a brief history of scrapbooks.

-- 4-H. Family Folklore: A 4-H Folk Patterns Project. Michigan State University: Cooperative Extension Service, no date.

This booklet contains activity sheets to guide 4-H'ers and their family members in the production of written family folklore. Five main areas are covered: family expressions, family stories, family photography, family customs, and family keepsakes. The areas covered in this booklet are similar to those featured in some forms of scrapbooks. A section on guiding the child to make a "timeline" of his or her life provides instructions on the need to preserve memories throughout life.

-- Fritzsche, Peter. Reading Berlin 1900. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1996.

Arguing that "the city as place and the city as text defined each other," the author focuses on the reading and writing that went on in Berlin from 1900-1914. The spread of literacy during this period gave permanent form to memories and other documents about the city. This book will be helpful to those considering clippings in scrapbooks, particularly scrapbooks documenting a topic or place. Consideration of the many newspaper articles on abnormal events -- "the fabricated landscape of the extraordinary" will be helpful to those considering albums devoted to medicine and psychology, as well as other subjects.

-- Freeman, Larry. Louis Prang: Color Lithographer, Giant of a Man. Watkins Glen, NY: Century House, 1971.

-- Gardner, Saundra. "Exploring the Family Album: Social Class Differences in Images of Family Life." Sociological Inquiry 61(2), May 1991: 242-51.

This article compares representations of kin and friendship networks among middle-class and working class families. The study is based upon interviews with 20 families from Central Maine about their photo albums. The study found that in general, middle-class families are more likely to include photographs of family and friendship networks in their photo albums than are working class families. Photograph albums of the middle-class families featured in this study tended to cover a wider geographic area and broader areas of interest than did albums of working class families.

-- Garvey, Ellen. The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of Consumer Culture, 1880s to 1910s. New York, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Garvey traces the history of advertising and the development of a consumer society in which national goods were sold and increasingly known by brand names. Her chapter on scrapbooks devoted to trade cards gives attention to chromolithography, collecting, gender training, and other aspects within new forms of consumption. She provides illustrations, discusses theories concerned with collecting, and provides a clear analysis of the types of consumers who made scrapbooks. Her passages on the modern department store provide excellent insight into "palaces of consumption" -- places where one might have purchased scrapbooks, as well as insight into the enthusiasm of such sections as ladies' lounges, puppet shows, furniture sections, tea rooms, and so forth. She also provides a thorough exploration of reading and writing of advertisements.

-- Garvey, Ellen Gruber. "Scissorizing and Scrapbooks: Nineteenth-Century Reading, Remaking, and Recirculating, " New Media: 1740-1915, ed. Lisa Gitelman and Geoff Pingree (cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.

-- Gear, Josephine. "The Baby's Picture: Woman as Image Makers in Small-town America." Feminist Studies 13(2), Summer 1987: 419-43.

This article discusses the significance of baby pictures and baby books in the late 19th and early 20th century. Gear argues that such portraits and compilations served as emblems of women's personal regard for their status as mothers and reflected their families' treasured position as a part of America's newly formed middle class. She also looks at the process of compiling such books and their meaning in terms of women's lives.

-- Gernes, Todd Steven. "Recasting the Culture of Ephemera: Young Women's Literary Culture in Nineteenth Century America." Ph.D., Brown University, 1992.

This dissertation explores the "ways in which short-lived transitory objects and materials of everyday life were gathered and reconstituted into the fabric of social and intellectual life. Poetry, fiction, recipes, pressed flowers, textiles, and obituaries were clipped, preserved, and assembled in commonplace books, scrapbooks, and friendship albums." Gernes argues that the culture of ephemera was an integral part of the Romantic literary imagination. He looks specifically at commonplace books, as the ancestors of scrapbooks, and provides helpful theoretical information on the gendered role of scrapbook keeping in the nineteenth century.

-- Gossett, Marilyn. "Make it for Mom." Teen (May 1995): 8, 96-7.

This article provides instructions for making home-made scrapbooks or "memory books" for mothers as a special and original Mother's day present. The author also provides useful information about the basic construction of scrapbooks.

-- Grossman, John. "Chromolithography and the Cigar Label: Sometimes the Label was Better Than the Cigar" Ephemera Journal, Volume IX.

-- Gurley, E. W.Scrap-Books and How to Make Them. New York: The Author's Publishing Company, 1880.

This little booklet praises the scrapbook as one of the most useful inventions of the nineteenth century -- a medium around which one could improve oneself and one's family. Gurley maintains that Jefferson and other notables kept scrapbooks and "every man in his own department should do likewise."

-- Hart, Cynthia and John Grossman. A Victorian Scrapbook. New York: Workman Publishing, 1989.

This book contains an introduction to the history of scraps and many photographs of scraps themselves. The process of chromolithography, "as invented in Bavaria (1798)," and a general explanation of various overlays of color also are briefly discussed.

-- Hart, Janice. "The Family Treasure: Productive and Interpretative Aspects of the Mid-to Late Victorian Album," The Photographic Collector 5 (1984).

-- Heller, Martin, Hrsg. Welt-Geschichten. Fotoalben aus der Sammlung Herzog, Zürich: Limmat Verlag Genossenschaft, 1989.

-- Higonnet, Anne. Berte Morisot's Images of Women. Cambridge, MA: London, England: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Chapter 3, "Amateur Pictures: Images and Practices," discusses activities deemed appropriate for the education of the young in nineteenth century France, especially for amateur women artists. Among these are included picture books or keepsake albums that women assembled. Chapter 5, "Feminine Visual Reproduction in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," offers a look at the ways in which the invention of photgraphy and other means of mechanical reproduction affected women [amateur] artists, both in their art and in the keepsake albums some of them kept.

-- Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Post Memory. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1997.

-- Horton, Richard W. "Photo Album Structures, 1850-1960." Guild of Book Workers Journal 32(1), Spring, 1994: 32-43.

Horton studied the structures and mounting methods of some 394 albums in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas. He categorizes his findings into six groupings: stubbed book (1850-1860), stiff-paged album (1860-1900), carte de visite album (1850s-1900), snapshot album (1890-1920), slit-mounting post card albums (1900-1920), and laced scrapbook, (1920-1950). His study is most helpful to those wishing to know more about the types of album available to scrapbook makers.

-- Impey, Oliver and Arthur MacGregor. The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteen- and Seventeenth-Century Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.

This book of collected essays by curators and scholars from various preeminent museums and libraries gives historical and theoretical insight into the collecting -- of artifacts, paintings, and other materials. This is also a wonderful book for daydreaming and for pondering over the more modest album and the provenance and organization of artifacts in general.

-- Jackson, James C. Training of Children, or, How to Have Them Healthy, Handsome, and Happy. Dansville, NY: Austin, Jackson & Co, 1872.

-- Jay, Robert. The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1987.

-- Jelenik, Estelle C. The Tradition of Women's Autobiography: From Antiquity to the Present. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986.

In discussing autobiographies of several different historical periods, Jelenik provides insights into various reasons for compiling personal documents.

-- Johnson, Katherine. "Interpreting Performance Through a Scrapbook's Eye View." Paper presented at the Society of American Archivist Annual Meeting, 1995.

Noting that albums and scrapbooks have been a critical source for the study of theatrical history, Johnson notes that any performing arts collection will hold a wealth of scrapbooks -- from 100 or so in the National Archives of Canada to many thousands in either the Harvard Theatre collection or the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She dates such scrapbooks to 1730, if not earlier, despite the 1859 date given by the OED. She looks at scrapbooks documenting particular theatrical phenomenon such as "The Beggar's Opera" and the Ballets Russes; scrapbooks compiled to perfect the art of compilation; scrapbooks compiled by men and women of the theatre; scrapbooks to preserve similar types of materials (photographs, playbills, drawings of the theatre); and scrapbooks compiled by the theatre-goer or fan. She also notes the problems of conducting research through scrapbooks, notably those centered around authenticity of the compilers and incompleteness in compiling.

-- Katriel, Tamar and Thomas Farrell. "Scrapbooks as Cultural Texts: An American Art of Memory." Text and Performance Quarterly 11:1 (January 1991) 1-17.

-- Kinneavy, James L. A Theory of Discourse. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971.

Kinneavy defines different approaches to teaching composition, and in so doing provides insight into some of the moral instruction being taught in scrapbook making in the nineteenth century. He begins with an historical view, and then addresses persuasive, literary, and expressive forms of discourse. Several of his insight concerned with early twentieth century methods touch upon the context in which scrapbooks became a popular hobby.

-- Kotkin, Amy. "The Family Photo Albums as a Form of Folklore." Exposure 16(1978): 4-8.

This article discusses the role of family photo albums in family folklore. Based upon research with Washington, D.C. area residents, the author concludes that family photo albums have come to serve as a basis for family legends and folklore in many instances.

-- Kuhn, Annette. Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination. London: Verso, 1995.

Kuhn uses photography as the locus of memory, the pre-text, for an analysis of her own life as represented in photos taken by her parents. She also uses photographs of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and visiting Queen Salote of Tonga, comparing imperialist visions of empire and conquest within the context of her life and her parents' expectations.

-- Kuipers, Juliana. "Scrapbooks: Intrinsic Value and Material Culture,"  Journal of Archival Organization Volume 2 Number 3 2004: 83-91.

Scrapbooks present a particularly challenging set of preservation issues to archivists. However, as an intriguing combination of diaries, photograph albums, and ephemera, their format and arrangement are an essential part of their usefulness as sources to researchers. The fascinating link between scrapbooks and quilts, evident in a brief history of scrapbooks and an exploration of several types, indicates that scrapbooks are a particularly rich source for researchers interested in women's history. In order to facilitate the richest understanding of these unique and fascinating sources, material literacy should be increased among both archivists and researchers. In particular, archivists should understand the important function these records have to researchers, and how their storage and preservation choices affect that function.

-- Langford, Martha. Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.

-- Lavin, Maud. Chapter 3, "Hannah Höch's mass medi scrapbook: utopias of the twenties," in Cut with the Kitchen Knife: the Weimar phtomontages of Hanna Hoch. New Hanven; London: Yale University Press, 1993.

-- Leary, James P. "Folklore and Photography in a Male Group" in Saying Cheese: Studies in Folklore and Visual Communication. Bloomington, Indiana: Folklore Forum, 1975. pp. 45-9.

This paper focuses on a group of men as they review photographs and describe the memories the photographs elicit. Longtime friends, they recall weekend parties, graduation, and other social events. The author writes that these photos are an essential part of reunions, a help in recreating the closeness they felt while they were in college.

-- Lensing, Leo A. "Literature and Photography: Practical and Theoretical Observations on their Interaction in Modern Vienna." Intertextuality: German Literature and Visual Art from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century. Ed. Ingeborg Hoesterey and Ulrich Weisstein. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993: 159-187.

-- Lensing, Leo A. "Peter Altenberg's 'beschriebene' Fotografien: Ein zweites Oeuvre?" In Fotogeschichte Vol 15, No. 57, 1995: 3-33.

Revised, enlarged version of "Peter Altenberg's Fabricated Photographs."

-- Lensing, Leo A. "Peter Altenberg's 'Inscribed' Photographs and Picture-Postcard Albums,"

A text of a presentation excerpted from Lensing's two articles on Altenberg's photographs [Lensing 1990 and 1995] and chapters 4 and 5 in the book Peter Altenberg: Rezept die Welt zu sehen (1995).

-- Lensing, Leo A. "Peter Altenberg's Fabricated Phtographs: Literature and Photography in Fin-de-SiècleVienna." Austrian Studies I (1990): 47-72.

-- Leonard, Thomas C. News for All: America's Coming-of-Age with the Press. New York, Oxford University Press, 1995.

"Nearly three centuries ago, Americans began to read news in print. This book is about that part of national life." So begins, the author in his history of print journalism in the U.S. Sections deal with readers, workers and influence, and democracy. For those interested in the use of scrapbooks as repositories for newspaper clippings, the chapter on the scrapbooks of abolitionists will prove immediately helpful; other chapters provide additionally helpful historical background.

-- Lesy, Michael. "Fame and Fortune : A Snapshot Chronicle." Afterimage October 1977: 8-13.

Giving brief biographies, descriptions of collections (scrapbooks and albums), and interpreted patterns, Lesy writes of a series of interviews with a divorced couple. He also discusses his work with film -- as historian and earlier, as someone who often visited a big commercial photo processing plant. His humorous and perceptive insights are given in short comments about how our modern world is configured around images of self and the reproduction of these images.

-- Lesy, Michael. Time Frames: The Meaning of Family Pictures. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.

This is a study of family albums and the stories that go along with them. Lesy finds that three types of photographs dominate in albums -- those of love, intimacy and family life; those of war; and those of work. He also notes gendered differences in poses.

-- Lesy, Michael. Bearing Witness: A Photographic Chronicle of American Life, 1860-1945. New York: Pantheon, 1982.

Though mainly covering 167 pages of images, this book also provides insight into late nineteenth and early twentieth century thoughts on access and retrieval of photographs. Persons interested in the use of scrapbooks to house a visual and/or printed file concerned with a particular field, or those interested in the history of libraries and archives will find Lesy's remarks interesting.

-- Library of Congress, National Preservation Program Office. "Preservation Basics: Preservation of Scrapbooks and Albums." (Washington, D.C., 1991)

This leaflet, available both in hard copy and online, provides a very brief history of scrapbooks and albums. Other sections deal with accession and disposition, collection policy guidelines, environment, physical storage and shelving, handling, treatment, and reformatting. Suppliers for preservation materials also are listed.

-- Lloyd, Ernest, ed. Scrapbook stories: from Ellen G. White's scrapbooks. Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Pub. Association, 1949.

-- Loeb, Lori Anne. Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women. New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Loeb explores the domestic ideology of the Victorian era as one of containment, leisure, and consumption. By noting the ideals of progress formulated through Victorian advertising, Loeb maps the moral implications of the commercial models of adventurer, queen, actress, and expert. Loeb also addresses related issues of anxiety and community. Finally, Loeb employs a political lens to explore both elite and democratizing material consumption.

-- Lyons, Joan. Artists' Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook. Layton, Utah: Peregrine Smith Books, 1985.

This volume is an anthology of writings on artists and their work on that "venerable container of the written word" -- the book. Essays by Richard Kostelanetz, Lucy Lippard, and others discuss artists' book in the period 1960-1980. The chapter by Shelley Rice on artists' books as visual literature looks at many of the same issues confronted by those studying scrapbooks, notably the interpretation of the juxtaposition of words and images on a page. Many of her examples look like modern day scrapbooks. Also helpful are a listing of artists' book collections in the U.S. and a bibliography.

-- MacKay, James. Childhood Antiques. New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1976.

-- Makepeace, Chris E. Ephemera: A Book on its Collection, Conservation, and Use. Brookfield, Vermont: Gower, 1985.

This book looks at various problems in defining, collecting, and storing different types of ephemera. While not dealing (except quite briefly) with scrapbooks as the repository of much ephemera, the book provides an inside look at how librarians view, use, promote, and deal with many types of ephemera.

--Making great scrapbooks: it's easier than you think Canby, OR: Hot Off the Press, 1998.

--Marsh, Alec. “Thaddeus Coleman Pound’s ‘Newspaper Scrapbook’ as a Source for The Cantos,” Paideuma24, nos. 2/3 (fall/winter 1995): 16393.

Marsh describes the scrapbook of Pound’s paternal grandfather as consisting almost exclusively of public documents such as newspaper clippings, published poems, and letters to the editors of various newspapers.

-- Marzio, Peter C. The Democratic Art: Pictures for a Nineteenth Century America, Chromolithography, 1840-1900. Godine, 1979.

This book is an excellent and thorough exploration of the process that made colored printing a part of everyday life. Also helpful in discovering what types of materials were available during different periods of the past, the book is one of the few focused sources on colored printing and visual culture.

--Matthews, Samantha.   Psychological Crystal Palace? Late Victorian Confession Albums.  Book History 3 (2000) 125-154.

-- McClinton, Katherine Morrison. The Chromolithographs of Louis Prang. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1973.

-- Motz, Marilyn. "Visual Autobiography: Photograph Albums of Turn-of-the-Century Midwestern Women." American Quarterly 41(March 1989): 63-92.

The author explores the development of the photographic technology that facilitated the creation of family albums She briefly compares these albums of the 1890s, with earlier ones of professional produced images. In studying eight specific albums, she shows how women altered conventional poses, settings, and clothing to give an individualistic view of themselves within and without of expected societal conventions.

-- Nash, Maude Cushing. Children's Occupations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920.

"Having once acquired the art of cutting, the fascination never ceases even to all ages." So begins the chapter, "The Scrapbook" in which the author presents information on the handmade construction of such albums and its completion with printed colored pictures. The book is helpful for interpreting how children were trained in various past time activities.

-- Newell, Maxine. "The Scrapbook." Canyon Legacy, 1992, (14): 12-19.

-- Ockenga, Starr. On Women and Friendship: A Collection of Victorian Keepsakes and Traditions. New York: Stewart, Tabori, and Chang, 1993.

An oversized and heavily illustrated book, this volume explores friendship, devoting considerable attention to the practice among friends of writing in albums and of gathering memorabilia of many sorts. The various types of early nineteenth century albums and gifts books are traced to their German ancestors -- the stammbucher or freund buch. Also helpful is a discussion of printing techniques that gave rise to scraps, gift books, and various types of ephemeral material.

-- Ohrn, Karin Becker. "The Photo Flow of Family Life: A Family Photograph" in Saying Cheese: Studies in Folklore and Visual Communication. Bloomington, Indiana: Folklore Forum, 1975. pp. 27-35.

This paper reports on how photographs are used in one family to pass on and preserve family heritage. Using the family's photographs, which span a 60-year period, and interviews with three generations of women from the family, the author constructs a history of the family guided by memories. The author writes that this family's photograph collection served as an "archive" of their life--a way of remembering people and events, and also a way of passing on and preserving memories for other members of the family.

-- Ott, Katherine. "Using Scrapbooks to Interpret the Graphic History of Nineteenth Century Life." Paper presented at the Society of American Archivists Meeting, Washington D.C., 1995.

Ott explores the genealogy of the scrapbook in the commonplace book and the Victorian curiosity cabinet. She notes that various nineteenth century newspapers and magazines ran regular features specifically for scrapbook cutting; she also discusses design and binding problems in scrapbooks and their marketing. She then discusses specific scrapbooks of medical practitioners and their uses as repositories of learning, a means to manipulate items and space.

-- Ott, Katherine. "It's a Scrapbook Life: Using Ephemera to Reconstruct the Everyday of Medical Practice." The Water Mark, Newsletter of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences 22(1), Winter 1996:1-7.

The author argues that the study of ephemera provides an important way to recreate the actual "as opposed to the reported, experience of nineteenth century people." Studying scrapbooks devoted to science and medicine, she provides examples illustrating how science and medicine became "domesticated" and popularized for a mass audience. She makes a strong argument for locating the scrapbook "at the intersection of the book, the old cabinet of curiosity, the modern exhibit case, folk art, collage, and even home video." She also looks at trends in the paper and printing industries and how these trends impacted the use of scrapbooks. She then looks at specific scrapbooks of physicians in the northeast.

-- Packham, Jo. Moments to remember: tips, techniques, and 30 special album ideas for creating memories that last a lifetime. New York: Dell, 1998.

-- Peters, Harry T. America On Stone. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1931.

-- Rickards, Maurice. Collected Printed Ephemera. New York, Abbeville, 1988.

This book discusses printed ephemera of all sorts and is an excellent introduction to its history and collection, mostly in England and North America. A bibliography and a glossary provide other information.

-- Rickards, Maurice. The encyclopedia of ephemera : a guide to the fragmentary documents of everyday life for the collector, curator, and historian. Edited and completed by Michael Twyman, with the assistance of Sally de Beaumont and Amoret Tanner. New York: Routledge, 2000.

-- Ruth, Amy. "Victorian Scraps." Antiques and Collecting Magazine. 99(February 1995): 38-9.

This article discusses the collection of Victorian scraps during present times. The author writes that the collection of these items has become quite popular. Many collected scraps are authentic while others are reproductions made after the Victorian era. The author also provides historical information about scrap collection.

-- Ruutz-Rees, Janet E. Home Occupations. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1883.

In this book, chapters give instruction on work with leather, tissue paper, flowers, wax cardboard, beads and other items. The chapter devoted to making scrapbooks provides six pages on various types of construction. Especially interesting is the inclusion of instructions on making inset books -- that is, the purchase of books with wide enough margins to allow one to insert images one chooses from other publications and photographs. The author discusses the value of these books, and the need to be modest in one's goals.

-- Rybczynski, Witold. "A Homemade House" in Looking Around: A Journey Through Architecture. Toronto: Harper Collins Publisher, 1992. pp. 172-80.

This essay describes the home of artist Carl Larsson, constructed in 1889 in central Sweden. Larsson and his wife Karin, both painters, published several books about their home and family which the author describes as "souvenir albums that document (in paintings) not the family but the house." He mentions that such books on one's own domestic architecture were common in the 1880s and 1890s.

-- Seddon, Laura. A Gallery of Greetings. Manchester: Manchester Polytechnic Library, 1992.

-- Shapiro, Rina and Hanna Herzog, "Understanding Youth Culture Through Autograph Books: The Israeli Case." Journal of American Folklore, 97: 386 (1984), 442-460.

-- Shaw. G. Bernard. My Expensive Scrap Book. East Aurora: New York, The Roycrofters, 1915.

In this nineteen-page advertisement for Hemstreet Clipping Bureau, Shaw describes his first trip to arrange for a scrapbook to be made. He describes the street, and the building of the agency. He notes that the value of using such an agency is found not only in having clippings about oneself or one's favorite subject but also in using these clippings to establish oneself as a credible witness in law proceedings or as a learned person in other respects.

--Siegel, Elizabeth E.,  "Galleries of Friendship and Fame: The History of Nineteenth-Century American Family Albums" (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2003).

-- Smith, Deborah. "Consuming Passions: Scrapbooks and American Play." Ephemera Journal 6(1993): 63-76.

Smith places the construction of the scrapbook in the context of Victorian collecting, using the lens of consumer habits to address the proliferation of printed advertisements such as color trade cards. She examines the culture of the Victorian commercial expositions, noting fluctuations in income and psychological issues of consumption. She also compares the physical act of scrapbook construction to women's needlework.

-- Sobieszeck, Robert. "Composite Imagery and the Origins of Photomontage, Part I: The Naturalistic Strain." Artforum 17, no. 2 (1978): 58-65; "Part 2: The Formalist Strain." Artforum 17, no. 3 (1978): 40-45.

-- Spence, Jo and Patricia Holland, eds. Family Snaps: The Meanings of Domestic Photography. London, Virago, 1991.

--Stabile, Susan M. Memory’s daughters : the material culture of remembrance in eighteenth-century America. 1st ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.

-- Staff, Frank. The Picture Postcard and Its Origins. 2nd ed. London: Lutterworth, 1979.

-- Stein, Sally. "The Composite Photographic Image and the Composition of Consumer Ideology." Art Journal 41, no. 1 (Spring 1981): 39-45.

-- Stevenson, Robert P. "The Autograph Album: A Victorian Girl's Best Friend" Philadelphia Folklife 34, No. 1 (Autumn 1984) 34-43

-- Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham, Duke University Press, 1993.

In examining the relations of narrative to origin and object, Steward explores nostalgia. Among objects of desire, she classifies the scrapbook and the memory quilt as souvenirs rather than as collections. "While the point of the souvenir may be remembering, or at least the invention of memory, the point of the collection is forgetting -- starting again in such a way that a finite number of elements create, by virtue of their combination, an infinite reverie." Passages that might be helpful to those interested in scrapbooks concern tableaux, dollhouses, as well as the Tom Thumb wedding and female impersonator.

-- Tajiri, Vincent, ed. Through Innocent Eyes: Writings and Art from the Japanese American Internment. Contributors: Yuji Ichioka, Lane Hirabayashi, and Lucille Reed Franchi. Los Angeles, CA: Keiro Services Press and the Generations Fund, 1990.

-- Taylor, Laurie. "Camera Obscura." New Statesman and Society 6, August 1993: 21.

This article creatively discusses the author's feelings that photographs inadequately record special events. Instead, the author suggests that camcorders should be used to record these events because they can record an entire event instead of just one moment, presenting a more complete and accurate picture of the occasion.

-- "The Great Family of Man." Mythologies. 1957. Selected and trans. Annette Lavers. New York: Noonday Press, 1972. 100-02

-- Thomas, Sari. "Artificial Study in the Analysis of Culture." Communication Research 12(6), December 1994: 683-97

This article argues for the study of artifacts in cultural inquiry and for the content analysis of artifacts such as television shows, movies, and books. The author feels that artifactual analysis should supplement behavioral research in order to make inferences about behavior.

-- Titus, Sandra. "Family Photographs and Transition to Parenthood." Journal of Marriage and the Family. 38(3), August 1976: 524-30.

This article examines the role of photographs in recording the transition from childlessness to parenthood. A comparison of photos of the first child and second child is also featured (with the first child appearing to be most often photographed).

--Tucker, Susan.  “Reading and Re-reading: The Scrapbooks of Girls Growing into Women, 1900<n>1940,” in Defining Print Culture for Youth: The Cultural Work of Children’s Literature, eds. Anne Lundin and Wayne Wiegand. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003).

-- Tucker, Susan. "Within a Scrapbooks' Pages." Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 15(1), Winter 1997:6-7.

This article considers briefly the history of scrapbooks, and focuses on the 1908 scrapbook of Alice Monroe, a Newcomb College student. Tucker explores the practice among college women of keeping scrapbooks, and notes societal approval of scrapbook- making as an acceptable form of activity that would anchor young women to traditional values as caregivers and memory holders.

-- Taylor, Laurie. "Camera Obscura." New Statesman and Society 6, August 1993: 21.

-- Twyman, Michael. Printing 1770-1970: An Illustrated History of its Development and Uses In England London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970; rep London: The British Library; New Castle DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998.

-- University of Delaware, Library. Self Works: diaries, scrapbooks, and other autobiographical efforts: catalog of an exhibition, August19, 1997-December 18, 1997. Guide to selected sources. Newark, DE: Special Collections, Hugh M. Morris Library, University of Delaware Library, 1997.

-- Vanessa-Ann. Making scrapbooks: complete guide to preserving your treasured memories. New York: Sterling Pub. Co., 1998.

--Vosmeier,Sarah McNair, "The Family Album: Photography and Family life, 1860-1930" (PhD diss., Indiana University, 2003).

-- Waldman, Diane. Collage, Assemblage, and The Found Object. London, Phaidon Press, 1992.

This illustrated book traces the history of collage, with roots in such diverse art as stained glass and quilts. An index and notes will be helpful in a search for the influence of assemblage on scrapbooks.

-- Weiss, Harvey. How to make your own books. New York: Crowell, 1974.

--Whalen, Catherine. "Finding Me." Afterimage 29, no. 6 [Special Issue: Vernacular Photography] (May/June 2002): 16-17.  

Abbreviated version of larger, ongoing project.

--Whalen, Catherine. "'Finding Me':  A Young Woman's Scrapbook as Visual Autobiography and Site of Identity Formation in 1920s Detroit."

Paper presented at the American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Detroit, Michigan, October 12-15, 2000, for the session "Visions and Revisions: Photography and the Making of Meaning," chaired by Mark Rice.  The term "visual autobiography" references Marilyn Motz's work.

-- Williams, Val. The Other Observers: Woman Photographers in Britain, 1900 to the Present. 1986. London: Virago Press, 1991.

-- Willis, Deborah, ed. Picturing Us: African American Identity in Photography. N.Y., The New Press, 1994.

-- Witty, Paul A. "Sex Differences: Collecting Interests." Journal of Educational Psychology 22:221-8, 1931.

-- Wood, Robert. Victorian Delights. London: Evans Brothers, 1967.

An account of the printed work of J. Proctor in Hartlepool in the middle of the 19th century.

-- Zachary, Shannon. See Conservation of Scrapbooks and Albums.

-- Zietlin, Steven, Amy Kotkin, and Holly Cutting Baker. "Family Albums" in a Celebration of Family Folklore. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982. pp. 192-199.

This article discusses the role of family photo albums in recording phases of individual lives within a familial context. The author writes that these albums usually only contain photographs of positive occasions and landmark events, like births or graduations. These photographs often serve as a catalyst to story telling and provide a way of initiating new friends or family members.

-- Zola, Meguido. "By Hook or By Crook: a New Look at the Autograph Book," N. Y. Folklore 6. Nos 3-4 (Winter 1980), 185-194.



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