ABOUT AUTOGRAPH ALBUMS

These handwritten books vary greatly in the terminology used to describe them and in their physical form and purpose. In addition to “autograph albums”, the terms include commonplace books, remembrancers and friendship albums. Closely related are scrapbooks, diaries and journals. It’s not unusual to find elements of several of these categories in the pages of an album. A common thread is content that is primarily handwritten, and that was assembled by or for the owner. Academics sometimes use the expression “assembled books.”

The earliest of the albums from which stories have drawn for the books in the Philopoena Press collection date from the eighteen-thirties when the custom of writing one’s own notes in what was often called a commonplace book was evolving into requesting inscriptions from friends, schoolmates and relatives. The physical style of the booklets evolved considerably during the nineteenth century, as did the nature of the written inscriptions and the quality of penmanship. Albums from the period before the American Civil War tend to have superior bindings and paper, with more elaborate and artistically decorated inscriptions. The locations and dates written in these albums correspond to the steady westward migration of population in America throughout the nineteenth century.

Many of the albums contain examples of extraordinary penmanship, poetry and artwork. In the early eighteen hundreds, young ladies in finishing schools were encouraged to learn the art of painting in miniature.

A common reaction to examining an early autograph book is to be impressed by the superb quality of handwriting, the result of an education which employed formal systems of teaching penmanship, such as Copperplate and Spencerian Writing, and later the Palmer Method of instruction.

The quality and subject matter of poetic entries in albums varied enormously through the nineteenth century, declining in the later decades. Some verses are original; sometimes a copied entry is indicated by a phrase such as “selected for the album’s owner”. As albums became more and more popular in the eighteen-seventies, books were published providing examples of what was suggested to be “suitable verse.”

No matter whether elegant verse or doggerel, meticulous script or child’s pencil scrawl, miniature watercolors or crayon cartoon caricatures, the albums’ contents convey a feeling of authenticity. At one time or another, each signed entry was the expression of how one particular individual, on a specific day and in a particular place responded to a request for “something for the Album”. As such, the handwritten lines in autograph albums provide more precisely than almost any other antique artifacts, windows into American history.

As interesting as these books are, they have attracted relatively little attention in either popular or academic literature. The Philopoena Press seeks to correct this deficiency by publishing the results of research into albums and the individuals who owned them and who left in them their thoughts “at a particular place and occasion”.