American Ancestors | Stories from the Archives: Scrapbooks
Earlier today — October 26, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. — I watched the webinar Stories from the Archives: Scrapbooks hosted by American Ancestors – New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). Leading the talk were collections management archivist Gabrielle Roth and conservator Todd Pattison. Together they covered the history of scrapbooks, the collection of scrapbooks held by The Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center Archives (JHC), preservation of scrapbooks, and best practices when creating a scrapbook.
Roth began by describing the oldest records in America: petroglyphs carved by Native Americans. Visitors to parks around the country, including Fremont Indian State Park in Utah, can view intricate carvings up to 2000 years old. More recently, European diaries recorded mundane aspects of daily life in private journals, although the demographics of this practice skewed towards wealthy, educated men. During the time of the Enlightenment, Renaissance scribes kept commonplace books, similar to a late medieval bullet journal. These handwritten books held practical matters like copies of recipes for medicine or color dye, rather than the thoughts and reflections of the writer. With the advent fo the Gutenberg printing press, ordinary people kept their own records of births, deaths, and marriages inside their family Bible. Scrapbooking became popular by the end of the 19th century with the rise of paper ephemera and photography. Common themes included collections of recipes, weddings, babies, and serving in the military, especially during the World Wars.
Roth shifted focus to display four scrapbooks in the JHC collection. Golden Family Scrapbook, compiled by Helen Golden during the 1930s and 1940s, covered the life of a happy New England family. Nathan Isaacs Bereavement Scrapbook contained over two hundred pages of obituaries, telegrams, and symphathy notes collected by Ella Isaacs after the sudden death of her husband, who had been a beloved member of the Jewish community in the Greater Boston area from 1924 to 1941, along with a professor at Harvard Law. The “All about Me” style Riva Greenblatt Berman Scrapbook followed the life of a young woman during her high school and college education. Women’s Auxiliary of the David A. Lourie B'Nai B'rith Lodge Scrapbook concentrated not on a single person or family but on a community with hundreds of members, specifically a social club for Jewish women. After presenting these books, Roth argued for the importance of maintaining scrapbooks in a historical collection. Scrapbooks serve as personal memoirs and become treasure troves for genealogical researchers, revealing information beyond the traditional family tree.
Next, Pattison explained how curators preserve scrapbooks, which offer complex challenges, as they are made of types of paper with varying quality. The JHC collection contains scrapbooks created between 1850 and 1950, the time of the worst quality paper produced in the United States. Scrapbook pages turned brown at varying rates, while the gelatin layer of photographs caused them to stick together. Overlapping materials became damaged when viewers opened the scrapbook. Materials used to keep the scrapbooks together also caused damage. Metal fasteners like paperclips turned to rust, glue adhesives left stains, and tape became brown. Additionally, scrapbooks stored in attics, garages, and basements faced faster deterioration.
Pattison reassured the audience that the scrapbooks in the collection, along with our scrapbooks at home, were not about to decay overnight, and we could slow down the process. He suggested that scrapbooks be stored in labeled, precisely fit boxes with no more than three boxes in a stack. Other ideal storage conditions for scrapbooks included spaces with a stable temperature at 70°F (21°C), between 30% to 50% humidity, and complete darkness or minimal light. Additionally, scrapbook viewers must not wear gloves and instead wash their hands with soap and water to remove dirt and oils before handling the materials. Finally, scanning a digital copy of the scrapbook is an excellent way to preserve the material even if the physical version is lost.
What I most enjoyed about this talk was the balance between the four distict but related areas of interest. I learned how scrapbooking continues the tradition of personal recordkeeping, discovered the history of people who once lived where I now live, expanded my knowledge of archival preservation techniques, and felt inspired to continue creating my own scrapbooks. I look foward to future webinars with American Ancestors, along with preserving my own history with a better understanding on how to make the materials last.