Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Harry Starr's Magnificent Scrapbook

I wonder if it was typical for little boys to keep scrapbooks like this in the 1880s. Harry Starr seems to have lived in Baltimore, Maryland, based on the advertising cards in his scrapbook.
The front of the album is both ornate and exotic.


Harry's name and the date (January 31st, 1884) are written neatly on the first page, probably by his mother.

Harry has glued an assortment of images, religious messages,  and advertisements on the album's twenty pages, which are now very brittle with age.








I was able to scan these pages because they have come loose and are no longer attached to the binding. The rest of the pages are still attached, and scanning them would compromise the already delicate condition of the binding.

6 comments:

  1. What a treasure! I used to love scrapbooks when I was a child. My Mum made me paste from flour and water, and later it was bottles of brown gum which stuck to everything but what they were supposed to. Gluesticks are a wonderful invention.

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  2. What a wonderful piece of history through a little boys' eyes! I looked through all his pastings twice - particularly loved the dog with the muzzle, but the cover is beautiful!

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  3. What a beautiful book. It brings back memories of scrapbooks my gran used to let me look at, filled with very similar sorts of pictures and cards.

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  4. These old scrapbooks are beautiful and usually very fragile (when you get lucky and find one).

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  5. Das ist ja großartig. Da hast du aber einen echten Schatz gefunden.

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  6. That's a beautiful cover, and I like the way the pages are arranged.

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