I collect way too many things, and one of my favorite
categories is 19th century friendship albums, which were created by
and for teen-aged girls and young women—although some of the albums belonged to
young men.
A drawing from a friendship album with the date: Jan. 10, 1881-- hidden in it
They were often beautifully bound and decorated books with
blank pages to be filled in by friends and relatives, back in the days before
radio and television shortened everyone’s attention span. A friend or relative who was asked to
inscribe a page would fill it with
in poetry or prose—demonstrating
his/her skill at calligraphy-- or draw or paint an illustration, or sometimes
paste in a dried flower or a frilly piece of Victorian scrap—all dedicated to
the album’s owner.
Examples of fancy calligraphic signatures
In the 19th century there were books published to
educate the populace both on sample sentiments to write in albums, and on how to make their handwriting a
source of admiration.
From the album of Tryphosa Lakin, circa 1834
The earlier the friendship album, the more elaborate its
inscriptions. They reveal what
subjects fascinated teenagers in the days before teenagers existed—and it
wasn’t boy bands or vampires. It was religion and love and death.
"Conscious Rectitude" to Tryphosa
In albums from the 1830’s, there is a strange obsession with
death—all those young people warning each other that they may die at any moment
and they’d better be prepared to gain entry into Heaven. This morbid obsession is satirized by
Mark Twain, if I remember correctly, in “Huckleberry Finn” when Huck stays with
a family whose daughter cannot stop talking about death. (Of course an obsession with dying is
not so unnatural at a time when typhoid and yellow fever epidemics raged, and something like one in three pregnant
women died in childbirth.)
My favorite friendship album is the first one I bought-- in
1969 at Shepherd’s Market in London for exactly one pound. It belonged to Marie
Sandoz Vissaula, a young girl
living in Switzerland and covers the years 1865-1867.
All the entries are in French in the exquisite calligraphy
expected of well-educated young ladies.
The best (and first) page is a watercolor done for Marie by her
grandfather, which must have taken him the better part of a day.
And here is the painting of a morning glory done by one of Marie’s
friends, Louise Rousser.
The most heartbreaking album I own belonged to a young woman
named ”Miss Addie A. Allen”, as she wrote on the first page. Addie lived in Connecticut and her
friends, male and female, wrote in her album “The Token”, beginning in Feb.
1858.
Most of the young men who wrote in Addie’s album soon enlisted
in the Union Army, and when they died, Addie carefully noted on their page the
place and day of their death and their age. There was even a lock of hair on the page of “Joe R.
Toy”, who “died in the hospital at
New Orleans, 1861” as she wrote. “Your cousin, Eugene” “died April 1864, aged
24.” “Your friend Henry”, “died in
the hospital at Alexandria, Sep. 1863. 23 years of age”.
Freddie Brilkley, ended his page “Oh! May it in the Book of Life/ God’s glorious Album, glittering stand/
With bright and shining names to be/ Eternally….Eternally.” He “died in the
hospital at Port Royal on Thanksgiving Day, 1863, aged 21”.
One of the young men who survived evidently brought Addie
back a war souvenir –a small
swatch of red fabric which she sewed into her album and labeled, “a
piece of the Battle Flag of the 2nd Conn. Artillery.”
As the albums evolved in time from the 1830’s toward 1900,
the inscriptions became less gloomy and religious and more likely to be funny
or satirical. A young lady named
Elsie Dupuy Graham of Olney, PA, had talented friends who, starting in 1879, left
clever drawings and sometimes made up a poem as well.
Here’s one written
during a visit to Cape May, with tiny illustrations, by someone who did not
sign the work:
Oh! One day At Cape
May, on the shore of the Sea/ A girl, with a curl/ Sat there talking to me.
`Oh! the wave then did
lave/ And coquet with the beach/ The barque and the shark/ Kept off shore out
of reach.
Oh! The porpoise, on
purpose/Revolved on his nose/ /The crab made a grab/ At this little girl’s
toes.
“Oh! A fish! How I
wish/ I could catch one” she said./” Flounder, ten pounder/ Or a lovely
sheepshead”
…to be continued
By about the 1920’s the tradition of creating a beautiful
album to remember and immortalize the friends of one’s youth had deteriorated
into what we now know as the autograph book, for recording the signatures of
celebrities and friends, who write short rhymes like “roses are red, violet are
blue…” and “2 good 2 be 4gotten.”,
Today friendship albums have been replaced by the scrawls of
friends in a yearbook. It’s too
bad we’ve lost the habit of recording our friendships with poetry and art and predictions
for our future as we leave youth behind, but I guess Facebook takes care of
that now.