1850-1906 – Four Alba Amicorum (Friendship Books) kept by American women
Various: 1850-1906. Album. Small collection of alba amicorum compiled between 1850 and 1890. All measure approximately 6” x 7.5”. Bound in leather (1 brown, 1 black, and 2 burgundy) with gilt decoration and lettering. Each with about 100 pages; all appear complete. Legible inscriptions throughout each. Sound hinges, some cracked and some, perhaps, tightened. All with cover-wear. One missing entire spine covering; other three wit partial covering. Overall, a nice lot.
Brown leather with debossed image of a woman strewing flowers; gilt cover decorations and cover title, Love and the Flowers. Published by F. & S. Palmer, a New York-based print shop operated by the English lithographer Frances "Fanny" Flora Bond Palmer and her husband, Seymour Palmer. Includes several chromolithographs “petalled people” fantasy plates by Fanny. Owned by “Sarah” of Solon and “Skowgan” [Skowhegan?], Maine and apparently passed on to her children. About 125 entries from the 1850s through the1880s, almost all by adults, but a few with a few childish scrawls. Several scraps laid in.
Black leather with debossed decorations and a gilt image of “Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well” (John 4) and the cover title Sacred Album. Published by J. C. Riker of New York. All edges gilt. Title page features a lithograph of a women looking in a mirror with the caption, “Can a maid forget her ornaments of a bride her attire? Jerh. 2 c. 32 v.” Other lithograph plates throughout. Calligraphic ownership page for “Miss Martha Jane Foote” of Bristol, Vermont, dated 1851. Two other owner’s names inside front cover, “Mrs M J Reynolds / Proctor / Vermont” and “Mrs J F Pritchard / Feb 1904”. Several watercolor illustrations. One wreath of dried flowers. About 30 entries between 1851 and 1853.
Burgundy leather with a Cosway binding featuring a bouquet of flowers on front and rear panels; Debossed cover decorations and gilt title, Ruby Album. Published by J. C. Riker of New York. All edges gilt Colorful floral frontispiece plus several additional chromolithograph plates. Owner’s dedication page by A. C. Fromm? of Dayton, Ohio. About 20 entries between 1858 and 1860. Many scraps laid-down and two more laid-in.
Burgundy leather with gilt debossed decorations. Gilt title page, The Gem Album. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. All edges gilt. Small chromolithograph illustrations throughout. Gift from “Aunt Amelia” to “Annie R. Scultze,” 1882. About 40 entries from the 1880s.
In the mid-to-late 1800s, friendship albums were popular personal scrapbooks, usually kept by young women, where their friends, family, and classmates shared handwritten poems, drawings, watercolors, autographs, and sentiments, as well as scraps, mementos, and clippings. Entries were often copied verses or paragraphs from popular or literary magazines.
. Very good. Item #010832Four very nice windows into the popular culture surrounding young women of the time..
Price: $500.00