Guides...and blogs
Behind The Vintage Autograph Book Cover
Tuesday 16th June 2015
We love to find vintage autograph books! They usually date from the late nineteenth century through to the 1930s and we find that the late Victorian era examples tend to be full of moral rectitude and earnest desires for happiness and health.
The popularity of such books appears to increase during the Edwardian era, WWI and the 1920s. The content began to change for in addition to classical and literary quotations, humorous quotes and drawings are seen, as well as many standard inclusions:
An invitation to participate "All my friends I now invite, a trifle in this book to write"
The entreaty not to read the next page, which then has an admonition about inquisitiveness
For a girl, a rhyme about marriage "Hilda Hobbs is your name, Single is your station, Happy is the Little Man, That makes the Alteration"
The first in book/last in book entries "by hook or by crook I'll be first/last in this book"
The requirement to add an entry if you read "You may glance in this album, but mind ere you look, that all are expected to add to this book"
Some inclusions of the time are now unacceptable, particularly the casual racism sometimes evidenced in rhymes and hand drawn cartoons.
WWI saw (usually) coy allusions to sex in rhymes of the time.
He was teaching her arithmetic
He said it was his mission
He kissed her once, he kissed her twice
And said now that's "Addition"
On the home front there were deprivations:
My Tuesdays are meatless
My Wednesdays are wheatless
I am getting more eatless each day
My home it is heatless
My bed it is sheetless
They're all sent to the YMCA
The bar-rooms are treatless
My coffee is sweetless
Each day I get poorer and wiser
My stockings are feetless
My trousers are seatless
By gosh, how I do hate the Kaiser
The war affected everyone. One album described a gas attack on Hill 60, another the death of a German sniper. Childrens' albums reflected the times, childhood drawings and rhymes interspersed with drawings of a crying Kaiser, or a defiant British bulldog.
In amongst the rhymes are signatures, some with rank and service number, tempting you to start researching their fate. Did they survive the war? Did they find happiness, or even fame?
Drawings became a feature of these books, some of very good quality, others less so! Drawings ranged from portraits and landscapes to cartoons. A braided band of hair might be included, or a card from a loved one.
Despite some similarities each book is different and tells its own story. But one 1930s book was so different we could not at first work out what was happening. It consisted of a series of consecutive cartoons featuring a woman suffering from some unspecified condition and who had a rare collection that needed keeping warm. She was quite desolate when the collection was stolen. It turned out that she was suffering from haemorrhoids, which disappeared after the tender administrations of gasfitters, plumbers and a dear doctor with an electric torch!!