More is More: The Victorian Obsession with Collecting

by Shelley Dziedzic

First published in November/December, 2007, Volume 4, Issue 4, The Hatchet: Journal of Lizzie Borden Studies.

For the casual observer of old photographs of Victorian parlors and interiors today, one thing is abundantly clear—more was more. Our nineteenth century ancestors filled every table top, niche, cabinet and wall space with bric-a-brac and bibelots eagerly gleaned from trips abroad, souvenirs from World Fairs and expositions, or even a week’s jaunt to the seaside. From seashells to stamps and coins, pressed ferns and wildflowers to souvenir thimbles and spoons, there was a shadow box, shelf, or album for every purpose. Intricate and expensive cabinetry was designed to house extensive butterfly and insect collections, rare antiquarian books, snuff boxes, and porcelain figurines. But the most affordable and common collectibles were the easily obtainable paper objects, or ephemera.

Thanks to the excellence of German and British lithography techniques, by the end of the nineteenth century, the trade card and what would come to be called “scrap” was treasured and avidly collected by young Victorian ladies. These precious bits of brightly colored heavy card stock were glued into scrapbooks or scrap albums to be admired and traded, hoarded and used to decorate craft projects. Other paper collectibles included tobacco cards featuring animals, stage actors, flowers, and a wide variety of subjects, advertising scraps for products and services in town, photographs, calendars, postcards (arriving on the scene in 1898 and reaching a zenith in 1912 before declining), paper dolls, and more. One type of album which brought great pleasure to the owner, most frequently a young Victorian girl, was the autograph album. 

Although autographs of celebrities are still prized and collected today, the Victorian autograph album was more commonly filled with tributes from family, friends, teachers and schoolmates. Today the high school yearbook has nearly replaced the traditional autograph album for this use. Sometimes covered with plush velvet or bound in heavy paper stock lithographed with flowers or fanciful scenes, and gilded or embellished, the autograph album was an inexpensive and highly portable little repository for collecting sentiments. These compact albums were often thoughtful Christmas or birthday gifts from doting great-aunts or grandmothers and the pages were filled with good wishes, funny poems, witty sayings and bits of advice. 

This sample of an 1895 autograph album in the photographs here come from the little book belonging to a Blanche Clampitt of Fairbury, Nebraska and cover a period from 1895-1897. Blanche was given her album by her mother and father. The front page proclaims “ Presented to Blanche by her Pa and Ma, March 3, 1895.” Blanche happily writes on the next page:

My album’s open! Come and see!
What?! Won’t you waste a line on me?
Write but a thought- a word or two,
That memory may revert to you. 

Blanche age 14 Fairbury, Nebraska

In the following pages, schoolmates, teachers, relatives and friends pour out comic and inspiring quatrains, heartfelt sentiments and endearing, tender wishes for young Blanche to remember—for being remembered was very important to Victorians. This particular album is unusual in that it boasts many stamp-sized photos of Blanche’s friends and relatives as well as a quantity of coveted scrap motifs, most probably pasted on as a garnish from Blanche’s own treasure trove. 

The words “Forget-me-not” and “Remember Me” are written on many pages and are echoed in paper scrap forget-me-nots, pansies and rosebuds signifying remembrance, thoughts, and love. 

Blanche, Never trouble trouble
Till trouble troubles you! 

warns Uncle C.C. Clampitt on March 14, 1895, in Gladstone, Michigan. 

Mr. Thornberg of Winterset, Iowa wishes on August 6th:

My dearest daughter, may these flowers presented on your birthday be
Emblematical of the purity of your life.

While young cousins and schoolgirl friends often choose a comic sentiment:

In the storms of life
When you need an umbrella
May you have to uphold it
A handsome young fellow 

Your Cousin Bennie Goff

Or schoolmate Phoebe McDole’s ditty:

Dear Friends—
Doors all locked
Key’s in the cellar,
Nobody at home
But Blanche and her feller!

These little albums are windows into the past, revealing so much of everyday relationships, worries and hopes, aspirations and sentiments. This was a time when beautiful penmanship was displayed proudly and the written word, which all would see, was given much thought before putting pen to paper. By studying these collectibles of another age, we can enter into another time and place and come to know the hearts and minds of those sentimental, prolific, and inexhaustible Victorians, and we can easily picture Lizzie and Emma Borden bent over their little albums at school with the same girlish hopes.