Speaking on Scrapbooks in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Circle, Oct. 24, Hartford

I first saw a Beecher family-related scrapbook when Minton Brooks asked me to look at one now in the Brooklyn Historical Society, made by his ancestor Henry F. Minton. Henry Minton was Henry Ward Beecher’s parishioner, and had been riveted enough by

Harriet’s daughter Hattie Stowe made a cat scrapbook! (Schlesinger Library)

his minister’s doings in the unfolding Beecher Tilton sex scandal to compile clippings about them in his scrapbook, along with his own interests as a homeopathic doctor. It was the kind of unfolding news story that often inspired newspaper clipping scrapbook making. A scrapbook allowed you to collect all the sidepaths and follow them all across different newspapers.

But the Beechers and

Henry Minton scrapbook

Stowes and their friends themselves had different ideas of what to collect. And old newspapers could be turned into data, abolitionists realized in creating American Slavery as It Is – the book that Harriet Beecher Stowe kept under her pillow when writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

I’m looking forward to speaking about the scrapbooks and newspaper clippings in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s life at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, CT, on Thursday, October 24, 5:30. Join me!

Treasure in scrapbooks

Thiharriet tubman from Miller scrapbook, library of congresss rare, riveting photograph of Harriet Tubman, probably taken around 1911 at her home in Auburn, NY, was in one of the scrapbooks kept by Elizabeth Smith Miller and Anne Fitzhugh Miller. They were ardent suffragists, and the daughter and granddaughter of abolitionist Gerrit Smith.  You can see more of their scrapbooks on the Library of Congress website. I’m looking forward to speaking about all kinds of scrapbooks in Auburn, Monday March 19 at the Seymour Library, 6 pm.

Auburn is not far from Syracuse and Ithaca — come on over.

This will be my last talk for Humanities New York’s Public Scholars Program, which is coming to an end. Audiences have been enthusiastic, and I hope to keep giving talks.

Speaking in Wilmington, DE – University of Delaware April 27

Thrilled to be heading to the University of Delaware to speak on African American scrapbooks.

April 27 talk

I’m heading there for a meeting of the 19th century women writers study group, and squeezing on a talk about African American scrapbooks along the way. (Listen for a mention of a slaveholding Gorsuch — an ancestor of the new Supreme Court judge? I wouldn’t be surprised.)

This time we’re discussing Alice Dunbar Nelson’s work (okay, the LONG 19th century). I wrote about a fascinating scrapbook Dunbar-Nelson made about her suffrage work in 1915, and will be talking about that for the study group on Saturday, too. (I wrote about it in Writing with Scissors, and again in more detail in Legacy’s special issue on Alice Dunbar Nelson. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/645636) She was a woman of remarkable energy, commitment, and political organizing interests.

Lockport ahead: Speaking at the History Center of Niagara, Thurs May 19

So excited to be giving my first talk on scrapbooks for the Public Scholars in the Humanities program of the New York State Council for the Humanities, which has 31 scholars giving talks around the state. I have been completely wowed by those I met at our workshops last summer — Richard Heyl de Ortiz, who speaks about the foster care system, Sally Roesch Wagner, who speaks on the 19c women’s rights movement, and the cartoonist Robert Sikoryak who graciously shlepped to my university in Jersey City to give a brilliant presentation on the history of cartoons/graphic novels, and two dozen more. Just looking at the list of speakers again is inspiring. If you’re in NY State, your organization can invite one! Or more!

scrapbook page with calling and trade cardsTomorrow I head upstate to speak about scrapbooks at the History Center of Niagara, hard by the Erie Canal, with stops in Glen Falls along the way. I hope people respond to the invitation to bring their scrapbooks (50 years old or more — the scrapbooks, not the people). I’ll bring some of mine, too. And yes, I’ll talk about how people without much power — African Americans, women’s rights advocates — used scrapbooks to speak back to the media.

Thursday, May 19, 7 pm. Niagara County Historical Society215 Niagara Street, Lockport, NY 14094. Looking forward to seeing you!

 

Scissorizing, and speaking at Boston College Thurs. Oct 15, 4:30

bc garvey poster 2015-page-001I had just taught a class on Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall where I showed the students some of the charming cartoons about “scissorizing” — Fanny Fern’s word for the 19th century practice of copying from one newspaper or magazine to another, without pay — when Lori Harrison-Kahan sent me the poster for my talk, “Activists Repurpose Media: 19th Century Scrapbooks” at Boston College Thursday, October 15, 4:30. The poster uses one of the great “scissorizing” cartoons. This gives out 21st century use of the term “the cloud” new meaning. This editor seems to be receiving his “siftings” from on high — and bringing his readers the good grain, not the chaff.

Baldwin’s Monthly NY, vol 8 no 2 Feb 1874, p 3

Baldwin’s Monthly NY, vol 8 no 2 Feb 1874, p 3

Some of the cartoons were more hostile — it makes me wonder about how the cartoonists felt about those snipping editors. After all, cartoonists had to produce original material in an era before easy photographic reproduction. Take a look at “Involution of an Editor,” from the humor magazine Life.

Involution of News Editor - Life, Oct 25, 1883.

Involution of News Editor – Life, Oct 25, 1883.

Ohio State University Oct. 1 Visit and McGuffey’s Scrapbook

I wasn’t planning to look at scrapbooks in Ohio State University’s Special Collections when

Poster for OSU talk

Poster for OSU talk

I go this week to give a talk on scrapbooks on Thursday, October 1, and lead a graduate seminar in the English Department on archives on Friday. But I couldn’t resist looking in the catalog, and found that they have a scrapbook where poetry and vignettes are pasted into an 1866 McGuffey’s Fifth Eclectic Reader! A scrapbook anthology on top of a school anthology!

I remembered that in Julia Colman’s 1873 article “Among the

Preface: McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader

Preface: McGuffey’s Fifth Eclectic Reader

Scrap Books,” a shocked visitor finds a family “using up good printed books!” to make scrapbooks. The mother presiding over the scissorizing explains, “There is nothing in them that we want, and so we propose putting in something, rather than have them stand idle. … Some of them are old school-books, not much worn, but out of date.” I always assumed she meant geography books or science books, not readers. Perhaps this McGufffey’s was simply out of date for the family that owned it, with no more schoolchildren. I may have to see it.

Maine Historical Society scrapbooks

Nancy Noble writes about cataloging over a hundred scrapbooks in the Maine Historical

Scrapbooks in the collection of the Maine Historical Society

Scrapbooks in the collection of the Maine Historical Society

Society’s collection, from a backlog stretching back 50 years. What riches! Who would have thought the post office kept a scrapbook? I’m particularly curious about Scrapbook #7, on scrap and salvage during World War II. Often the only copies of rare newspapers disappeared into such efforts — and even scrapbooks disappeared into the salvage maw. The Maine Historical Society has many organizational and club scrapbooks — a type I didn’t do much with in Writing with Scissors. Is anyone working with that category? The descriptions of these scrapbooks show they are a rich trove for anyone working on Maine history, surely much else. If I ever get up to Portland…wonder woman paper
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