Away We Go Scrapbook Festival at D.C. Museum

By: Margaret Horton Edsall, For The Capital (Reprinted from The Capital, Annapolis, MD)

Calling all scrapbookers! On July 23, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and its Archives Center will present, for the first time, a grand scrapbook festival. Whether you’re a casual hobbyist or professional-level assembler, “Scraps from the Past: Two Centuries of American Scrapbooks” will give enthusiasts of all ages, talents and interests opportunities to learn all about this ever-popular diversion.

“The Smithsonian has never held an event devoted strictly to scrapbooks,” states Katherine Ott, curator in the museum’s Division of Medicine and Science and one of three editors of “The Scrapbook in American Life.”

Newly released by Temple University Press, “The Scrapbook in American Life” is a unique, groundbreaking anthology highlighted by 15 essays by historians, librarians and literary critics about the history and practice of turning paper and photographs into albums that preserve memories. Prior to its publication, no one had ever written a definitive scholarly work about what has been done - past and present - in the intriguing and innovated realm of scrapbooking.

The Scrapbook Festival, which will be held at Washington, D.C.’s Kenneth E. Behring Center, will provide a delightful afternoon for scrapbooking enthusiasts of every age. Bear in mind, however, the purpose of this event is not to show how to make scrapbooks or to improve upon assemblage techniques. Rather, as Ms. Ott puts it: “It will be a great way for visitors to uncover the much undervalued history of these splendid, curious and hypnotic things, to take seriously really mundane artifacts people have been assembling over time.”

Just for the festival, 12 noteworthy scrapbooks from the museum’s extraordinary collection - historically diverse, visually striking and from different eras, including baby books, travel adventures and celebrity watching - will be on display in the museum’s Archives Center. Their variety will be both fascinating and unique, with some of these creations having never been on public view before. Museum staff will be on hand to answer questions about these treasures.

“As do all things in this world, scrapbooks have a history,” Ms. Ott says. To shed light on many interesting facts, festival-goers will be treated to four talks that will explore scrapbook making - its roots, purposes and the human factors behind the creations.

“We don’t usually entertain the idea that everybody - women and men included - has done scrapbooking, even before the time when the ‘commonplace book’ - precursor to the scrapbook - appeared in the 1700s as a means to save words, ideas, biblical passes, snippets of paper, recipes, a lock of hair and pressed flowers.

“The pastime really took off in the mid-1800s when the availability of cheaper forms of paper combined with chromolithography came into play and ‘throw-aways’ like ticket stubs and greeting cards became part of the scene. And, when universal public education gets under way, scrapbooks serve even another purpose: They become one of the tools used to ‘civilize’ children, transporting them from an oral culture to a print-obsessed society.”

The festival’s 15-minute talks - held from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. and 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. - will be particularly interesting to visitors who connect with memory keeping.

“The excess of fragments that burst the bindings and bulge the pages make scrapbooks a pleasurable feast for both makers and consumers,” states Susan Tucker, co-editor of “The Scrapbook in American Life” and curator of books and records at the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women at Tulane University. “The talks will provide a window into seeing why scrapbooks are one of the most enduring yet simultaneously changing cultural forms of the last two centuries.”

The third editor of “The Scrapbook in American Life,” Patricia Buckler, an English professor at Purdue University - believes the talks will assist festival-goers in understanding the relationship between scrapbook makers and their creations.

“The maker uses the situation at hand to construct a separate reality that is rooted in his or her cultural matrix,” Ms. Buckler says. “Turning the pages reveals the maker’s interests, activities and experiences; through a scrapbook, the person records events and interests, explores ideas, comes to grips with the present and visualizes the future. When reading a personal memento scrapbook, the reader sees a narrative composition that is deliberately and carefully fashioned to reflect a particular vision of the maker’s life and self.”

The expert-led conversations, held in the museum’s Carmichael Auditorium, will include:

“An Overview of the History of Scrapbooks” presented by Ms. Ott.

“Scrapbooks, Memory and the Effect of Katrina on Gulf Coast Records” given by Ms. Tucker.

“Great Public Scrapbook Collections Around the United States” discussed by Ms. Buckler.

“Historical Aesthetics and Design of Scrapbooks” presented by Jessica Helfand, graphic design faculty member at the Yale School of Art and principal of Winterhouse Studio.

From noon to 5 p.m., festival participants will be encouraged to go on a mission of discovery to find displayed scrapbooks in four of the museum’s currently mounted special exhibitions: “America on the Move,” “Within These Walls,” “Honky-Tonk: Country Music Photographs by Henry Horenstein, 1972-1981,” and “Whatever Happened to Polio?” And, for those really adventurous festival-goers, there is a paper embosser in “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War” to be uncovered. The reward for finding the objects will be a souvenir scrap with a historical tie-in to each exhibition. Once collected, the scraps can be affixed to the program of the day’s events.

Throughout the afternoon, senior paper conservator Lynn Gilliland will be on hand in the Archives Center to answer questions about scrapbook preservation and to show various archival materials used at the museum.

No one will want to miss the presentation “Digitizing Scrapbooks - Using Scanners and Digital Cameras” from 1 to 2 p.m. and again from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the museum’s Information Age Theater. During this program, David Joyall, photographer for the Northeast Document Conservation Center, will discuss how to capture scrapbooks digitally. Mr. Joyall will compare the use of scanners to digital cameras. He also will explain how to use digitally created images for printing and on the Web.

All the displays, exhibitions, talks, hands-on activities and fun presented at the Scrapbook Festival at the National Museum of American History will be free.

http://scrapbooking.com/images/newsletters/smithsonian_071906.htm