Scrapbooks: An American History

by Jessica Helfand

Combining pictures, words, and a wealth of personal ephemera, scrapbook makers preserve on the pages of their books a moment, a day, or a lifetime. Highly subjective and rich in emotional content, the scrapbook is a unique and often quirky form of expression in which a person gathers and arranges meaningful materials to create a personal narrative. This lavishly illustrated book is the first to focus attention on the history of American scrapbooks—their origins, their makers, their diverse forms, the reasons for their popularity, and their place in American culture.   Jessica Helfand, a graphic designer and scrapbook collector, examines the evolution of scrapbooks from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present, concentrating on the first half of the twentieth century. She includes color photographs from more than two hundred scrapbooks, some made by private individuals and others by the famous, including Zelda Fitzgerald, Lillian Hellman, Anne Sexton, Hilda Doolittle, and Carl Van Vechten. Scrapbooks, while generally made by amateurs, represent a striking and authoritative form of visual autobiography, Helfand finds, and when viewed collectively they offer a unique perspective on the changing pulses of American cultural life.   Published with assistance from a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, History, Crafts, Books About Books, Design

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 3, 2008

About the author

Jessica Helfand is a designer, artist, and writer. Educated at Yale University, where she has taught for more than twenty years, she is a cofounder of Design Observer and the author of numerous books on visual and cultural criticism. The first Henry Wolf Resident at the American Academy in Rome, Helfand has been a Director's Guest at the Civitella Foundation and a fellow at the Bogliasco Foundation. She will be the artist in residence at the California Institute of Technology in the winter of 2020.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

To put it bluntly I feel the author came off as a snob. She loves the old scrapbooks, but thinks the modern version is worthless. I'm still trying to figure out how she grasped on to the wonderful of old, makes the same comparisons and still manages to arrive at a different conclusion about modern ones. If one doesn't have anything nice to say...probably she should have left it out of her book entirely and focused soley on historic scrapbooks. I also agree with several other reviews, there was too much white space, or blank space surrounding the pictures, the type was too small for such open spaces and I felt it could have been done better.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took me quite some time to read - Oct. 25 - December 9 to be exact! I think it's because the font is small and I could only read so much at a time and I had to pysch myself up to read it.

I liked reading about how people kept scrapbooks in the past and what they show us about the history of our country. From asking my grandpa, it sounds like nobody in my family kept a scrapbook, which is a real dissapointment.

I like the old time scrapbooks and the freedom they give. But I also like modern scrapbooks and their beauty and documentation of your won history. I think both types of books have a place, and I'm excited to try an old fashioned type of scrapbook and also start scrapbooking again soon.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is yet another book that I would not mind owning but I am glad that I ordered it for the collection and I really enjoyed reading it through. Although I enjoy using paper for making cards more so than I really make scrapbook pages but reading this reminded me that the scrapbooks I created in my younger days are really the ones that similar to what the author uses in these pages. Now that I've read this book I want to create more pages although a lot of what I want to do is more like an art journal, I think.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting look at the history of the scrapbook. This book is well-written and there are a number of pictorial examples. My only complaint is that the author seems to disdain the modern trends in scrapbooking. I understand her point, but at the same time feel she should have stayed neutral in her commentary.

[Sandybear76]

Sort of disappointed with the oversized volume about the scrapbook history. the print was small. the pages with the historical scrapbooks had too much background around them and the pages weren't big enough to see them. The history part was interesting but the today portion seemed to slam the current day scrapbooker.

[Cathyhall · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books of all time. Not about the circus-craft that is scrapbooking today. This is a well written history with several old scrapbooks reproduced in full. To me, worth every one of the forty dollars it cost. One of my core inspirations.

[Emily]

This combines two of my fave things! A peek into the past (love a connection to the 1800s), personal stories told with photos and memorabilia

[JulieK · Rating 3 out of 5]

The text was OK, but the real appeal of this book for me was in the photographs of scrapbooks she came across in her research - some were beautiful, all were interesting.

[Odoublegood · Rating 4 out of 5]

the text is only occasionally interesting, but the illustrations never fail to fascinate

[JayeL]

Heard about this book on the To the Best of Our Knowledge show called Reconsidering Craft, 12/14/2008: http://www.wpr.org/book/081214a.cfm.

[Jean Liota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pictures. Interesting to see how far back, and how varied, the history of scrabooking is.

[Whitaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really great book shows us how everything is great and worth to die for