Scrapbooking Toolkit

1598 Early mention of a gathering of “words and approved phrases … to make use as it were a common place booke (sic).”

1706 Philosopher John Locke publishes his New Method of Making Common-place Books.

1769 William Granger introduces a book that includes extra blank pages for collecting scrap.

1800s Young women keep friendship albums of scrap and memorabilia.

1825 A magazine, The Scrapbook, begins publication with articles on the hobby.

1837 Godefroy Engelmann invents chromolithography, a process of lithographic printing in color from a series of plates.

1860s Mass-production of advertising cards for companies and products.

1867 John Jerrard of London sets up shop as a dealer in photographs and scrap prints of every description for albums and scrapbooks.

1872 Mark Twain markets his self-pasting scrapbook.

1880 E.W. Gurley publishes Scrapbooks and How to Make Them, setting off the Victorian scrapbooking boom.

1888 George Eastman sells cameras for amateurs with the slogan “You push the button, we do the rest.”

1900 Major publishers begin marketing themed scrapbooks for children and adults.

1945 Books Across the Sea sponsors a contest for children’s scrapbooks with cash prizes.

1980 The Christensens display their scrapbooks at the World Conference on Genealogy in Salt Lake City.

1996Memory Makers magazine <wvwv.memorymakersmagazine.com> begins publication.

Supplies

• Creative Memories

<www.creativememories.com/home.asp>:

Use this site to find a scrapbook-product consultant in your area.

• University Products

517 Main St.

Box 101

Holyoke, MA 01041

(800) 628-1912

<www.universityproducts.com>: Preservation supplies for all types of family memorabilia.

• Light Impressions

Box 787

Brea, CA 92822

(800)828-6216

<www.lightimpressionsdirect.com>: Sells acid-and lignin-free papers and reinforced boxes as well as other preservation supplies.

Organizations

• The Ephemera Society of America

Box 95

Cazenovia, NY 13035

(315) 655-9139

<www.ephemerasociety.org>

For an extensive directory of archival suppliers and more scrapbook-preservation tips, see Family Tree Magazine‘s special issue Preserving Your Memories, available from <www.familytreemagazine.com/mags> and (888) 419-0421.

•The Encyclopedia of Ephemera: A guide to the Fragmentary Documents of Everyday Life for the Collector, Curator, and Historian by Maurice Rickards (Routledge, $65)