The Antique Scrapbook - October 9, 2024

One last item from the City-Wide BIG yard sale buy!  

This scrapbook can be dated to at least 1885 due to some newspaper clippings. 

Based on content the owner of this scrapbook lived in Humboldt County, CA, perhaps in the town of Eureka. 

Inside, the front cover is decorated with an antique sewing material label.  Now we can pay to download digital versions of images like this! 

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More decorations.

Lots of news articles and interesting photos cut from newspapers.  

A few letters to out of town newspapers were honored to be included.  This criticizes the dog carrying ladies of the time, when there are children that need care!   It's funny, I too take exception to women (usually women) who carry their dogs!  Those who carry their dogs into stores, and set them on the checkout counters.  I didn't even like dogs on the counter when I worked at a pet store.  I'd clean it as soon as they left.  Who knows what the dogs leave behind (I think of worm eggs, sorry)?  Leave the dogs at home when you have errands!  

The scrapbook keeper, who I will refer to as "she," as a woman is far more likely to have kept this than a man, must have enjoyed nature, as she included many flowers and plants.  The fruit below was cut from a Fruit of the Loom advertisement!

She liked to save prints of far off places.  

And current events.  She had several pages devoted to U.S. Presidents.   Here she cut out their portraits and arranged them on one page.  The man is John Howard Payne, an American poet, playwright, author, and actor, in an 1883 magazine engraving.  

Lots of poems, household hints, and obituaries were clipped and saved.   Obituaries were written in quite flowery language, and in much detail!  Local events were big news as well, such as this recap of a silver wedding anniversary party.  The actual article was several columns, giving the details of the bride and groom, and what each of the many guests brought as anniversary gifts.  Most were silver, fancy tea sets, spoons, and such.

Antibiotics didn't become widely available to the public until the 1940s, so many cases of strep throat turned into scarlet fever, both of which are high contagious.  Strep throat can develop into scarlet fever.  Fortunately, we have access to antibiotics to stop that from happening.  I wonder if more of the Van Rossum/Schmidt family and funeral attendees became infected? 

There were even a few Carte-de-Visite photos.  Ever since I found out what they are I've been finding them!

This ends the posts for the Big Buy at the City-Wide Sale!