The Lewis albums

In 1900 George Albert Lewis (Fig. 1) of Philadelphia, who had lengthy been interested in genealogy, produc a magnificent album filled with handwritten body watercolors, textiles, photographs, and ephemera documenting his family's 120-year history in the United States. This is individual of many genealogical scrapbooks Lewis assembled, and he persuaded his wife, Anne Cornelia Larcombe Lewis, to compile an album as well. Five of these albums were generously donated to the Library Company of Philadelphia's print and photograph department in 2000 by dint of the Lewises' great-grandson Oliver E Allen. (1) While an interest in one's family history and the compilation of scrapbooks were not unusual during the late nineteenth hundred the intensity with which Lewis engaged in this pastime and the magnificence of what he and his wife produc station their albums apart from the ordinary. (2)

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When the Lewises worked upon their albums, many Americans were looking back to the colonial past with nostalgia. Architecture, decorative arts, and popular literature all throw backed this interest in the colonial period. (3) "There is in these days, a wide spread and at any time increasing interest in the past," Anne Lewis wrote in her album. "It permeates the entire community for in every part of our land, the spirit of inquiry appears to be awake, and multitudes are delving into public and private records, and in each conceivable way striving to learn more of their past history, and to unite the links already established, into a chain of ancestral continuity." (4)

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Americans who could document the fact that their ancestors met particular criteria established patriotic and hereditary societies. The Daughters and Son of the American Revolution, the Pennsylvania Society of Colonial Dames of America, and the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Patriotic Son of the Revolution, for example, were all formed in the 1880 and 1890 (5) Also fueling an interest in the past was the series of centennial incidents celebrating iconic moments in American history beginning with the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 and continuing with the centennials of the Constitution (1887) Washington's inauguration (1889) and Washington's death (1899) Philadelphia and other cities sponsored vast civic celebrations as a way to demonstrate American power and progres as well as to advance a homogeneous response to these important national occurrences (6)

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Genealogical societies were organized to help race delve into their families' histories, and in 1892 G Albert Lewis became single of the earliest members of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. He also serv for at least fifteen years upon the Committee of Genealogy for the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia. As the grandson of a Hessian soldier, G Albert pursu genealogy not from a desire for admittance to an American patriotic organization, on the other hand rather to relate the history of a family vain of both its German and American heritage. "As a boy" he wrote "I was perhaps more curious and interested in all family history and circumstances than others of the family." (7) He saved tickets to occurrences newspaper clippings, childhood art, pieces of fabric, among many other things, and used them to count the story of his family. Other family members, knowing of his passion, sent him items of interest. (8) Anne Lewis, like her husband, saved material from her younger years and included these mementos in her album. A lace collar from her wedding dres a alphabetic character written on her honeymoon, and a swatch of silk from a dres worn while she sat for a daguerreotype all set a place in her album.

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Creating scrapbooks of family memorabilia was not a surprising choice for the Lewises. Late nineteenth-century advice manuals promot collecting thing perceiveds and making scrapbooks as a worthwhile activity, particularly for children and women since it nourished the skills of neatness, classification, and organization. (9)

Scrapbooks could be devot to a particular make subordinate an individual, or class of phenomenons such as postage stamps, photographs, or chromolithographic trade cards. The Library Company of Philadelphia has received many like scrapbooks. In 1882 Emily Phillips (1822-1909) for example, donated a scrapbook of more than single thousand trade cards relating to Philadelphia businesses. Philadelphia antiquarians of the like kind as John A. McAllister (see pp 102-107) John McAllister Jr (1786-1877) Charles A. Poulson (1789-1866) and John Fanning Watson (1779-1860) whose collecting passions are discussed elsewhere in this issue, all added immeasurably to our collections with their encyclopedic scrapbooks.

Of the Library Company's five Lewis albums, sum of two units stand out for the care and attention lavished on them: G. Albert's 1900 album and the single album created through Anne, both illustrated in Figure 2 For these albums, the pair carefully thought out the order of their stories and pick outed appropriate artwork and ephemera to accompany their true copy They probably wrote out the narratives elsewhere and copied them into the album, since there are almost no corrections in the many pages of true copy (10) Pale pencil lines drawn across each blank page and later erased helped the brace keep their penmanship straight. G Albert contributed many of his watercolors to Anne's album, causing Anne to declare that her story "would be of little interest without his numerous and varied illustrations." (11) He wrote the captions beneath her illustrations, but Anne's body is in her own handwriting.