Child's scrapbook

The scrapbook compiled by Robert Vernon Bulman (1882-1946) of Stirling East School contains embossed chromolithographs, or scraps, of birds and animals, 'English village' buildings, flowers and leaves, feathers, comical characters, ships and boats, costume and military uniforms, biblical and Christian scenes, vehicles, historical figures, dragons and fantasy creatures, flags, dogs, bicycles and cyclists, and racist representations of black men as minstrel or comic characters; pasted in a blank album published by Marcus Ward & Co. According to a label pasted on the cover, the album was entered in Class IV. Miscellaneous exhibits of the Public Schools' Floral and Industrial Society exhibition.

Scrapbooks were a popular activity for women and children. Sorting and arranging the chromolithographic scraps into pleasing patterns was a quiet activity that encouraged neatness and the artistic sense. Robert Vernon Bulman's scrapbook is composed of commercial scraps some of which are so large as to fill the page.

Commercially published albums such as those used for scrapbooks, despite their attractive binding, usually contained brittle acidic paper or thin card, which over time has begun to tear.

In contrast to this, and to other scrapbooks in the Children's Literature Research Collection which use commercial scraps, greeting and postcards, and cuttings from newspapers and magazines, Mrs Martha Hardy made a large scrapbook for her children using linen. Many of the pictures were a series of hand-coloured plates on natural history and phenomena issued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Other images were taken from newspapers and magazines.

Permission to use this item for any purpose, including publishing, is not required from the State Library under these conditions of use.

Buy a high resolution copy.