Keepsakes, Not Throwaways

 

QUESTION: Sometime ago I purchased a box of colorful decorative holiday cutouts and imprints. Many of the designs feature St. Nicholas and have a definite British Victorian look to them. What were these called and what were they used for?

ANSWER: Believe it or not, the cutouts you purchased are known as scraps. While the word “scraps” has now come to mean parts that are left over, such as scraps of wood, fabric, and paper, back in the 19th century it meant something quite different.

The Victorians loved decoration—the more the better. They also were very romantic and loved sentimentality and keepsakes. This led to a phenomenon popularly known as scraps. 

Also called die cuts or chromos, scraps were small, colorful, embossed paper images that were sold in sheets by stationers and booksellers and used in various decorative, entertainment, and educational applications. Their diverse subject matter included flowers, trees, fruits, birds, animals, pets, ladies and gents, children, historical people and events, angels, transportation themes, and occupational motifs. 

People pasted them into albums and used them to make greeting cards and decorated boxes. They also pasted them on folding screens and pieces of furniture. Scraps served as extra learning materials to teach young children the alphabet, counting, natural history, and geography, as well as teaching tools for learning prayers and Bible stories and in the enjoyment of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

The first scraps originated in German bakers' shops as decoration for biscuits and cakes and for fastening on wrapped sweets. The earliest ones were printed in uncut sheets in black and white, then hand colored. Scraps appeared in Britain in the 1850s and soon became popular as decorative additions to Christmas cards. They were also used to illustrate historical as well as events of the time.

By the mid-1800's, chromolithography had been invented. This made a wide variety of  colored scraps available to an ever-increasing market. But chromolithography required a lengthy process. Each color had to be applied separately and needed to dry before the next color could be applied. However, the process made up to 20 printed colors possible. Printers made Victorian and Edwardian scraps in sheets that contained small chromolithographs designed to be cut out in the same manner as the first penny postage stamps. After printing and before embossing, they coated the sheets with a gelatin and gum layer that resulted in a glossy appearance and helped the paper stretch without cracking the print. Steel cutters, powered by foot treadles, punched out excess paper and left clean, sharp edges. Thin paper sheets, imprinted with manufacturers’ trademarks and called "ladders," held the cut sheets together.

The elaborate use of stamping can often be seen in uncut scrap sheets. Optimum use of space, required minimal cutting and lead to the intricate and ingenious design of the cutting die. 

Early in the 20th century, young ladies and children of the middle and upper classes began keeping scrapbooks that contained collections of commercially produced scraps. They organized them thematically with a single subject for the entire book or with several themes arranged by section. Sometimes, they added lines of poetry, personal notations, inscriptions by family and friends, and drawings. 

Stationery stores sold scrapbooks with tooled leather covers, elaborately embossed bindings, engraved clasps, and brass locks. Some scrapbooks contained printed decorations on their pages, as well as centered oval, circular or square sections into which people could paste items. Other albums held printed pages with theme-setting embossed decoration-like flowers or birds. Many scraps keepers made their own albums by pasting scraps over catalog and magazine pages.

Scraps production continued through the 1920's, but changes in popular taste, the effects of World War I, and the economic limitations of the Great Depression all contributed to their decline. Over time, newspaper and magazine pictures supplanted scraps as the "cutouts" of choice. 

Today, sheets of uncut Victorian scraps and single scraps of good design, color, and condition are prized by ephemera collectors. Die cuts by celebrated manufacturers like Raphael Tuck and Sons, which produced a series of scraps to commemorate Queen Victoria's 50th jubilee in 1887, are especially prized by collectors. Values vary from $5 for common scraps up to $50 for unusual and sought-after images. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the "Antiques of Christmas" in the 2021 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Crazy Fads Come and Go But This One Lingers On

 

QUESTION: I have a crazy quilt that once belonged to my great grandmother. It’s been lovingly cared for by her daughter and then her daughter’s daughter, my mother, who’s now getting up in years. When she downsized to move to a retirement home, she gave the crazy quilt to me. I love the intricate designs, but, otherwise, I don’t know much about it. Can you tell me more and perhaps tell me how I can take care of it? It’s in good condition, but I can see that it’s somewhat delicate.

ANSWER: Your crazy quilt is the result a fad that began in the United States nearly a century and a half ago, roughly from 1875 to 1900. As with many country quilts, it became a way for women to use up their extra scraps of cloth or fabric from worn-out clothes. But crazy quilts were also a form of self-expression, much like samplers were a century before. 

Victorian women created crazy quilts like giant jigsaw puzzles, made of irregular pieces of silk, satin, velvet, or plush fabric sewn onto a solid backing of a lighter material, then decorated with embroidery stitches. Many became sentimental diaries stitched with names and legends while others took on the look of nostalgic stitched scrapbooks filled with memorabilia commemorating events, story book characters, garden flowers, even family pets. Women often made them as gifts to a bride or to someone recovering from a severe illness. Others made them in memory of a loved one who had recently passed.

Scraps for these elaborate quilts often came from ball gowns, opera capes, or the parlor curtains. But women could also buy packages of scraps from the Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck catalogs. The Singer Sewing Machine Company used crazy quilts as a symbol on their trade cards. Women's magazines of the day offered directions for making crazy quilts as table covers along with patterns for decorating them. Silk manufacturers promoted the use of their scrap waste in making crazy quilts. Magazine publishers also offered booklets on making crazy quilts as premiums in exchange for subscriptions to their periodicals. 

The word crazy in this case actually means irregular, odd, bizarre, strange, or unusual, and perfectly describes these quilts. Some look like a haphazard collection of odd bits of cloth and memorabilia while others are more like abstract works of silk art in shimmering colors reflecting light.

Since crazy quilts are more often tufted rather than quilted, they should be called "throws." Victorian housewives often threw them over parlor tables and pianos, as well as sofas or beds. They were the perfect complement to the ornately carved overstuffed furniture and bric-a-brac of every sort adorning  table tops, etageres, and mantels in the Victorian parlor.

Some historians believe the Victorian crazy quilt may have originated as a result of the popularity of Japanese prints or screens after the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. Others wonder if their fractured designs may have been taken from the pattern of an uneven pavement or cracked ice, a popular decorative border used from the late 1870s through the 1880s.

Likewise, women often copied the patterns painted and embroidered on crazy quilts from Japanese ones. Many crazy quilts display a cranes standing in pools of water, owls and peacocks perched on gnarled tree branches, kimono clad figures, butterflies and cherry blossoms, hanging lanterns and spider webs. 

And since not every woman was artistically talented, makers of crazy quilts could purchase pre-stamped patches or would trace designs from magazines. The Ladies Home Journal offered as a premium to readers bringing in 16 new subscribers a “Crazy Patchwork Outfit,” consisting of 12 pre-stamped pieces of silk, one box of stamping powder, twelve skeins of embroidery silk, and a glittering array of two dozen spangles and two yards of tinsel cord.

Women's magazines also offered how-to instructions for the three basic embroidery stitches---the outline, Kensington, and plush. The outline stitch, also known as the stem stitch, formed a thread line as in a drawing. The Kensington stitch enabled crazy quilt makers to fill in their outlines using various colors. And the plush stitch produced areas of cut silk thread like a pile carpet. 

Quilt makers used embroidery stitches not only along the edges of patches to decorate them and at the same time hold the edges under and in place but also to make designs. Those who lacked embroidery skills could purchase pre-embroidered appliques. Some crazy quilt makers further embellished their creations with painted designs on the fabric after they assembled their quilts. Sequins, beads, spangles, metallic braid, and ribbon were also popular forms of embellishment.

Crazy quilts aren’t as durable as regular quilts. They won’t survive daily folding and shouldn’t be used as throws where they’ll be handled a lot. But they can be mounted on a frame or encased in plexiglass and hung on a wall. Both dry cleaning and wet cleaning damages them, so the only safe way of cleaning them is to use a low power vacuum held well away from the fabric which has been covered with some sort of mesh screening—an old window screen will do—to prevent the fabric from being sucked up and damaged.

Unlike regular quilts, women who made crazy quilts usually signed them. Many have been passed down through generations in a family.

Prices for crazy quilts range from $50 for an average small one to as much as $1,000 for a large exceptionally stitched one. Because their prices are relatively low in comparison with fine 19th-century quilts, many most likely remain hidden away in attic trunks waiting to be discovered.

For more information on caring for old quilts, read “Caring for Antique Quilts” in #TheAntiquesAlmanac. 

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Sparkling World of Glass" in the 2021 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Art of the Scrapbook

 

QUESTION: I’ve been into scrapbooking for about two years. Last year I saw several older ones at a local antique show. One was rather plain, but the other was quite elaborate. The dealer wasn’t sure how old they were, but they looked like they could have been from the late Victorian Era. I’ve always wondered when the idea of pasting pictures and other items into albums began. Can you give me a little history of scrapbooking? 

ANSWER: Throughout the 19th century, scrapbooks that closely resemble what we think of as a scrapbook today began to to be popular. 

Historians believe the first recorded use of the term “scrap book—referring to a book with blank pages into which a person pasted items—was in 1821. People wrote the term as two words, "scrap book" or hyphenated as "scrap-book," but over time, the two words morphed into one, as it appears today. But it wasn’t until 1879 that people started to use the term as a verb,” to scrapbook.”

The invention of the commercial printing press in the early 19th century was responsible for the popular practice of pasting pictures and paper mementos into blank books called albums. Recipients began to view elaborately printed greeting cards, calling cards, postcards, prayer cards, advertising trading cards, and other materials as novelty keepsakes. 

Newspapers went into widespread circulation as well, and readers clipped everything from family mentions to recipes to historic news stories to save.

The increased availability of printed material sparked a new trend. People began filling blank, bound books—previously used for journals or artwork—with clippings, cards and printed memorabilia. Some of these books contained a mix of personal journal entries, hand-drawn sketches, and watercolors, along with various scraps of printed material. 

One of the most popular forms of early scrapbooks was the placement of calling cards into albums. Calling cards had long been used as a form of social etiquette, especially in England. Elaborate rules dictated how people were to use these cards to make attempts at social contacts and to accept or decline them. They were also used as a way to politely extend social greetings after an event like a birth or wedding.  

In a world where social elites hid behind a wall of servants, people didn’t just drop in for a visit. Instead, a person would drop off a card with the corner folded to indicate it was delivered in person. If the recipient wished to receive a visit, they would send their card as a reply. A card delivered in an envelope, however, was a polite brush-off.

Like so many other things in Victorian times, beautiful floral designs and pastoral scenes decorated these cards. The desire to preserve these beautiful pieces of full-color printing and remember friendships led to the growth of calling card albums. 

The Victorians loved decoration—the more the better. They also were very romantic and loved sentimentality and keepsakes. To fulfill their desire for decoration, they used embossed paper images called scraps. 

Also called die cuts or chromos, scraps were small and colorful and sold in sheets by stationers and booksellers. Their diverse subject matter included flowers, trees, fruits, birds, animals, pets, ladies and gents, children, historical people and events, angels, transportation themes, and occupational motifs. People pasted them into albums and also used them to make greeting cards and decorated boxes.

The first scraps originated in German bakers' shops as decoration for biscuits and cakes and for fastening on wrapped sweets. Printers produced the earliest ones in uncut sheets in black and white, then hand colored them. Scraps appeared in Britain in the 1850s and soon became popular as decorative additions to Christmas cards. They were also used to illustrate historical as well as events of the time.

Early in the 20th century, young ladies and children of the middle and upper classes began keeping scrapbooks that contained collections of commercially produced scraps. They organized them thematically with a single subject for the entire book or with several themes arranged by section.

Sometimes, they added lines of poetry, personal notations, inscriptions by family and friends, and drawings. 

Stationery stores sold scrapbooks with tooled leather covers, elaborately embossed bindings, engraved clasps, and brass locks. Some scrapbooks contained printed decorations on their pages, as well as centered oval, circular or square sections into which people could paste items. Other albums held printed pages with theme-setting embossed decoration-like flowers or birds. Many scraps keepers made their own albums by pasting scraps over catalog and magazine pages.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Retro style in the Fall 2020 Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Keepsakes, Not Throwaways

QUESTION: Sometime ago I purchased a box of colorful decorative holiday cutouts and imprints. Many of the designs feature St. Nicholas and have a definite British Victorian look to them. What were these called and what were they used for? 

ANSWER: Believe it or not, the cutouts you purchased are known as scraps. While the word “scraps” has now come to mean parts that are left over, such as scraps of wood, fabric, and paper, back in the 19th century it meant something quite different.

The Victorians loved decoration—the more the better. They also were very romantic and loved sentimentality and keepsakes. This led to a phenomenon popularly known as scraps.

Also called die cuts or chromos, scraps were small, colorful, embossed paper images that were sold in sheets by stationers and booksellers and used in various decorative, entertainment, and educational applications. Their diverse subject matter included flowers, trees, fruits, birds, animals, pets, ladies and gents, children, historical people and events, angels, transportation themes, and occupational motifs.

People pasted them into albums and used them to make greeting cards and decorated boxes. They also pasted them on folding screens and pieces of furniture. Scraps served as extra learning materials to teach young children the alphabet, counting, natural history, and geography, as well as teaching tools for learning prayers and Bible stories and in the enjoyment of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.

The first scraps originated in German bakers' shops as decoration for biscuits and cakes and for fastening on wrapped sweets. The earliest ones were printed in uncut sheets in black and white, then hand colored. Scraps appeared in Britain in the 1850s and soon became popular as decorative additions to Christmas cards. They were also used to illustrate historical as well as events of the time.

By the mid-1800's, chromolithography had been invented. This made a wide variety of  colored scraps available to an ever-increasing market. But chromolithography required a lengthy process. Each color had to be applied separately and needed to dry before the next color could be applied. However, the process made up to 20 printed colors possible. Printers made Victorian and Edwardian scraps in sheets that contained small chromolithographs designed to be cut out in the same manner as the first penny postage stamps. After printing and before embossing, they coated the sheets with a gelatin and gum layer that resulted in a glossy appearance and helped the paper stretch without cracking the print. Steel cutters, powered by foot treadles, punched out excess paper and left clean, sharp edges. Thin paper sheets, imprinted with manufacturers’ trademarks and called "ladders," held the cut sheets together.

The elaborate use of stamping can often be seen in uncut scrap sheets. Optimum use of space, required minimal cutting and lead to the intricate and ingenious design of the cutting die.

Early in the 20th century, young ladies and children of the middle and upper classes began keeping scrapbooks that contained collections of commercially produced scraps. They organized them thematically with a single subject for the entire book or with several themes arranged by section. Sometimes, they added lines of poetry, personal notations, inscriptions by family and friends, and drawings.

Stationery stores sold scrapbooks with tooled leather covers, elaborately embossed bindings, engraved clasps, and brass locks. Some scrapbooks contained printed decorations on their pages, as well as centered oval, circular or square sections into which people could paste items. Other albums held printed pages with theme-setting embossed decoration-like flowers or birds. Many scraps keepers made their own albums by pasting scraps over catalog and magazine pages.

Scraps production continued through the 1920's, but changes in popular taste, the effects of World War I, and the economic limitations of the Great Depression all contributed to their decline. Over time, newspaper and magazine pictures supplanted scraps as the "cutouts" of choice.

Today, sheets of uncut Victorian scraps and single scraps of good design, color, and condition are prized by ephemera collectors. Die cuts by celebrated manufacturers like Raphael Tuck and Sons, which produced a series of scraps to commemorate Queen Victoria's 50th jubilee in 1887, are especially prized by collectors. Values vary from $5 for common scraps up to $50 for unusual and sought-after images.