Saturday, February 15, 2014

Albums: Silk & Paper


Ladies' Album, my latest 19th-century reproduction from Moda,
celebrates albums, bound and stitched, that captured women's imagination.

Women were often photographed with
albums and books, but men also created autograph albums.


Notably, albums related to the Civil War.

The Munger Album, with autographs of government officials, inscribed:

 "My husband, Charles A. Munger had this book made for him and collected most of the Autographs while in the Civil War, after he had been detailed by the War Department, as clerk in the Adjutant General's Office. He enlisted in 117th Regiment N. Y. Volunteers Aug. 8th 1862. At Waterville, N. Y."


An enterprising employee at the Ohio Penitentiary
collected autographs of Confederate prisoners of war
who served under General John Hunt Morgan.


Robert E. Lee

Carte-de-visite photos of officers were popular
 and many collectors gathered autographed CDV's
into photograph albums.

Lincoln's secretary John Hay kept an autographed photo album.

Album quilts were also the fashion during the war.
Here's a signature from a quilt dated 1862 in the Historical Society of the Nyacks.

See a post on this album quilt here:


Mary Hughes Lord of Nashville, Tennessee
combined two pastimes and asked politicians,
generals and other prominent men for 
their signatures for her album quilt.

The silk hexagon quilt is in the collection
of the Smithsonian Institution.

Mary Hughes Lord

Read about her quilt here:


3 comments:

WoolenSails said...

That sounds like a wonderful line and history behind it.

Debbie

Susan Claudia Silva said...

Saw this hexagon signature quilt and it was an amazing collection of important people at that time in history!

Dolores J. Rush said...

I stumbled upon your blog following links. I'm researching my 3rd great-grandfather, Rev. Martin White and wondered if his wife, Kiturah, crafted quilts and other needlework. She certainly had the time to do so, as she became crippled some time after the birth of her last child when they were still in Illinois (my grandmother thot she might have contracted polio) before they moved to the Kansas territories. I read with interest your article on the abolitionist quilt and now this one. Several of the White descendants I've been corresponding with have wished for a photograph of our mutual ancestor and none have been found to date. Your article mentions Col. John Hunt Morgan. He's from the same county in Kentucky that Martin is from -- Montgomery County. I recognized his name from my recent reading of several Montgomery County histories. I have a craft blog, a genealogy blog, and a biography blog, so we have similar interests. Have a good day! =0)