Autographs

Since the rise of silent reading in the tenth century, books have promised private experiences. We may later convene with other readers who have shared our literary journeys, but we seldom travel together. Reading is a solitary practice: the book, a solo mission.

There are some exceptions. Schoolbooks lead students through classroom exercises. Songbooks direct singers in song. Actors follow parts in a playscript. But, in most of these genres, the book itself is not shared.

The autograph album is an anomaly. It was meant to be passed around. It did more than inspire an “imagined community,” as Benedict Anderson said of novels and newspapers. The autograph book recorded the traces of the readers who held it in their hands.

The autograph book, also called a “friendship album,” was designed to bring people together — and to bind them in perpetuity. The books were brought out at social occasions, leaving anxious signatories at risk of writer’s block:

I dip my pen into the ink,

And grasp your album tight;

But for my life I cannot think

One single word to write.

Guidebooks called “album writers” offered help. They published new verses and collected pithy extracts from famous poems. Ogilvy’s Album Writer’s Friend, published in 1881, included more than 300 new and recycled verses to fit any autographic occasion. One of Ogilvy’s humorous odes puts a fine point on the public nature of these books:

What! write in your album, for critics to spy,

For the learned to laugh at? — No, not I!

The ceremony surrounding the autograph album was typical of Victorian American society. Like those other outward signs of character and class — dress, manners, and comportment — the autograph book was a place to display one’s allegiance to the norms of middleclass life. The proper sentiments for women focused on friendship and care; men emphasized honor and valor. Many of the signatures in this autograph album refer to Christian ideals and anticipate a sweet, heavenly reward.

Their focus on death is not misplaced; these writers knew that they were adding their names to history’s roll call.

On this leaf, in memory prest,

May my name forever rest.

The pages of the autograph album saved the names of many people who were excluded from official history books. Like most historical women, the owner of this album, Emily Davis Johnson, rarely appears in official records. She did not marry, which can also make it harder to track a women through name changes. But, in Emily’s case, this also means that she is nearly absent from the public record. There are no recorded marriages or births. She worked at home and her death certificate states that she died at home in Ashland, Massachusetts, of natural causes, at age 82 in 1918.

The certificate’s signatory, J. H. Temple, signed Emily’s book 42 years earlier: very truly yours.