Scrapbook (Early 1900s)

Collection

Identifier: SpC MS 1840-sc

Staff Only

Content Description

Scrapbook consisting of newspaper clippings of poetry, literary articles, quotations, etc., from an unidentified compiler. Clippings are not dated (probably early 20th century) and do not indicate newspapers they came from. The majority deal with events related to World War I.

Dates

Creation: Early 20th century

Conditions Governing Access

No restriction on access.

Use Restrictions

Rights assessment remains the responsibility of the researcher. No known restrictions.

Historical Note

To the average World War I American...newspapers offered a way for people to access, escape, and later remember the events of the war. There are, of course, still newspapers in circulation today, but we don’t depend on them to stay connected and up to date in the same way Americans in the 20th century did. For the average American reader during the WWI era, newspapers were the best and most reliable option for up to date information.

Newspapers surprisingly had a life outside of the civilian realm, too. Soldiers of World War I were their authors. It was a practice that was more prevalent for European soldiers, particularly French and German troops, as they spent more time on the front lines and away from home than American soldiers did. The purpose of these papers was to give the soldiers an outlet in a time where there wasn’t one otherwise.

Even after the war had ended in 1918 newspapers would still find a way to play a part. They found a like home in the scrapbooks of soldiers and nurses who had been abroad and of citizens who had stayed home. Although each scrapbook and its memories are individual and special to the person who made it, the one item that regularly seems to appear universally at least once in these scrapbooks is newspaper clippings.

(excerpted from https://rememberingwwi.villanova.edu/newspapers/ ; accessed 8/30/2023)