Who Invented Scrapbooking Article

The Origin of Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is a method for preserving a legacy of written history in the form of photographs, printed media, and memorabilia contained in decorated albums, or scrapbooks. The idea of keeping printed materials of personal interest probably dates to shortly after the invention of printing. Similarly for photographs. Historically, scrapbooking was a tradition similar to storytelling, but with a visual and tactile, rather than oral, focus. Scrapbooking is a way to make photo arrangements to put your souvenirs together and keep them intact or at least durable for years to come. So it must be quite recent you might think… Well it’s not as young as you may think because guys like Thomas Jefferson and even the widely know Mark Twain indulged in this activity.

I made a little mistake earlier when I mentioned that it was a photo arrangement. Basically, it can be anything that you want to keep in your possession that might get ruined, but won't because of the way scrapbooking is done. You can use newspaper articles, a stub from a great movie you just saw or a rock concert you went to etc. The possibilities are endless. The reason someone will want to start scrapbooking is to keep all of their memories intact in a different way.

You might not have noticed, but for the last couple of years you see and hear more and more people doing scrapbooking. The scrapbooker is not a dangerous creature and can often be seen in the vicinity with other scrapbooking creatures and mostly share new ideas on how to make a page even more memorable. In all seriousness, keep an open eye as there are demonstrations quite often if you are interested. Of course who says popularity means companies that want their share of the cake. That is why there is such a big array of products in the market today. Products that range from stickers to colored sheets and cutters etc.

You might think that scrapbooking appeared close to the 19th century right? You’re headed for a surprise.

You probably heard of the philosopher Aristotle. Well in ancient Greece, when there were general assemblies or the town’s people were asked at an important meeting, there were signs everywhere. These signs were made on white tablets or more commonly known as paper.

In 1769, one of the world’s oldest countries had its history revealed by William Granger. He wrote the text and then if there was a significant moment, he would draw a picture of the event. On some other occasion, there would be nothing written so that anyone could do what they wanted.

The 19th century contained even bigger surprises. The United States of America saw it’s president of the time, Thomas Jefferson, doing scrapbooking of his own. After all he was president so he kept all kind of souvenirs but mostly newspaper clippings in which he appeared. Evidently the citizens did the same as well. Just as it is happening today, the albums were highly decorated inside as well as outside.

John Poole however is the grand daddy who published tips on how to do scrapbooking. He gave tips on how things should be done when people wanted to make their poems or souvenirs more interesting. Little did he know, he got the attention of a famous writer that eventually became very successful and he was called Mark Twain. Because of his fame, it brought him quite a nice sum of money as he sold one of his albums at an estimated $50,000.

1839 is a year that normal fellows will remember forever as we were finally able to see the daguerreotype. This invention paved the way for the camera. When George Eastman put the camera on the marketed in 1888 (a Kodak), the world of scrapbooking as we know it started taking shape.