Scrapbooks made by Choate and Rosemary Hall alums are now on display in the library. Photo by Pinn Chirathivat/The Choate News
There is nothing short of magic lingering in the Choate library archives. Each book spine you run your finger across preserves a corner of history waiting to be discovered. Among them is a Rosemary Hall collection of scrapbooks that has rendered memories of past years timeless. Over the summer, several vintage scrapbooks were donated to the Rosemary Hall scrapbook collection in the archives.
In the early years of our institution’s history, it was commonplace for students to keep a scrapbook for their memories at school. Choate School and Rosemary Hall students would paste newspaper clippings, ticket stubs, and photographs in a book, sometimes with captions below. When examining these works, captions are incredibly important in identifying the context of the objects they describe. Sometimes, students would also incorporate small details in their captions — for instance, lists of the clubs they partook in and candy wrappers they would have otherwise discarded. Even when students did something they weren’t supposed to do, they would often record it in their books.
In the past, scrapbooking was a major hobby and a way to save memories, but its prevalence has sadly diminished over the years. The scrapbook collection in the archives contains 197 scrapbooks from students and faculty from the two schools, some of which have been here since the 1960s.
As beautiful as the scrapbooks are, they are difficult to maintain. Ms. Stephanie Gold, who works in the library, affirmed, “Scrapbooks can pose problems in the sense that stuff falls out easily, or maybe you can’t read the handwriting. How do you preserve a dried flower from 1918 and keep it from crumbling?” Scrapbooks must be handled carefully to avoid damaging the pages.
Scrapbooking’s modern-day equivalent, social media, doesn’t have this issue, yet, at the same time, viewing something on one’s phone does not give the same artistic feel as scrapbooking. Scrapbooks enable future generations to touch what past friends, students, or family members once produced, creating a much more personal experience than scrolling through past social-media posts.
On display right now in the library reading room are three unique scrapbooks, one of which was given to the School by its owner’s grandson. Ms. Judy Donald, the school’s archivist, explained that the scrapbooks “come from different periods. They came to us in different ways, and they are three different examples of what a scrapbook could be.”
She continued, “One of the reasons that we did the exhibit was to challenge students today to make scrapbooks too because the scrapbooks we have allow us to see the history of the School from students’ perspectives.” One student’s scrapbook, for example, contains only photographs of important people in her life, whereas another’s contains items ranging from magazine clippings to locks of hair.
Choate’s librarians take great care in presenting the scrapbooks to current Choate students, and they make sure to occasionally flip to new pages to keep the exhibit constantly fresh. Each scrapbook seems to recount a pivotal chapter in an individual student’s life, one into which they poured their hearts.
