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Start Over You searched for: Repository University of Michigan William L. Clements Library ✖ Remove constraint Repository: University of Michigan William L. Clements Library Level Collection ✖ Remove constraint Level: Collection Places Smyrna (Del.) ✖ Remove constraint Places: Smyrna (Del.) Subjects Women. ✖ Remove constraint Subjects: Women.Search Results
48 volumes
The Clements Library's collection of individual friendship and autograph albums (the ones that are not part of larger bodies of family papers) dates primarily from the second half of the 19th century. The creators of these albums sought out friends, family, schoolmates, public persons, and others to write signatures, sentiments, poetry, extracts from books and serials, personal sentiments, and more. Contributions often emphasize ties of friendship, exhortations to seek love, happiness, or Christian religious salvation. Most of the volumes in this collection were compiled in the Northeast United States and areas in the Midwest, with urban and rural areas represented. The greater number of the albums were kept by young women and the bulk of the signers were also female. At least one volume was kept by an African American man, Lewis G. Mosebay. Contributors occasionally illustrated pages with calligraphic designs, trompe l'oeil visiting cards, animals, flowers, and themes that had particular significance to their relationship with the keeper of the album. The volumes in this collection are largely decorative blank books adorned with tooled covers, sometimes containing interspersed engravings of religious, literary, historical, and landscape themes. Some include pasted-in photographs, die-cuts, or stickers.
1 volume
The Irene Levis Roberts album, which has the title "Flowers of Loveliness" imprinted on the cover, includes 9 entries (17 total pages): 8 poems and 1 note. The poetry, mostly written by A. H. Roberts, concerns topics such as nature and the seasons, religion, travel, and death (see below for a full list of titles). The note by Thomas C. Murphy, pastor of the Methodist Episcopal church in Smyrna, Delaware, pertains to the baptism of Irene L. Roberts on performed on March 11, 1855. Colorful crayon scribbles appear over one of the poems and on several of the later pages.
The book contains a series of colored prints show women dressed and decorated as flowers, each representative of a virtue.
- "To My Niece," by W. L. Green, November 25, 1852 (1 page)
- "The Flight of Time," by Edmund Brewster Green, September 7, 1844 (2 pages)
- "To My Friends," by A. H. Roberts, undated (2 pages)
- "On the Death of Mrs. S. M. of This Place," by A. H. Roberts, undated (2 pages)
- "Lines Suggested on Witnessing the Burial of Mr. D. Carr, Respectfully Addressed to His Widow," by A. H. Roberts, undated (2 pages)
- "The Home of the Christian," by A. H. Roberts, undated (2 pages)
- "The Hindoo Mother," by A. H. Roberts, undated (3 pages)
- "Reflections on My Past Visits to Cantwells Bridge, Addressed to E. D. Clark," by A. H. Roberts, copied by I. Roberts, May 1863 (2 pages)