Autograph Album

An autograph album was a small blank book — often about four and a half inches square, sometimes lavishly bound — in which the owner collected entries from friends: a signature, a date, a hometown, and usually a verse or 'sentiment.' Guests at a party, classmates at school, visitors to the house — all were expected to 'stand and deliver' a few lines on demand. 'You are who your friends are' was almost literally true of an album's owner.

The form descended from the 16th-century album amicorum, the 'book of friends' carried by traveling students, but the Victorians — especially Victorian women — made it a mass ritual of friendship. The verses were rarely original and often repeated for generations: 'When this you see, remember me,' and 'Roses are red, violets are blue' — a rhyme that appeared in print as early as 1805 — were inscribed thousands upon thousands of times.

It fascinates as the analog social-media profile: a curated, semi-public record of who you knew and who loved you, passed down in families so descendants could meet their ancestors' world. The album pictured here belonged to Annie Levy of Victoria, British Columbia, and was kept from 1902 — the tradition outlived Victoria herself.