Last class, we had the honor of having Andrew Stauffer conduct a lecture about his project on book tracing. We were also able to attend his talk in the library. Both talks were extremely eye opening and informational. Throughout the paper I will discuss types of materials that were often stored in books, the content of marginalia, the purpose of further research and what I found most interesting from the talk.
First and foremost I appreciated Stauffer’s passion for his project and movement because it made me more inclined to learn about it and ways in which I could be involved. Stauffer began his presentation by showing the audience pictures of artifacts that he and his students found in books. A common practice in the 1800s was storing locks of hair on the inside of books. Some stored locks of hair to remember their child’s first haircut, or as a memento from one distant friend to another. There was a needle and thread found in books that once belonged to a seamstress. Flowers and other botanicals were mostly found in books of poems. It dawned on me that, although it seemed strange to me, people stored personal items in books because it was always with them. Sort of how our phones are always with us- it is like an extension of ourselves. It was common for people to adventure on their day-to-day lives with a book in hand. It is not as common today, as social media has become our source of entertainment, and the access of books is now at our finger tips.
Before books were simplified to an app on our cell phones, physical books were a convenient way for people to interact and communicate with one another. Books served many purposes for soldiers in war. For instance, Stauffer showed pictures of written memories between two veterans, a soldier’s geometrical calculations of what angle he should point his missile to successfully shoot a target, and even one troop’s location on an unfinished sketch of a map. It was interesting to see the differences in content and use of marginalia in specific books. Like the love notes written back and forth between two lovers in a book of poems, or the thoughts of a grieving mother who just lost a child, or son to war. Often found in personal books were meanings of what lines in the poem meant to the owner, along with how he/ she identified with the content. Some owners even crossed out parts of the text and wrote it in their own words, which I found to be hilarious. It displayed humor, self-pity, and sense of self in a society. Shauffer showed us one example of a young woman who questioned her faith in God, herself and “mankind” who did everything to stifle and suppress her. I found this very interesting because despite my passion for empowering women, I always had this misconception of what women were like centuries and decades ago. Many assume that because women were suppressed and kept from gaining higher education that we would not find many traces of them in books, but we did- and they had a lot to say. Many of the traces found today were written by women. This information was the biggest take away piece for me. I would love to find out if there are book traces of famous women leaders and if they have personal, case by case information leading up to historic events such as women gaining the right to vote and furthering their education. For this very purpose, book traces is a movement built upon more than sentimental value.
There is significance in knowing to whom books once belonged to, and the content of their annotations because it gives us an understanding of what people were like and how they interacted with each other. We also see how books have evolved from physical to a digital form with textual-like characteristics to simulate the real thing. For instance, instead of finding an imprint of flowers in today’s books, we would find digital illustrations of a flower pinned on a page, or leaf designs around the trim of a picture. Techniques of book markers or imprints of flowers are still used today, in this way. These little details are still important to us because we still hold on to them even as we evolve into a more digital way. There is much meaning to be found in book traces that we will never discover until we look beyond the pages.