History of Scrapbooking
Scrapbooking is a wildly popular hobby and art today, but few people realize that the practice dates back centuries, even before the invention of photography. The practice has come a long way through the ages, and shows no signs of slowing down.
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Roots
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The ancient Greeks and Romans kept tablets with notable sayings and poems engraved on them as mementos. By medieval times, some people began using bound books for the same purposes.
Albums
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Around the 17th century in Europe, writer and art lover Giorgio Vasari began keeping artwork and writings in albums, and advocated the practice. He influenced museums, libraries and even families to begin keeping a collection of memories in albums.
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Scrapbooks
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By the early 1800s, filling blank books with phrases, cards and other mementos, and arranging them in an attractive way with decorative pages, began to catch on. In 1825 and 1826, the first books with instructions on keeping a scrapbook were produced.
Photographs
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With photographic technological advances in the mid to late-1800s, such as the photographic negative and prints, keeping printed images became a more common practice, whether they were family photos or clippings from publications. As personal cameras became mass-marketed in the 20th century, a "photo album" became a common object found in almost every home.
Turning Point
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Marielen Christensen of Utah showed the 50 volumes of her decorative family albums she had been crafting at the World Conference on Records in 1980, and her creative ideas about how to preserve, protect and display family memories caught attention. She opened the first scrapbooking store in 1981.
Today
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The popularity of the hobby has continued to grow into a major industry, with $2.55 billion in retail sales in 2004. According to Scrapbook.com Magazine, there are 5,900 retail scrapbook stores in the United States. Approximately 1 in 3 homes in the United States houses a scrapbooker.
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