…As It Might Have Been:
Storytelling, Memory, and Identity Within the Scrapbook
by Rachel Vorsanger
On the surface, the four scrapbooks that Janet Morris created between 1921 and 1931 are archival chronicles of three trips she took with her family to western Canada and the United States, and to various countries in Europe. They detail the Morris family’s itineraries, modes of transportation, tourist activities, accommodations, and even their meals. It would certainly be feasible for a researcher to trace the Morris family’s journeys with the information present in Janet Morris’s notebooks. Activating that information by plotting routes on a map or compiling a list of lodgings and activities is an important tool for archiving, but would not be sufficient for this investigation. Viewing Janet Morris’s scrapbooks solely as repositories of information would be doing them a disservice. They are, in fact, a window into the world –and even an embodiment of– their creator.
When Janet Morris compiled these scrapbooks, she was partaking in a tradition that had gained widespread popularity in the late nineteenth century. With the advent of the industrial printing press and technologies that made publishing more affordable came mass media culture: the proliferation of newspapers and magazines containing a multitude of text and images. By selecting then-contemporary media, designing unique layouts with that material, and including her own thoughts and personal mementos, Janet Morris created a vivid world within the pages of her notebooks. A world that not only reflects the external culture of a past generation, but the internal realities of a girl as she journeys from adolescence into adulthood. The backdrop to her coming-of-age story is a time of unprecedented technological advancements and change. Yet guiding the reader through is Janet Morris’s voice ringing resoundingly clear. The agency and freedom she exerted in her creative expression elevates these scrapbooks from being items within an archive, to a testament to the human experience, and an archive in and of themselves.
LABEL
The object presented here measures 8 ½ inches in height, by 6 ¾ inches in width, by 1 ½ inches in depth. It is a lined, softcover notebook with a blue cover that its owner has adorned with cut-out prints, one of which reads “Free: this travel book!” Inside the notebook are approximately 106 prints, 45 items, and 10 letterpresses that its owner, Janet Morris, collected during her trip to Europe in the summer of 1925. Janet, born in 1907, was the daughter of amateur photographer Marriott C. Morris who was a descendant of a prominent Quaker family in Philadelphia. This scrapbook forms part of The Marriott C. Morris Collection which is currently housed by The Library Company of Philadelphia. It is one of four scrapbooks that Janet created to commemorate trips that she took with family in her youth.
COUNTERLABEL
With its smooth blue cover and finely lined pages, this travel-sized notebook could be just another item on a school supplies list. Yet it is anything but ordinary. Janet Morris, the youngest daughter in a prominent Quaker family in Philadelphia, used it to chronicle her travels throughout Europe in 1925. This scrapbook contains a whimsical narrative of a teenage girl who travels across Europe for the first time, sees sights that evoke wonder and awe, and attracts the attention of several handsome young men. Janet created this narrative by arranging pictures from magazines, printed text, and mementos from her trip into unique layouts accompanied by her thoughts, comments, and third-person narration written in her own hand. The result is a window into the world of a young girl whose privilege both offered and limited her freedoms, but whose wit and personality quite literally jump from the page. No longer a simple notebook, this scrapbook is an extension of Janet Morris as she once was.
The accompanying image shows a selection of pages that are visually compelling, not only because of their creative layouts, but because those layouts extend beyond the boundaries of the scrapbook itself. During her travels, Janet Morris collected mementos such as programs, maps, brochures, advertisements, menus, airline tickets, luggage tags, pressed flowers, a peacock feather, and paper streamers. It did not deter Janet that many of these items did not fit within the notebook. To include them, she negotiated with the limits of her chosen medium by folding items into halves or quarters and indicating “bend down” or “bend up” on the items themselves. Through her deliberate instructions, Janet exerts control over her narrative and further imbues her mementos with personal and visual significance. By ensuring that the reader will view these mementos properly, Janet expands the scrapbook beyond its own dimensions and allows the reader to experience the world as she did.
Select pages from Janet Morris’s “Europe – 1925” scrapbook. The Marriot C. Morris Collection Scrapbooks.
The Library Company of Philadelphia.
At the center of the narrative in this scrapbook is Janet Morris. Not only as herself, but as the beautiful girl depicted here: the glamorous star of the story. “She goes away, triumphantly bearing the flowers (these are they) that her two dear young friends gave her!” Janet is on the brink of an adventure and her readers are welcome to join her. Just as long as they follow the path she has constructed for them into both her European travels and her personal introspection. In addition to mementos, that path consists of pictures and text from newspapers and magazines. These pages shown here –the second set in this scrapbook– are evidence of how she masterfully used print media and visual culture to enhance and amplify her own voice. Perhaps in her lifetime, Janet did not view this and her other scrapbooks as art objects to be studied, but rather as vehicles for journaling and reflection. Happily, we know now that the two are not mutually exclusive.
Pages three and four from Janet Morris’s “Europe – 1925” scrapbook. The Marriot C. Morris Collection Scrapbooks. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
European countries were not the only destinations that Janet preserved between the pages of her scrapbooks. In the summer of 1921, she and her family traveled to Niagara Falls and the Great Lakes, and then across Western Canada and Washington State where they went canoeing, horseback riding, hiking, and sightseeing by automobile. In this photograph, fourteen-year-old Janet is flanked by her two older brothers: Elliston Perot Morris Jr. and Marriott Canby Morris Jr., who were eight and seven years her senior, respectively. They are seen here hiking Victoria Glacier at Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada. In Janet’s diary entry from this specific day, she recalls how “E, M, and I got there before the rest and enjoyed a snowball fight in July.” After reading Janet’s words, this photograph comes to life to depict a playful moment between siblings that, while fleeting in time, is forever preserved between the pages of her journal.
From left to right: Elliston Perot Morris Jr., Janet Morris, and Marriott Canby Morris Jr. on Victoria Glacier, Lake Louise, 7/21/1921. The Marriot C. Morris Collection. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
From March to April in 1931, six years after her first transatlantic adventure, Janet Morris returned to Europe. She chronicled her travels throughout Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and France in the scrapbook in which this telegram appears. While a novel sight to a contemporary audience, a telegram was a then-frequent occurrence, perhaps even more so when it came from a family member (in this case, likely her father). Why, then, would Janet include it? The answer lies in her caption, or better put, her commentary: “Such a lot of information!” Whether meant to be playful or sarcastic, Janet was free to express her unvarnished thoughts within the pages of her scrapbook. By including this telegram, she also exercised power: she elevated the status of something prosaic and made it unique. This page from her scrapbook is not only a testament to a time past, but a window into the methods of self-expression for a woman of Janet Morris’s class and age.
Page seven from Janet Morris’s “Europe 1931 – March – April” scrapbook. The Marriot C. Morris Collection Scrapbooks. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
The four scrapbooks that Janet Morris created between 1921 and 1931 comprise the scrapbook component of The Marriot C. Morris Collection at The Library Company of Philadelphia. They are a testament to the concerns, priorities, memories, and dreams of an adolescent girl as she grows into a young woman. They reflect her maturation through her changing voice: from one that chronicles every detail of the world around her in order to understand it, to one that is free to unabashedly follow whims and fancies, to one that is more introspective and self-aware. These scrapbooks are archives within themselves, not only of Janet Morris’s life, but of a past that we can never again attain. The mementos that held personal meaning for Janet Morris are now artifacts from our shared material culture. With the multitude of experiences they convey, these scrapbooks are certainly greater than the sum of their parts.
Right: Janet Morris’s Scrapbooks. Top row, left to right: Diary of Janet Morris. Summer 1921. Trip West. Volume 1, Diary of Janet Morris. Summer 1921. Trip West. Volume 2.Bottom row: Europe - 1925, Europe 1931 – March – April. The Marriot C. Morris Collection Scrapbooks. The Library Company of Philadelphia.
The (Imagined) World of Janet Morris
It’s early summer, 1925. You’re an eighteen-year-old girl from Philadelphia, a recent high-school graduate getting ready to take your long-awaited European Tour. The one that has been promised to you since you were young. The one that you’ve heard the older girls at school talk about taking after they’ve graduated. Now, it’s finally your turn. Soon, you’ll be off to New York to board the RMS Mauretania for seven days…
Rachel Vorsanger
Art History / 2027
Rachel Vorsanger is a first year PhD student who studies Modern art from Europe and the United States. Her research examines the role of gender, displacement, and transatlantic travel in the work of women abstract artists. She graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from The George Washington University and received her Master’s in Art History and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Prior to matriculating at Temple, Rachel worked for the Betty Parsons Foundation in New York where she compiled and edited the Betty Parsons Catalogue Raisonné.