This collections consists of scrapbooks containing programs, souvenirs, photographs, newspaper clippings, college papers, letters and ephemera relating chiefly to student life at Amherst. Includes both personal and institutional scrapbooks.
The Scrapbooks Collection includes over 140 volumes containing programs, souvenirs, photographs, newspaper clippings, college papers, letters and ephemera relating chiefly to student life at Amherst College. Most are personal scrapbooks that were kept by Amherst College undergraduates; others were kept by fraternities or College offices or organizations. A small number of personal scrapbooks contain material not related to an individual’s undergraduate life.
For the Bicentennial project, we plan to only digitize a selection of the approximately 200 scrapbooks we hold, with representative scrapbooks digitized from each decade included in the collection. Digitizing scrapbooks is more complicated than many of our other digitization projects because they often contain inserts, memorabilia, and layering of objects that require special care and photographic consideration. The Scrapbooks Collection gives a unique portrait of student life and events at Amherst College through the eyes of the scrapbook authors.
This collection is scheduled for digitization and description in Year Two (2019) of our Bicentennial project.
For more information
- You can check out the collection’s finding aid online.
- You can also view our technical documentation for this project.
- Scrapbooks and Shakespeare, Consecrated Eminence blog post, Mike Kelly, 2012
- Books in Books, Consecrated Eminence blog post, Mariah Leavitt, 2017