[ed. note: Penn’s unique collections are used every year by countless scholars and students, beginning with today’s piece we will periodically feature posts from some of these researchers.]

Front Cover of Ann Perrin’s Friendship Album, now Penn Ms. Coll. 369
Watercolor paintings, pencil drawings, advice essays, and poems by both famous and obscure poets, as well as the signature of a different person on each page…they’re all in the album of Ann Perrin in Penn’s special collections. Perrin’s album is a friendship album, a book for friends to leave any sort of contribution along with their signature. Friendship albums are a little-studied media that became popular in the United States in the antebellum era.
These albums are obscure enough that most library catalogues do not have a unique subject heading for them; Perrin’s is titled a commonplace book and also catalogued as an autograph album. Friendship albums are in fact a creative melding of these two genres. Continue reading