Tuesday, February 5, 2013

A Diary of Young Immigrants

Just a small post today as I am taking Letterology on the road this week which happens to be in the land of the slow internets lane.
     This image was found in a 2010 auction catalog so it long ago sold surely. The two page spread above from an 1875 diary, was created by young siblings Jonathan and Catharine King of Lancaster County, PA. Their diary consisted of 42 pages total, with 25 illustrated, and described their daily chores, school, and playtime. It appears to be made using ink or watercolor illustrations in the traditional manner of the elaborately decorated fraktur manuscripts of the Pennsylvania Dutch families at the time. Birds were common illustration theme on many frakturs. For a brief historical description and more images of frakturs, please refer to this earlier post


The barely legible text printed in green reads: 
     here on this pae (page?) i clame
     A spot to rite
     these wordz
     forget me not and 
     if you do forget
     these words Please
     Blot them out and me 
     (illegible: forget or regret?)

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