A true treasure, this one--a trove of many many treasures, really, and the manifestation of a lifetime's accumulation of lacemaking knowledge by a Ms. Elizabeth Reasoner Spurgin (1842-1927), who handed the book down to her daughter, Estella Eeels, in 1914. The first inside page of the book provides a full, typewritten provenance, right down to the album's loan to Nemaha County Museum in 1990 from Nathan Eells of Ogallala, Nebraska. Photos give a good sense--though the thickness and density of the book makes it hard to photograph some of the early pages, which are also some of the best! In addition to producing many many many very fine pieces of "tatting", and crochet too, Elizabeth took great care to lay down colorful paper (often in cyanotype blue) before arranging and mounting the samples, and pasted down printed page numbers to the corners of the pages too. And she was diligent in including stickers from the spools of the thread used, as well as often recording the cost of thread required for making a given piece of lace. I believe the album was actually created by joining two books together, with is a page occasionally left uncovered with samples, showing a very Victorian "Little boy's suit" or "little girl's coat" here and there. This is really a marvelous thing.
9 3/8" x 6 3/4". 80 numbered pages then another 20 or so unnumbered, all full or mostly so. Photos show a handful of selected pages first, then go roughly in order, not showing all pages but fairly comprehensively documenting. General aging and handling but this has been cared for, and it does not appear to me there are much of any losses. Stable, sturdy, spine in pretty good shape, all holding together well.
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