A look into the past...
Elizabeth Byrd Taylor attended the Florida State College for women between the years of 1922 and 1926. She created this scrapbook to document important memories, events, and people that she met during her time at the women's college.
This exhibit is representative of the first portion of five different sections detailing Elizabeth Byrd Taylor's scrapbook and her time at the Florida State College for women. It's a look into the past through her eyes -- and some of the things that stood out to her to make her time in Tallahassee memorable.
This section spans the front and inside front cover of the scrapbook through the 19th page, and within we can see many objects, photos, decorations, signatures and more that help to illustrate what her life was like diring her time at the Florida State College for Women.
Above are two garnet and gold ribbons representing the FSCW. They decorate the top of page two and also can be seen from page three.
From here will be a tour of the scrapbook page by page where different items will be displayed along with their correlating pages.
The first page of Elizabeth Byrd's Scrapbook is by far the most busy and decorated of the first portion of the book. Ribbons can be seen adorning the top of the page original seeming to be printed to track faculty members.
Pictures of various faculty and staff can also be seen around the perimeter of the page including a very interesting invitation booklet that may have been added to the scapbook after Elizabeth Byrd Taylor's initial encounter with her date.
Below is a gallery detailing a lot of the interesting information that can be seen on the first page excluding the booklet. Also pictured is the hard cover of the scrapbook. More information can be seen by clicking the images and viewing the metadata.
Another prominant feature of the opening page of Elizabeth Byrd's scrapbook is this intersting booklet which served as an invitation to the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Florida State College for women. Since the invitation does not line up with all of the other dating for the photographs, it's possible this scrapbook was still under construction as late as 1930, but it is also possible that these invitations were given far in advance. Due to the fragile nature of the booklet, not all of the pages were able to be captured, but below is a peek at what was able to be safely documented.
The booklet details events that were going to be taking place in the mid-1930s to celebrate and also contained a lot of infromation about the Florida State College for Women. There were also photos of the college throughout the booklet -- though only one was able to be safely captured, and that was a photo of the administration building. The pages felt similar to cardstock and were sturdy, so to avoid breaking and snapping them close to the binding only eight pages were able to be captured, but the booklet was roughly fourty pages in length.
The third page of Elizabeth Byrd Taylor's scrapbook is the second most populated in this first portion of the collection, containing eleven different photographs as well as the back of the garnet and gold ribbons from the second page. There are a few markings in ballpoint pen added later by archivists.
The photos were affixed to the page so any potential information about them isn't certain. There were some existing records found on DigiNole however that indicated who at least some of these women were. It's interesting to view moments captured during Elizabeth Byrd Taylor's time at the Florida State College for women. Since it can not be determined 100% whether she took all of these photographs, she cannot be attributed as the creator. But whether or not she took them, it is clear that these images held value to Elizabeth Byrd Taylor. Below is a gallary with more information on each.
Pages 8-13 of Elizabeth Byrd Taylor's scrapbook are highly focused on entries. The signature pages can be seen to the left, and the two inserts can be found below -- one of which belongs to page 12, and the other existing between pages 12 and 13.
Each of the signature pages contain quotes at the top and a graph structure for collecting signatures. The genreal pattern was to mark the date first in the lefthand column, followed by name, home (where they were from), nickname and/or birthday, ambition, photo, and happy thoughts.
That structure is consistant among all of the signature pages, but the quotes at the top of the pages are all different. They also all include a name attached unlike some ofther quotes from the earlier pages.
Another interesting feature is that these pages do not include any actual photos. Instead, in the photo section of the page, there are only ever drawings or nothing at all. While there is no proof, since the drawing style is so different between entries it can be determined that the same person did not draw all of the drawings. Based on that it is also reasonably safe to assume the strudents making the entry were also responsible for creating the drawing.
It is really interesting to consider what these pages bring to the table regading the students who attedned the Florida State College for Women. These entries actually provide a lot of insight into the lives of the women who attended the college and their personality and their sense of humor.
For example, the last entry on page 8 was made by Catherine Anderson on February 24th, 1923. She wrote that she was from Pensacola, Florida, and that her nickname was "Kitty" and that she was a part of Kappa Delta and that her birthday was the 29th of April. As her ambition, she stated: "To get an average of 85"; and as her happy shought, she wrote "Be my valentine." She also drew a stick figure of herself with a skirt and wrote to indicate that the skirt was made of shredded wheat. These women leave a lot of information on these pages, and the entries are some of the richest in the entire first portion of the scrapbook. It is well worth taking the time to pour through these pages and read all of the individual entries.
As for the differences in the pre-printed quotes; page 8 contains a quote from Shakespear: "Kind friends, your loves are registered Where every day I turn the leaf to read them." Page 9 contains an "original" quote which may mean it is from the publisher. It states: "Your name or nickname, Put it down instanter. With a line or two of merriment beside. Though it is unlear as to why this is framed as a quote, since it's really just instructions on how to fill out the graph. Page 10 contains a Woodrow wilson quote: "Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together." Page 11 contains a Menander quote that is diffucult to transcribe. Page 12 also contains a quote in french by Cadet De Gassicourt - a French chemist. The last of the signature pages with entries can be found on page 13 only partially full accompanied by a Cicero quote.
This section also contained two inserts. One found on page 12 (pictured separately below) is a listing of Junior year students who were members of the 'F' club. The second insert is found originally loosely inbetween page 12 and 13 and is a gorgeous aerial photograph of the Florida State College for women in which the administration building can be seen quite prominantly.
