Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation

MSS 16320, Margaret Crockett album, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was purchased from David Berman by the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia on February 20, 2017.

Scope and Contents

Margaret Crockett album, MSS 16320, 1905-1933, 0.03 cubic feet is described as a commercial album with gold-stamped leather batting-stuffed covers and multi-colored gilt-edged pages, covered with a dull green hand-made fabric cover embroidered "M.C." in red thread. Front free endpaper reads "Margaret Crockett / July 1911," though one pasted entry is dated 1905 and the latest entry is from 1933. The initials RNS (Royal Naval School), is found scattered throughout the volume, as are the locations St. Margaret's on Thames and Richmond. Pages include inscriptions, original drawings and watercolors (some appearing to imitate popular children's illustrations), pasted prints, a stencil leaf spray image. Most are signed by other girls; some appear to be by Crockett herself. Notable entries include "The Tired Woman's Epitaph," "The Angel Mother," a punning entry on a shipping label, three pages filled with pasted autograph signatures, the inscription of Princess Alice of Albany, a hand-made playbill for a production of Dick Whittington's Cat, and a handful of references to WWI and nautical themes, including a poem "Beware my motherland," about the risk of German ascendency, dated 1913. A letter to Mrs. Davey from M.S. Nagasaki of Japan (1914). Quotations from Shakespeare, Omar Khayyam, Longfellow, Macaulay, Austin Dobson, Emerson and others.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Commonplace books
• drawings (visual works)