Scope and Contents
Seven scrapbooks with decorated hard covers, either red or green, filled with newspaper clippings of the 1880s, a few earlier and a few 18th-century items, as well as marginal notes and quotations and index. Imprint in one volume: "Newspaper Cuttings. / Ready Reference Receptacle for Scraps of Print, from our chief sources of knowledge, the Newspapers; with Patent Alphabetical Index, and spaces for Marginal Notes, London: Marcus Ward & Co., and Royal Ulster Works, Belfast. Titles vary between "News Cuttings" and "Newspaper Cuttings." The subject matter of the clippings includes anthropology, archaeology, and general science.
The scrapbooks, 9-1/2 x 6 in. in size, supposedly were compiled by a Harvard University professor in the 1880s. The volumes bear the bookplates of the Mauran family of Rhode Island, subsequent owners of the books.
They have indexes at the front, compiled by the user. Some volumes do not have publication dates, others do, but usually the dates of the clippings are annotated in the margins. Dated volumes are: 1883, 1885, and 1888.
The original catalog card claims that some clippings are earlier than 1880s, includes 18th century. The books were used by a Harvard professor in the 1880s.
