By FHC Curator Emerita Dana Dauterman Ricciardi, with special thanks to Patricia Lavin
It’s a bit like a rolling birthday party: rarely does a month go by without new gifts for the collection of the 130-year-old Framingham History Center. From time to time a gift surprises us because of how or where the donor acquired it and used it, or how it fills a gap in Framingham’s historic puzzle.
Recently we received a scrapbook compiled at the turn of the twentieth century, partially filled with graphic materials from the Dennison Manufacturing Company. The story of this scrapbook is unusual for two reasons. First, the donor, Gail Russakov, found the scrapbook in an antique store for $2 in 1963 when she was a student majoring in advertising art at the University of Cincinnati. She later used it for teaching her Advanced Placement Art students at a high school. Second, the scrapbook gives us a rare glimpse into the process of art and design at Dennison at the turn of the 20th century.
Not knowing how the scrapbook found its way into the antiques store, what do we know about it? A few clues identify the book and its contents. On the cover: “George H. Morgan Specialist / Catalogue Writing Illustration // Complete expert Preparation / Catalogues – Folders – Booklets.” Written in the margin of one of the pages is the sentence “George Morgan works at Dennison.” Following that note are over 50 pages of samples of Dennison advertising art. All of this makes it pretty clear that the scrapbook belonged to artist/illustrator George Morgan, whose work has been immortalized in Dennison publications.
On careful inspection we find several dates, all within the period 1902 to 1912, and even a couple of stylized signatures with the letters GM. One page (reproduced above) features a design for the cover of the Dennison Quarterly from 1903, illustrating the new Dennison building on John Street in New York City. A penciled note reads “Drwg [for Drawing?] and Lith. plates planned by GW Morgan.” And on another page is an envelope on which is hand written: “30,000 printed / Christmas Book 1902 / Probably the one got out by Mr. Morgan.” So we can be confident that George Morgan’s designs for Dennison date from the early 1900s.
The book also contains many drawings and designs that are not from Dennison. Leafing through the pages we find an intriguing selection of fashion advertisements from the Gibson girl era; sketches of landscape and nature; genre scenes of family and rural life; depictions of buildings and of everyday objects such as teapots, cutlery, baskets, candlesticks, hair combs and curling irons. There are samples of formal invitations and advertisements that display a variety of fonts and print layout styles. Two striking illustrations feature fashionably dressed ladies. In the distance behind them are stairs leading to landscaped gardens. A penciled note in the margin reads “Clever Backgrounds.” If the note was in fact written by George Morgan, it points to the likelihood that the non-Dennison drawings were collected as sources from which he could work, as an illustrator.
Why is the scrapbook important to FHC? Records of artists who worked for Dennison prior to 1919 are scarce. Dennison’s first Art Department opened in 1881, but the young woman who was hired to fashion decorative items from colored tissue paper remains nameless in Dennison publications. So George Morgan’s scrapbook from the earliest years of the 1900s is truly a significant find.
Pat Lavin, FHS volunteer and author of Dennison Manufacturing Co.: Its History, Products, Programs, and People, has searched the Dennison archives for information on Dennison artists. Reviewing years of annual reports and Round Robins (the Dennison employee publication) confirmed that there was little to go on for the early years. But she did find a few articles from the 1920s with stories about artists. By this time several were signing their drawings.
Building on her research, Pat has assembled signed drawings by Lang Campbell, Harold Searles, Lester M. Peterson and other identified Dennison artists – nearly all from the 1920s – for a small exhibit. George H. Morgan’s scrapbook, some twenty years older than the other signed works, is also featured there. This exhibit can be viewed in the Edgell Memorial Library during open hours.
Although Dennison’s public recognition of its artists did not come into its own before the 1920s, we can be sure that art in the service of commerce had been valued at Dennison since at least 1881. Adriano Bissiri, an artist employed by Dennison, has expressed it this way:
THE KEYNOTE OF SUCCESS IN ADVERTISING IS ART. ATTRACTIVE, FORCEFUL PRESENTATION OF TRUTHS LEAVES AN INDELIBLE IMPRESSION ON THE MIND….” (Round Robin, July, 1919)
More than 100 years ago George H. Morgan’s advertising art made an impression on people and persuaded many to buy Dennison products. His scrapbook still impresses anyone who has the pleasure of seeing its contents today.