An autograph book is a book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 in which one collects the autograph

Autograph

An autograph is a document transcribed entirely in the handwriting of its author, as opposed to a typeset document or one written by an amanuensis or a copyist; the meaning overlaps with that of the word holograph.Autograph also refers to a person's artistic signature...

s of others. Traditionally, these books would include small pieces of verse, personal messages, poems, and drawings from one's friends. Yearbooks, friendship book

Friendship book

Friendship books are small booklets made by stapling paper together, or are sometimes just sheets or strips of paper. They are usually decorated and the person who starts the book writes their name and address as the first person sending the book. People often include a list of interests as well...

s, and guest books are modern derivations. They were popular among university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 students from the 15th century until the mid-19th century, after which their popularity began to wane as they were gradually replaced by yearbooks. Today's autograph book is most frequently seen in the hands of children, collecting signatures from their favorite cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

 celebrities in amusement park

Amusement park

thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...

s.

Origin

By the beginning of the early modern period

Early modern period

In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...

, there was a trend among graduating university students of central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 to have their personal bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

s signed by classmates and instructors. Gradually these expanded from mere signatures to include poetry and sketches, and publication companies responded to this trend by appending blank pages to bibles. Eventually they began offering small, decorated books with only blank pages.

Other traditions dating back to the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 played into the development of the autograph book. Genealogical

Genealogy

Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...

 tables and guides circulated within aristocratic families, with each person adding his or her own information. Similarly, tournament participators would record their names, coats-of-arms

Coat of arms

A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

, and possibly motto

Motto

A motto is a phrase meant to formally summarize the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization. A motto may be in any language, but Latin is the most used. The local language is usual in the mottoes of governments...

es into tournament books.

The first true autograph books appeared in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 linguistic regions (possibly originating in Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

) by the mid-16th century. Known as an album amicorum ("book of friends") or stammbuch ("friendship book"), the oldest on record is that of Claude de Senarclens, an associate of John Calvin

John Calvin

John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...

, and dates back to 1545. By the end of the century, they were common throughout Germany among students and scholars. Academics tended to retain their autograph books for many years and gather the correspondence of fellow intellectuals with whom they associated; therefore the books began to function not only as sentimental artifacts but also as a crude form of scholarly credentials, a precursor to the modern 'list of references.'

Evolution and Today

The popularity of autograph books was generally confined to Dutch and Germanic cultures, and they appeared only sporadically in other countries. They began to fall out of favor in the academic community by the last 17th century, but a century later they began to reappear, gaining popularity among fraternity students and members of the burgeoning middle class. This new wave of stammbuch-users included women as well as men.

German immigrants transported the tradition to American culture in the late 19th century; but by the mid-19th century there was a sharp decline in autograph books across both cultures as yearbooks began to replace their position, though a considerable number of young women continued to exchange them. Today in Germany, autograph books–called poesiealben–are a lingering fad among elementary-school-aged girls.

Function

When they first emerged in the 1500s, an autograph book would collect signatures around the time of graduation and serve thereafter as sentimental memento

Memento

A memento is a keepsake or souvenir of remembrance.Memento may also refer to:* Memento , a 2000 feature-length film directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Guy Pearce* Memento , a Czech book written by Radek John...

 of college life. Eventually it became popular to use them well after graduation, and scholars would carry the books on their travels (particularly between various universities) to record the well-wishes of colleagues and noteworthy acquaintances. The books therefore conveyed a form of academic credentials, dependent upon on who had signed them and what had been written.

Additionally, an autograph book may have been used as a crude address book

Address book

An address book or a name and address book is a book or a database used for storing entries called contacts. Each contact entry usually consists of a few standard fields...

 to maintain correspondence to past and distant friends.

Recently, researchers have come to value the historical value of these books in assessing biographical data of those who composed them, and the cultural backdrop in which they wrote. The autograph books of Ludwig van Beethoven and Babette Koch are among the most famous.

Books

Until the late 18th century, German autograph albums generally consisted of loose sheets of paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

 or sometimes vellum

Vellum

Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...

 bounded in an elongated octavo

Octavo

Octavo to is a technical term describing the format of a book.Octavo may also refer to:* Octavo is a grimoire in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett...

format; later, they became available in the horizontal format. The binding material varied dramatically, from cardboard to gold-tooled leather.

A different type of album contained unbound pages in cassettes or folders, which could be passed out and collected individually and later arranged in any order.

Autographs

A typical page contained a set of verses in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew at the top, and a formal greeting to the album's owner below, sometimes including a heraldic shield or emblematic picture of the signator. More artistic autographers sketched full-page drawings, and less conventional entries included engravings, embroidery, paper silhouettes, locks of hair, or pressed flowers. The high quality of some illustrations suggests that the books must have been kept by the autographer for some length of time to work on the composition.