June 28, 2008

My Collection of Beatiful Ledgers



I adore vintage ledgers. I love to think of the clothes the person who was writing in them had on and how the world was at that time. I love the size of the pages and the way they are numbered and I especially love the beautiful penmanship that people once took such pride in. Any time I see altered art that contains ledger pages, it is just that more beautiful in my eyes.





This is my collection. Some I use in my own altered art, some I sell in my etsy shop, and some I just flip thought and read what was written on the aged pages.



Even the outside of the ledgers are beautiful, most made of soft leather and just a piece of art within itself.




This is one of my newest. It isn't as old as my favorite, but so beautiful. I am going to list some of the pages in my etsy shop and use them for my own creations.



The above pages, I will keep just to look at when I have a spare moment. I love how the "S" was formed by it's creator.





This is another one of my newest ones. I don't think I will ever part with any of it's pages though. My original intention was to use it in my artwork and to sell some of the pages. Look at that beautiful binding! This ledger is huge!




I have spent a lot of time reading this one. It is especially interesting to me since I am a former school teacher. This ledger contains information about teachers who were looking for jobs in 1886 and later. The penmanship is the same, and every single of the 200+ pages describe another applicant.





I have only found women listed in this book thus far, that are either single or widowed. The questions listed are humorous to me, the way they are worded and that they were even asked. But we all know how things have changed for women during the 100+ years since this ledger was written in. Click on the image to read more.




Old ledgers just fascinate me. They are a beautiful form of art and a way that life once was long ago. I hope that you enjoyed looking at my collection. Come and pay me a visit again soon!

Rhonda...

3 comments:

Carolyn said...

You have some real treasures there Rhonda !
if i can , i like to read the pages and see what they were doing way back then , and the writing is nothing like what we have today !
I`m so jealous of all your pretty books !
I need to find one for myself !
Just gonna email you after i hit the post button

xx

Jan Thomason said...

LOVE your ledgers. I have some that were Frank the Tank's fathers and I treasure them:)
Also, I just want to say that I placed another order for bird tags from you! I MAKE BIRD TAGS and I'm ordering them from you!! LOL
I think I can honestly say that I collect "Rhondamum" tags! hahaha

Beth Leintz said...

I'm DROOLING at your collection- the pages, and those bindings and the marble end papers- WONDERFUL. I laughed about you reading the journals- I do that too- I'm an accountant and I can't imagine how they tracked everything by hand that we use computers for today.

And believe me, I've never seen a spreadsheet as pretty as a ledger page.