Mothering in the Archives: Care and the Creation of Family Papers and Photographs in Twentieth-Century Southern England

Extract

During the 1910s, Edith Vidler, the wife of a shipping merchant based in Rye, began work on a scrapbook devoted to the life of her daughter Barbara, born in 1902 (see Plate 1). The opening pages were inscribed ‘Barbara Elneth Cressy Vidler — Her Book’ and ‘For mother to keep a record of my years’. Beginning with Barbara’s birth and birthplace, Edith created a visual and material record of Barbara’s life as a child and her family history. A series of photographs charted Barbara’s development from baby to young girl, and later showed her schooldays. These are juxtaposed with small material trophies that could be easily fastened and folded within the text, including invitation cards, locks of hair and swathes of fabric. Later, Barbara herself added to the book, and mother and daughter worked on it together. Interspersed with Barbara’s story are quotations, often about the nature of motherhood and children, and images of motherhood, both religious and secular. An artist’s daughter who continued to work as a professional craftswoman after her marriage, Edith was unusual in possessing the skills needed to bind and inscribe the book herself and her high-Anglican perspective clearly informed its tone and imagery. But the book was also part of a wider culture of making that was associated with mothering in early twentieth-century England. At this point, it became increasingly common for families to document their lives by assembling papers, ephemera, photographs and other objects. These archives were often made by mothers.¹ A wide social range of people recorded their activities visually, as photography became cheaper and easier to use — family collections filled with snapshots and photograph albums.² In this essay, I will explore the creation of family archives as material practices of mothering and expressions of care, paying close attention to this new visual component.