A scrapbook compiled by Laura Edith Mildred (later Hodge, 1867-1930). It contains mostly embossed chromolithographs, or scraps, depicting flowers, birds, animals, costumes, horse-drawn vehicles and food; and Christmas, New Year and birthday postcards, some also decorated with lace-edging and dried flowers, pasted in a blank album published by Marcus Ward & Co.

The album was presented to Laura 'from her affectionate Papa, April 10th 1879'. The album commences with an acrostic written by her mother Susanna: the first letters of the five lines spell 'Album'. On the fourth page there is a photo of a woman in a silver lace frame. This looks like the portrait of Susanna Mildred held in the State Library's Pictorial Collection (see B 18514).

Scrapbooks were a popular activity for women and children. Sorting and arranging the chromolithographic scraps into pleasing patterns was a quiet activity that encouraged neatness and the artistic sense. Some of Laura's scraps are greeting cards and a few have fallen out as the glue has dried.

Commercially published albums such as those used for scrapbooks, despite their attractive binding, usually contained brittle acidic paper or thin card, which over time has begun to tear.

Hiram Mildred was appointed Sub-Collector of Customs at Port Augusta in 1858, later also becoming Harbour Master and holding a number of other government positions. He resigned all of these in 1877 to return to North Adelaide. With his wife Susanna he was 'instrumental in raising the first established church and Sunday-school in Port Augusta.' (Loyau p. 127)

Mildred, Hiram

Mildred, Susanna

Allen, Alistair. Scraps: one hundred and fifty years of stamped, embossed reliefs: Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood exhibition February-April 1977, [London]: H.M. Stationery Off., c1977

Loyau, George E. 'Hiram Mildred, J.P.', Notable South Australians, or, Colonists - past and present, Adelaide: G.E. Loyau, 1885 (Adelaide: Carey, Page), pp. 126-127

State Library of South Austraalia: Mortlock Wing exhibitions. To be a child August 2004-