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Sea moss and seaweed collecting and scrapbooking were popular hobbies for young women during the nineteenth century. The rise of the middle class created a population of young, educated women who didn’t have to do manual labor and needed edifying activities to fill their time. At the same time, the Industrial Revolution was making paper and books less expensive, and women had access to unprecedented numbers of magazines, newspapers, prints and fashion plates. The process of sea moss and seaweed collecting differentiated it from other forms of natural history collecting. Those who collected seaweed needed to wade out into the water to obtain the seaweed and moss, before painstakingly preserving and mounting the seaweed and moss specimens. In the late nineteenth century, the book Sea Mosses: A Collector’s Guide and an Introduction to the Study of Marine Algae by A. B. Hervey (1881) described how to properly press and mount various types of algae. Collectors needed a pair of pliers, scissors, a stick with a needle in the end, at least two bowls for washing algae, blotting paper for drying, cotton cloth and cards to mount the specimens on. Pliers and scissors were used to handle the specimens and cut away any extraneous, superfluous branches. The collector used the needle to move the plant with relative ease to show the finer details. The drying and pressing process consisted of layering the mounting papers with various types of blotting cloth and additional paper topped with weight. Most seaweed adhered to the mounting board via gelatinous materials emitted from the plant itself. This process was used by collectors throughout the 19th century, and likely the collectors featured in this collection.

This Cape Ann Museum Library & Archives collection includes seaweed and sea moss that was mounted in books, on paper sheets and on cards by various collectors. Most of the small cards are not labeled, but the majority of the books and larger paper sheets are labeled with the name of the collector, the location in which the specimens were found, and, in some cases, the purpose of the collection. Recorded locations of collecting range from Gloucester, to other locations in Massachusetts, to as far away as Scotland. According to one of the collector’s notes, their book of seaweed and sea moss was presented at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

Series Description

Series I: Writings, 1852, undated
Series 2: Pressed sea moss and seaweed collections, 1843 to 1883
Series 3: Objects, 1885, undated

Series 1: Writings, 1852, undated

Writings, has a typed how-to and history of seaweed and sea moss collecting. Other parts of this series include handwritten notes and quotations. This includes one page of handwritten notes and quotations that was found folded and loose in Miss Harriet P. Mason’s sea moss collecting book, 1852. This page was not part of the book, but rather a piece of lined paper with handwritten notes and quotes by an unknown author. In order to unfold and preserve the page, the curatorial assistant removed the paper from the book, placing it in a folder in the corresponding series and noting where the article was originally found (handwritten quotations about the sea, friendship, and death).

Series 2: Sea moss and seaweed collections, 1843-1883, undated

Pressed sea moss and seaweed collections, consists of the books, envelopes, and sheets of pressed sea moss and seaweed. The series is broken into three subseries, including Books, Envelopes, and Unmarked cards. Each of the subseries has several examples of pressed sea moss and seaweed in these formats.

Subseries 1: Books, 1843-1883, undated

Includes bound and unbound books with various pressed sea mosses and seaweed within.