Summary

Game type: autograph album rhymes
Alternative types: vows, rhymes, verses, language play

Typed transcriptions of autograph album inscriptions copied from an album presumably loaned to Dr Dorothy Howard by Margaret O'Bryan, a student at East Camberwell Girls Secondary School, in 1954. The document features 10 rhymes, verses and vows written by different authors circa 1953. In addition to an entry written by O'Bryan, the authors include the following: Norma Steain, Aunty Alice, Lorraine Ryan, Barbara Mai, L. Andrews, J. Castell, R. Branchblower, Barbara Bond and Pamela Rosier. The inscriptions include jokes, requests of remembrance, vows of love, and nonsensical rhymes.

Autograph albums are the small diary-sized notebooks popular with Australian children in the first half of the 20th century. According to Dr Howard, autograph albums represent a private, secretive space in the world of children. Dr Howard states that the albums are characterised by a variety of inscriptions annotated by the owners and their peers.

One of a collection of letters describing a children's game written to children's Folklorist Dorothy Howard between 1954 and 1955. Dr Howard came to Australia in 1954-55 as an American Fulbright scholar to study Australian children's folklore. She travelled across Australia for 10 months collecting children's playground rhymes, games, play artefacts, etc. This letter, together with the other original fieldwork collected by Dr Howard during this period, is preserved in the Dorothy Howard Collection manuscript files, part of the Australian Children's Folklore Collection (ACFC), Archive Series 3. The ACFC is an extensive collection documenting children's folklore and related research.

Physical Description

Typed annotations in black ink on paper. Text printed on one side only.

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