SEAWEED.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Album of pressed seaweed and sea moss specimens. An attractive and thoughtful compilation of pressed samples collected from the waters of Jersey, each hand-lettered with its Latin binomial name. Seaweed collecting was, along with other forms of scrapbooking, a popular occupation for women during the Victorian era. Inextricably tied to religious and moral edification, nature was at the centre of the Victorian domestic imagination. Amateur collectors were "drawn to the study of the natural world as a culturally approved form of recreation seen as aesthetically pleasing, educational and morally beneficial, since [they] lifted the mind to a new appreciation of God" (Logan, p. 144). Seaweed collecting also served as an avenue for the exploration of science, particularly for those who were not expected to study it for its own sake but as a social accomplishment. Materials for a seaweed album could be purchased from most seaside resorts; Queen Victoria herself was known to take part in the hobby.

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