Series III. Scrapbooks

Series III, Scrapbooks, contains an eclectic assortment of vintage illustrations and ephemera that Dorsey pasted into scrapbooks organized by topic. Materials include newspaper and magazine clippings, articles and other textual material, illustrations, photographs, postcards, greeting cards, advertisements, programs, and many other types of ephemera. Although the bulk of the materials are vintage, Dorsey also mixed in some contemporaneous (circa 1960's - 1970's) photographs and articles.

Dorsey arranged these materials into elaborate topical scrapbooks that serve as interesting and creative reference files on a broad range of subjects. The largest segment of this series relates to New York City, covering topics such as Wall Street, the Fire Department, street cleaning, the poor and destitute, and many others which are specifically identified in the box and folder list, below. There are also scrapbooks relating to other American cities and states, especially the American West, and to European countries and other foreign locales. Other topics include dining, hotels and resorts (in New York and elsewhere), sports, ships, trains, houses, furnishings and people (including African Americans and other ethnic groups). There are a number of scrapbooks relating to fairs and expositions, including the Crystal Palace, Centennial Exposition, World's Columbian Exposition, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

The original binders were also created by Dorsey, and feature cardboard covers with sometimes elaborate lettering and decorations, bound together with three metal rings. The scrapbooks have been disbound and re-housed in acid-free folders. A few representative examples of the binders have been retained.