Crochet Lace & Tatting Album by Hazel L. Broman (1899-1982)

A swollen album of over 200 specimens on a total of 48 leaves, most sewn to the pages with thread and a few loosely inserted. Created between 1915 and 1921 by Hazel Broman, a young woman in Wilmar, Minnesota. The daughter of a Swedish carpenter, she attended school until the age of 14, the upper limit of compulsory education for children in the United States at that time. Hazel is recorded in the 1920 census as an at-home seamstress, age 20, single, living with her parents. She married Austin Sundburg, who worked for the Western Fruit Express Company, a supplier of refrigerated railroad cars. They had two children.

This work was compiled in the years between her removal from school and marriage. It shows evidence of progressive refinement in her penmanship as well as in the complexity in the design and execution of the pieces. The album is well-worn, with shallow tattering around the edges and covers that show evidence of failed repairs and losses. Battered to the point of endearment (or stoicism) and bearing the glue scars of past preservationists, the fragile wraps have been left untouched and enclosed in a layer of archival mylar, then fitted with a supportive Kozo paper covering to prevent further deterioration. Housed in a plain Heritage clamshell box. An uncommon American example of such an album—and a belter, at that.