On 27 April 2011, the United Nations plenum resolved to introduce the International Day of Friendship as a day of commemoration. Since then, not only UN member states and organisations but also civil society have been invited to commemorate friendship between people, countries and cultures on 30 July each year.
We are taking this as an opportunity to highlight, as our ‘Find of the Month’, the autograph book or friendship book (Album Amicorum) belonging to Eva Maria Karoline Gößmann, née Schwank. She was the elder sister of Adam Joseph Schwank and, like other members of the family, managed her own autograph book. The numerous entries date mainly from the 1820s. The initials C.S. (Caroline Schwank) also suggest that it was started before her marriage to Karl Anton Gößmann, the senior court clerk.
As well as hand-drawn illustrations, the book also contains printed engravings. This makes it clear that it was quite common at the time to use such prints as templates for expressions of friendship and to incorporate them as additional pages into one’s own friendship album. The page selected here shows, set within a richly decorated floral wreath, a message of friendship from Dòrothée Kepler to Karoline, dated 25 February 1824 in Fulda. The message reads ‘Pensez toujours à moi còmme je pense à toi’ (Always think of me, just as I think of you).
After Karoline’s death, the friendship book came into the possession of her brother Adam Joseph, through whom it was donated to the HLSB Fulda, together with other family documents and his book collection. As part of the Schwank foundation, Karoline Gößmann’s friendship book can be viewed on our digitisation platform, FulDig.