{"id":439,"date":"2014-12-15T19:06:50","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T19:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/?p=439"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:10:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:10:42","slug":"the-ghosts-of-my-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/2014\/12\/15\/the-ghosts-of-my-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ghosts of My Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghosts.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-440 alignleft\" alt=\"ghosts\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghosts-175x300.jpg\" width=\"175\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghosts-175x300.jpg 175w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghosts-598x1024.jpg 598w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghosts-624x1068.jpg 624w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghosts.jpg 1159w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsinstructions.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-443 alignleft\" alt=\"ghostsinstructions\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsinstructions-255x300.jpg\" width=\"161\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsinstructions-255x300.jpg 255w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsinstructions-624x732.jpg 624w, https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsinstructions.jpg 797w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 161px) 100vw, 161px\" \/><\/a>The Ghosts of My Friends<\/em> <\/em><\/em>is an autograph book with a twist. Published in the early 20th century, it&#8217;s a near-blank book meant to be used for sideways signatures to be turned into &#8220;ghosts,&#8221; that is, humanoid (or ghostoid) shapes representing the\u00a0<em><\/em>signers.<em><\/em><em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;ghosts&#8221; pictured here were made in 1916 from the signatures of Polly McKeehan and Geo. B. McDonald.<\/p>\n<p><em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsexample.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"ghostsexample\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsexample-186x300.jpg\" width=\"186\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/em> <em><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsexample2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"ghostsexample2\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/files\/2014\/12\/ghostsexample2-160x300.jpg\" width=\"160\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/em><br \/>\nThere are about 40 copies of <em>The Ghosts of My Friends<\/em> in U.S. libraries. Each one, of course, would contain different ghosts. We brought our copy out recently during a class discussion about identifying people from their handwriting. This book takes that idea a step further, suggesting that a person&#8217;s handwriting <em>is<\/em> that person in a profound way.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghosts of My Friends is an autograph book with a twist. Published in the early 20th century, it&#8217;s a near-blank book meant to be used for sideways signatures to be turned into &#8220;ghosts,&#8221; that is, humanoid (or ghostoid) shapes representing the\u00a0signers. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The &#8220;ghosts&#8221; pictured here were made in 1916 from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cc-special-collections"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3q4oW-75","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/ccspecialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}