[AAAndrew]

All very interesting! (I love this kind of stuff) I used to work for a short time at the Making of America project at the Univ. of Michigan many years ago after leaving grad school. UofM and Cornell share the project and there's tons of interesting stuff to look through. I'll have to take a look and see if I find anything interesting. (They are collections of 19th-century books and magazines, all searchable and all with scans of the pages.) I'll let y'all know if I find anything interesting.

 

[AAAndrew]

Mark Twain in his "Innocents Abroad" talks about his alpenstock.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/119/119-h/119-h.htm#p246

"Most of the people, both male and female, are in walking costume, and carry alpenstocks. Evidently, it is not considered safe to go about in Switzerland, even in town, without an alpenstock. If the tourist forgets and comes down to breakfast without his alpenstock he goes back and gets it, and stands it up in the corner. When his touring in Switzerland is finished, he does not throw that broomstick away, but lugs it home with him, to the far corners of the earth, although this costs him more trouble and bother than a baby or a courier could. You see, the alpenstock is his trophy; his name is burned upon it; and if he has climbed a hill, or jumped a brook, or traversed a brickyard with it, he has the names of those places burned upon it, too."

Also the cover of an early edition shows him with umbrella and alpenstock.

And burning the names of the places you visit into the alpenstock