George Washington's Notebooks

• One example of a pioneer's notebook was George Washington who maintained meticulous records of all the work done on his farm at Mount Vernon. These reports contained weather information and the work done on the farm during the week and the number of people required to do that work. These records were then bound into "volumes" or notebooks.
  
  

Leather Bound Notebooks

• For writing that needed to be permanently recorded, such as a a journal, diary or expense record, leather journals were often used. In addition to George Washington, Van Gogh, Hemingway and Picasso are reported to have used this type of journal. The cover was made of soft leather and the blank paper was cut or hand torn and stacked into signatures
  
  

Signatures

• Blank leather bound books were used as journals or notebooks.Zedcor Wholly Owned/PhotoObjects.net/Getty Images
  
  A signature is several pieces of paper, folded in half and stitched to the binding through the fold. A series of signatures were stacked inside the cover resulting in a leather bound book with blank unlined pages that could then be used as a notebook, accounts book, journal or diary.