Apparently an autograph album is “is a book for collecting the autographs of others. Traditionally they were exchanged among friends, colleagues, and classmates to fill with poems, drawings, personal messages, small pieces of verse, and other mementos.”
They were popular among university students from the 15th to mid-19th century, but have since been replaced by yearbooks.
Why is he so mad all the time!
Hemorrhoids and gout from a bad diet, lead poisoning from pipes, paint, and unchecked industrial pollution, a series of undiagnosed mental stemming from a mix of childhood neglect and an all pervasive system of corporal punishment, and a culture of violently paternalistic masculinity.
Oh also the looming threat of WW1 breaking out.
Everything else you said sounds true, but in Illinois and Ohio where Condo (and presumably Everett) lived, this barely registered as a possibility. Even in Europe, the general consensus was that another European war would be as brief as the Franco-Prussian War (6 months), if not the Austro-Prussian War (5 weeks).
This isn't my area, but I think a lot of the stresses that Everett react to are due to the rapid urbanization that the US was experiencing at the time. Specifically, people moving from farms to cities, and immigrants arriving principally from Europe; cities growing larger and people having to learn new ways of getting along.
Maybe he's driven to distraction by the suffering of the Great Thundering Cats.
he has issues