The Harlan journals recount two of three overseas voyages he took in his career. The first documents a trip to India that he made as a medical student in 1816-1817. This volume offers detailed accounts of the sea voyage (with some locational coordinates and accounts of weather) and accounts of Indian towns and cities, including Calcutta (3/9/1817). Alongside descriptions of Indian hospitals (e.g. 3/21/1817) and botanical gardens (3/23/1817), Harlan also writes at length about the indigenous peoples, including their shrines (4/10/1817), burial rights (6/17/1817), and what he considers their "lamentable" need for Christianity influence (4/11/1817). Harlan's accounts often feature an uncommon sense of voice, inflected with a deep colonialist bias. For example, in one of his later entries, he describes India as a place of fanaticism, war, and declension: "But India, once the seat of Literature and Science, hath at length dwindled into the most inordinate fanaticism, which binds the inhabitants in the grossest ignorance…since the year 1000, India has presented nothing but war and bloodshed. Her cities reduced to ashes, her fields laid waste by hosts of conquering armies, having been successfully overrun by the Mahomedan Princes" (6/17/1817).
 
Harlan's second journal finds him at the apogee of his career as a physician and scientist. Seeking to advance his scientific reputation among his peers, Harlan took a tour of Europe in 1833, extending his professional network of naturalists and medical researchers in the continent's cultural and economic capitals. In addition to visits to the northern European metropolises of Liverpool, London, Cambridge, Dublin, and Paris, he travels south to Bologna and even ascends Mount Vesuvius (9/26/1833). Notably, before he returns to New York, Harlan attends at least one meeting of the Phrenological Society in London (10/29/1833) and participates in a debate about U.S. slavery (6/21/1833), excerpted in Selected Quotations.

A pair of travel journals maintained by Richard Harlan, a prominent Philadelphia-based scientist and doctor, offer insights into India in the early-nineteenth century and European medicine in the antebellum period. The first journal (1816-17) recounts Harlan's went to India as ship's surgeon of the East India Company. Entries include Harlan's extensive reflections upon—and judgements of—indigenous peoples' customs, burial rights, and religious practices. The second volume (1833) documents a trip Harlan takes to Europe at the apex of his career. That journal offers a window in antebellum medical practices in Europe, including the field of phrenology and Harlan's justification for U.S. slavery. Both volumes are remarkable for their detail and sense of voice, and they will certainly interest scholars researching British colonialism in India, European medical science, and slavery in the antebellum United States.
 
The Harlan journals recount two of three overseas voyages he took in his career. The first documents a trip to India that he made as a medical student in 1816-1817. This volume offers detailed accounts of the sea voyage (with some locational coordinates and accounts of weather) and accounts of Indian towns and cities, including Calcutta (3/9/1817). Alongside descriptions of Indian hospitals (e.g. 3/21/1817) and botanical gardens (3/23/1817), Harlan also writes at length about the indigenous peoples, including their shrines (4/10/1817), burial rights (6/17/1817), and what he considers their "lamentable" need for Christianity influence (4/11/1817). Harlan's accounts often feature an uncommon sense of voice, inflected with a deep colonialist bias. For example, in one of his later entries, he describes India as a place of fanaticism, war, and declension: "But India, once the seat of Literature and Science, hath at length dwindled into the most inordinate fanaticism, which binds the inhabitants in the grossest ignorance…since the year 1000, India has presented nothing but war and bloodshed. Her cities reduced to ashes, her fields laid waste by hosts of conquering armies, having been successfully overrun by the Mahomedan Princes" (6/17/1817).
 
Harlan's second journal finds him at the apogee of his career as a physician and scientist. Seeking to advance his scientific reputation among his peers, Harlan took a tour of Europe in 1833, extending his professional network of naturalists and medical researchers in the continent's cultural and economic capitals. In addition to visits to the northern European metropolises of Liverpool, London, Cambridge, Dublin, and Paris, he travels south to Bologna and even ascends Mount Vesuvius (9/26/1833). Notably, before he returns to New York, Harlan attends at least one meeting of the Phrenological Society in London (10/29/1833) and participates in a debate about U.S. slavery (6/21/1833), excerpted in Selected Quotations.

The John Pershouse papers contain two volumes of genealogical data from the late-eighteenth century, two letter books thought to belong to his nephew (Henry Pershouse), and one travel journal. The journal is noteworthy because it furnishes accounts of transatlantic travel in the early national period. While the first entry notes Pershouse's departure from Liverpool to Boston on a 56-day voyage (2/1/1800), regular entries begin around 1826 and continue to late-1838. As a Philadelphia merchant, Pershouse regularly records distances, accounts, and sights in Europe and the United States. Notably, he travels on a ship under the command of a Captain Matlack (presumably Timothy Matlack), travels extensively in the U.S. Southeast and Midwest, and notes the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution in 1830—all excerpted in Selected Quotations. Researchers interested in U.S. domestic and transatlantic travel during the antebellum period ought to find this volume particularly useful.
 

Warner's diaries provide an intimate record of his far-flung travels. Alongside visits to zoological and mineralogical collections, Warner patronizes numerous places of worship, for which he often provides sketches of murals and architectural features. (His most impressive color illustrations begin around March 1863). Notably, he visits a Jewish synagogue in the Netherlands (10/13/1862) and a mosque in the Middle East (3/31/1865). He copies verses from a tombstone (9/8/1862), and when he tours the Egyptian pyramids, he records hieroglyphics (4/26/1865). He encloses descriptions of natural scenes—e.g. the Wetterhorn (8/31/1862) and Rhone Glacier (9/4/1862)—and also urban spaces, including a locomotive works in Amsterdam (1/26/1863), a foundry in Greenock (1/30/1863), a prison in York (4/7/1863), a gypsy settlement in Romania (6/13/1865), and even an early account of the Grand Kremlin Palace (8/2/1868).
 
Throughout those travels, Warner recollects his native Pennsylvania to draw evocative geographic and social comparisons. For example, he equates a town outside Belgrade to Burlington on the Delaware (6/9/1865). Upon meeting a foreman at machine shop, he compares the conditions of the poor in America and Germany (8/25/1862). Of particular note, he compares the governor of Nazareth to a "Philadelphia negro" (4/15/1865).
 
At various points in his travels, Warner is compelled to confront U.S. domestic affairs, most especially the Civil War. For example, traveling by rail in Germany in late-1865, he writes, "Met in the [train] car Mr. Joseph Kommer, Lincoln Logan Co., Illinois, a few months back to Germany, now on his way home via Hamburg. He had served in the Northern Army
 
related many things respecting the war and was a good union man" (11/8/1865). Several years later, he visits a castle where he notes a "revolver presented to the King by President Lincoln" (7/9/1868). Although Warner rarely discusses politics directly, he registers his own political activities and sympathies. For example, he attends a "Peace Society" (5/19/1863), a "temperance tea" (9/15/1863), and a lecture on "dwellings for workingmen" (1/6/1866). He records at least one conversation about U.S. nativist movements, particularly the Astor Place Riots, writing, "Met an Irishman who had been in the U.S. some years ago. He doubted whether the Irish, in New York had been incited—as a clan, especially—to take part in the late New York riots, and on account of jealousy of the blacks as competitors for work—he was further opposed to Mr. Lincoln's emancipation edict" (8/18/1863). In another prescient entry, he records an exchange with a Polish miller about poll taxes. "A miller spoke to me, among other subjects, of Poland," Warner writes. "He said Austria and Prussia assist to subjugate Poland, because 'they are all tyrants together.' Of our country, he said there would soon be poll tax" (9/14/1864).
 
When it comes to the topic of slavery, Warner reveals abolitionist sympathies via ephemera. He encloses a newspaper clipping from "Aborigine Protection Society," after which he remarks on the emigration of freed slaves to Liberia (5/20/1863), and encloses another clipping entitled "Negro Emancipation" (6/17/1863).
 
Scholars of nineteenth century material culture will be richly rewarded by the diaries. Alongside hand-drawn maps of buildings, cities, and architectural features, Warner encloses numerous newspaper clippings (e.g. (1/10/1863), engravings (9/27/1864), advertisements (7/9/1865), and theatrical programs (10/6/1865). While the majority of those materials are in English, some ephemera—and Warner's own entries—are in German, French, or Italian.

With 55 volumes spanning 7/8/1862-11/23/1872, the John Warner diaries provide a detailed account of his time abroad (1862-1868) and travels throughout Europe. Although many entries are devoted to talks and lectures (mostly pertaining to zoology), Warner proves also a studious observer of people, cultures, and cultural and religious institutions, which he records through numerous sketches and ephemera. In fact, these volumes present a wealth of research opportunities for scholars of material culture, thanks to Warner's curation of nineteenth-century newspaper clippings, advertisements, programs, and personal illustrations.
 
Warner's diaries provide an intimate record of his far-flung travels. Alongside visits to zoological and mineralogical collections, Warner patronizes numerous places of worship, for which he often provides sketches of murals and architectural features. (His most impressive color illustrations begin around March 1863). Notably, he visits a Jewish synagogue in the Netherlands (10/13/1862) and a mosque in the Middle East (3/31/1865). He copies verses from a tombstone (9/8/1862), and when he tours the Egyptian pyramids, he records hieroglyphics (4/26/1865). He encloses descriptions of natural scenes—e.g. the Wetterhorn (8/31/1862) and Rhone Glacier (9/4/1862)—and also urban spaces, including a locomotive works in Amsterdam (1/26/1863), a foundry in Greenock (1/30/1863), a prison in York (4/7/1863), a gypsy settlement in Romania (6/13/1865), and even an early account of the Grand Kremlin Palace (8/2/1868).
 
Throughout those travels, Warner recollects his native Pennsylvania to draw evocative geographic and social comparisons. For example, he equates a town outside Belgrade to Burlington on the Delaware (6/9/1865). Upon meeting a foreman at machine shop, he compares the conditions of the poor in America and Germany (8/25/1862). Of particular note, he compares the governor of Nazareth to a "Philadelphia negro" (4/15/1865).
 
At various points in his travels, Warner is compelled to confront U.S. domestic affairs, most especially the Civil War. For example, traveling by rail in Germany in late-1865, he writes, "Met in the [train] car Mr. Joseph Kommer, Lincoln Logan Co., Illinois, a few months back to Germany, now on his way home via Hamburg. He had served in the Northern Army
 
related many things respecting the war and was a good union man" (11/8/1865). Several years later, he visits a castle where he notes a "revolver presented to the King by President Lincoln" (7/9/1868). Although Warner rarely discusses politics directly, he registers his own political activities and sympathies. For example, he attends a "Peace Society" (5/19/1863), a "temperance tea" (9/15/1863), and a lecture on "dwellings for workingmen" (1/6/1866). He records at least one conversation about U.S. nativist movements, particularly the Astor Place Riots, writing, "Met an Irishman who had been in the U.S. some years ago. He doubted whether the Irish, in New York had been incited—as a clan, especially—to take part in the late New York riots, and on account of jealousy of the blacks as competitors for work—he was further opposed to Mr. Lincoln's emancipation edict" (8/18/1863). In another prescient entry, he records an exchange with a Polish miller about poll taxes. "A miller spoke to me, among other subjects, of Poland," Warner writes. "He said Austria and Prussia assist to subjugate Poland, because 'they are all tyrants together.' Of our country, he said there would soon be poll tax" (9/14/1864).
 
When it comes to the topic of slavery, Warner reveals abolitionist sympathies via ephemera. He encloses a newspaper clipping from "Aborigine Protection Society," after which he remarks on the emigration of freed slaves to Liberia (5/20/1863), and encloses another clipping entitled "Negro Emancipation" (6/17/1863).
 
Scholars of nineteenth century material culture will be richly rewarded by the diaries. Alongside hand-drawn maps of buildings, cities, and architectural features, Warner encloses numerous newspaper clippings (e.g. (1/10/1863), engravings (9/27/1864), advertisements (7/9/1865), and theatrical programs (10/6/1865). While the majority of those materials are in English, some ephemera—and Warner's own entries—are in German, French, or Italian.