David Rittenhouse maintained meteorological observations in two volumes that span the first twenty years of the early national period (5/6/1784-9/30/1805). Alongside weather conditions, Rittenhouse regularly documents temperatures, the conditions of roads, expenses, and accounts. These volumes may interest researchers studying meteorological conditions as well as other regional phenomena such as eclipses and the Yellow Fever epidemic.

Meteorological observations, 1784-1805
 
David Rittenhouse maintained meteorological observations in two volumes that span the first twenty years of the early national period (5/6/1784-9/30/1805). Alongside weather conditions, Rittenhouse regularly documents temperatures, the conditions of roads, expenses, and accounts. These volumes may interest researchers studying meteorological conditions as well as other regional phenomena such as eclipses and the Yellow Fever epidemic.

A prominent lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, James Wilson also kept a brief journal that records his work, travels, and some other surprising data. Recorded in a "Aitken's General American Register" dated 1773, this journal includes entries dated 1774, and 1782-1786. Entries appear in two different hands, and record receipts, expenses, and activities, the last probably not Wilson's. The second hand of the almanac has been dated to a later period, believed to be from 1782-1786, and it records in graphic detail the sexual exploits of its author.
 

Botanist Frederick Pursh maintained a journal that illuminates his travels from Philadelphia through northeastern Pennsylvania and New York in the early national period (3/23-10/8/1807). Notably, this volume was found among the papers of his Pursh's patron, Benjamin Smith Barton, for whom the APS also possesses holdings (Mss.B.B284d). Although the excursion was for botanical research, Pursh's diary entries record other details, including comments on the state of roads, the people he met, the towns he visited, and the natural environment. He records multiple bouts of sickness (6/20 and 8/14), notes his correspondence with Barton (7/15), and includes two sketches (6/3 and 6/17).
 

The journal of Nevins' fellow traveler Joshua Gilpin was published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 46 (1922). That volume provides a complementary perspective on a portion of Nevins' journey.

The Pim Nevins journal chronicles the travels of an English Quaker in the mid-Atlantic and provides an outsider's perspective of American religion, urban space, and economic affairs during the early national period (1802-1803). The Nevins journal features descriptions of various American cities (including New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.) and introspective accounts of Quaker meetings. For those interested in visual culture, Nevins includes a watercolor illustration of the Delaware Water Gap. The Nevins journal may interest researchers investigating natural history, American urban space, and religious practice during the Second Great Awakening, most especially that of the Society of Friends.
 
The journal of Nevins' fellow traveler Joshua Gilpin was published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 46 (1922). That volume provides a complementary perspective on a portion of Nevins' journey.

The Eastwick papers include at least 19 diaries, travel journals, and various notebooks maintained by multiple families between 1773-1903. This extended note will offer an overview of their contents in sequential order.
 
The collection contains at least four eighteenth-century journals. The earliest volume, "Aitkens General American Register (with notes)," serves primarily as an account book from 1773. Notably, an April entry includes a note pertaining to Philadelphia evacuations during the American Revolution: "On June 1778, Just one week after the evacuations of the city of Philadelphia by the British Army, Mr. Rittenhouse…Dr. Smith and Mr. Owen Biddle were buried in [making] observations there." Jesse Lukens's "Notes of Surveys" spans much of 1774 (5/10/-9/10/1774), and includes some Indian names and various accounts at the end of the volume. Longitudes and latitudes are interspersed throughout. While dated 1778, "Garden Book by Wister, Daniel and Sarah" features entries spanning 1771-1776. Daniel Wister uses the notebooks as a garden book, recording bulbs and flowers planted, whereas Sally (Sarah) Wister uses it as a travel journal related to a trip to North Wales. "Poor Will's Almanack (with notes) includes entries from 1777-1778 pertaining to weather accounts, and the surveying business of a John Luhms.
 
The next two diaries recount two trips taken by Charles Jones Wister, Sr. in 1812 and 1815. The first "Diary of a trip to Pittsburgh by Wister, Charles," documents his trip to Pittsburgh in the spring of 1812 (5/27-7/19/1812). It notes various stops between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. "Diary of a trip to Niagara Falls" records a trip in the summer of 1815 (7/24-8/25/1815). Notably, Wister discusses contact with both Oneida and Seneca settlements, both of which are excerpted in Selected Quotations (8/9/1815, 8/13/1815).
 
William Wynne Wister's "Weather Account Book" (1818-1821) records the weather, winds, and temperatures of an unspecified location.
 
The next two volumes are more closely resemble field notebooks than diaries. The first, entitled "Bees: June 16, 1824" recounts Charles Jones Wister's (presumably Sr.) purchase of a swarm of bees. Maintained until 8/29/1828, Wister documents breaking open the hive, extracting honey, and installing a plate of glass through which he can watch production, writing, "to my great surprise and joy I found the bees busily employ'd in mending the combs sealing up the broken parts & fastening them to the sides of the tree." He continues purchasing hives (accumulating 10 in total) upon which he conducts various experiments. The next "Diary" (1841) serves as a journal of Wister's work in daguerreotyping. A sample entry reads: "Succeeded in taking the first Daguerreotype picture at 3 P.M. in 12 minutes on the 27th of the 7 Mo. 1840 after two attempts."
 
Charles Jones Wister, Jr. maintained five volumes between 1842-1856. The first diary documents his personal affairs in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, and includes several letters from the fall of 1842. The next journal records personal affairs in and around Germantown in April 1848. The following two volumes were maintained in 1854. The first "Recipes & Directions," dated August 1854, is less a diary than a collection of notes related to handiwork, including tools and recipes for glue and cement. The next volume serves as a travel journal of Virginia and Maryland. While entries begin in October 1854, come continue as late as October 1869. Wister also maintained a diary pertaining to a trip to New York and Niagara Falls taken in the summer of 1856 (7/1-8/23/1856).
 
While not a diary, per se, Charles Jones Wister, Jr.'s "Notes" includes some dated entries spanning 1864-1865. Those entries might be called miscellany, with illustrations of Germantown woods, notes on the sport of cricket, and observations on current affairs. Notably, Wister records at least one piece of news from to the American Civil War: "The news of Gen'l Lee's surrender, the great achievement all felt would be the virtual end of the Rebellion, and to which all hopes have been bent with the upmost [nervousness] since the fall of Richmond, on the Sunday previous, reached Phila. about 9 ½ o'clock this even'g…" (4/9/1865). A second volume from 1865, entitled "Diary of Trip," recounts a trip to Newport, including meteorological observations (10/10/1865-9/1867).
 
"Diary & Farm Notes" is one of the more unusual records in the collection. Co-authored by Charles Jones Wister, Sr. and Jr., this volume spans much of the nineteenth century (1806-1878). Although much of it is devoted to farm chores—slaughtering hogs, blacking boots, filling the ice house, and smoking meat—there is at least one account concerning General La Fayette's visit to Germantown, excerpted in Selected Quotations (7/20/1825). There's also an note on locusts swarms, which appear to have been a recurring problem for the farmhands: "Locusts appeared this warm sultry morning for the first time. Rose bushes are covered with them and ground ruined in many places, probably their first appearance was delayed by the unusual backwardness of the season, there having been but little to remind one of the summer until now. It will be seen by reference to mem. In this book that both in the years 1817 & 1834 they made their appearance on the 23rd of May" (6/6/1868).
 
The last two volumes tax the definition of a diary, but include useful material nevertheless. The first, Charles Jones Wister, Jr.'s "Record of New Year Eves," serves as a kind of commonplace book traversing 50 years of his life (1852-1903). It includes excerpts, poetry, and quotes at the front of the volume, and various newspaper clippings throughout. Finally, Lowry Wister's undated "Medical Recipes" functions as recipe book, with prescriptions for various maladies, preventative and curative, including "sore eyes," "preventing a miscarriage," and "hooping cough."

The Eastwick collection features at least 19 diaries, travel journals, and notebooks maintained by various members of the Wister family between 1773-1903. While the majority of the volumes which were maintained by Charles Wister, Sr. or his son Charles Wister, Jr., the collection also includes contributions from Jesse and John Lukens, Daniel and Sarah Wister, William Wynne Wister, and Lowry Wister. The scope of the collection and multitude of diarists is matched by the diversity of the journals. The Eastwick collection includes personal diaries, travel journals, recipe books, commonplace books, memoranda books, account books, field notebooks, and volumes that defy simple definition. Researchers will discover early accounts of Bristol, Pennsylvania (1783), Pittsburgh (1812), and Niagara Falls (1815), records of gardening, beekeeping, farm work, and daguerreotyping, and accounts of both the evacuation of the Philadelphia in 1778, the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox in 1865, and a visit by General La Fayette to Germantown in 1825. Suffice it to say, these volumes will serve a range of different scholars, including those researching the American Revolution and Civil War, Native America, women's history, the history of photography (daguerreotyping in particular), and nineteenth-century travel, surveyorship, agriculture, husbandry, and beekeeping.
 
The Eastwick papers include at least 19 diaries, travel journals, and various notebooks maintained by multiple families between 1773-1903. This extended note will offer an overview of their contents in sequential order.
 
The collection contains at least four eighteenth-century journals. The earliest volume, "Aitkens General American Register (with notes)," serves primarily as an account book from 1773. Notably, an April entry includes a note pertaining to Philadelphia evacuations during the American Revolution: "On June 1778, Just one week after the evacuations of the city of Philadelphia by the British Army, Mr. Rittenhouse…Dr. Smith and Mr. Owen Biddle were buried in [making] observations there." Jesse Lukens's "Notes of Surveys" spans much of 1774 (5/10/-9/10/1774), and includes some Indian names and various accounts at the end of the volume. Longitudes and latitudes are interspersed throughout. While dated 1778, "Garden Book by Wister, Daniel and Sarah" features entries spanning 1771-1776. Daniel Wister uses the notebooks as a garden book, recording bulbs and flowers planted, whereas Sally (Sarah) Wister uses it as a travel journal related to a trip to North Wales. "Poor Will's Almanack (with notes) includes entries from 1777-1778 pertaining to weather accounts, and the surveying business of a John Luhms.
 
The next two diaries recount two trips taken by Charles Jones Wister, Sr. in 1812 and 1815. The first "Diary of a trip to Pittsburgh by Wister, Charles," documents his trip to Pittsburgh in the spring of 1812 (5/27-7/19/1812). It notes various stops between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. "Diary of a trip to Niagara Falls" records a trip in the summer of 1815 (7/24-8/25/1815). Notably, Wister discusses contact with both Oneida and Seneca settlements, both of which are excerpted in Selected Quotations (8/9/1815, 8/13/1815).
 
William Wynne Wister's "Weather Account Book" (1818-1821) records the weather, winds, and temperatures of an unspecified location.
 
The next two volumes are more closely resemble field notebooks than diaries. The first, entitled "Bees: June 16, 1824" recounts Charles Jones Wister's (presumably Sr.) purchase of a swarm of bees. Maintained until 8/29/1828, Wister documents breaking open the hive, extracting honey, and installing a plate of glass through which he can watch production, writing, "to my great surprise and joy I found the bees busily employ'd in mending the combs sealing up the broken parts & fastening them to the sides of the tree." He continues purchasing hives (accumulating 10 in total) upon which he conducts various experiments. The next "Diary" (1841) serves as a journal of Wister's work in daguerreotyping. A sample entry reads: "Succeeded in taking the first Daguerreotype picture at 3 P.M. in 12 minutes on the 27th of the 7 Mo. 1840 after two attempts."
 
Charles Jones Wister, Jr. maintained five volumes between 1842-1856. The first diary documents his personal affairs in Duncannon, Pennsylvania, and includes several letters from the fall of 1842. The next journal records personal affairs in and around Germantown in April 1848. The following two volumes were maintained in 1854. The first "Recipes & Directions," dated August 1854, is less a diary than a collection of notes related to handiwork, including tools and recipes for glue and cement. The next volume serves as a travel journal of Virginia and Maryland. While entries begin in October 1854, come continue as late as October 1869. Wister also maintained a diary pertaining to a trip to New York and Niagara Falls taken in the summer of 1856 (7/1-8/23/1856).
 
While not a diary, per se, Charles Jones Wister, Jr.'s "Notes" includes some dated entries spanning 1864-1865. Those entries might be called miscellany, with illustrations of Germantown woods, notes on the sport of cricket, and observations on current affairs. Notably, Wister records at least one piece of news from to the American Civil War: "The news of Gen'l Lee's surrender, the great achievement all felt would be the virtual end of the Rebellion, and to which all hopes have been bent with the upmost [nervousness] since the fall of Richmond, on the Sunday previous, reached Phila. about 9 ½ o'clock this even'g…" (4/9/1865). A second volume from 1865, entitled "Diary of Trip," recounts a trip to Newport, including meteorological observations (10/10/1865-9/1867).
 
"Diary & Farm Notes" is one of the more unusual records in the collection. Co-authored by Charles Jones Wister, Sr. and Jr., this volume spans much of the nineteenth century (1806-1878). Although much of it is devoted to farm chores—slaughtering hogs, blacking boots, filling the ice house, and smoking meat—there is at least one account concerning General La Fayette's visit to Germantown, excerpted in Selected Quotations (7/20/1825). There's also an note on locusts swarms, which appear to have been a recurring problem for the farmhands: "Locusts appeared this warm sultry morning for the first time. Rose bushes are covered with them and ground ruined in many places, probably their first appearance was delayed by the unusual backwardness of the season, there having been but little to remind one of the summer until now. It will be seen by reference to mem. In this book that both in the years 1817 & 1834 they made their appearance on the 23rd of May" (6/6/1868).
 
The last two volumes tax the definition of a diary, but include useful material nevertheless. The first, Charles Jones Wister, Jr.'s "Record of New Year Eves," serves as a kind of commonplace book traversing 50 years of his life (1852-1903). It includes excerpts, poetry, and quotes at the front of the volume, and various newspaper clippings throughout. Finally, Lowry Wister's undated "Medical Recipes" functions as recipe book, with prescriptions for various maladies, preventative and curative, including "sore eyes," "preventing a miscarriage," and "hooping cough."

The Smith and Houston families comprise the bulk of the diary holdings, though the collection also includes diaries from the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families. Smith Family
 
In the Smith family, journals were maintained by George and Gertrude Smith, Lewis Lawrence Smith, Benjamin H. Smith, A. Lewis Smith, Harry C. Smith, and Margaretta Smith. Contained within them are accounts France and England in the late-nineteenth century (The Lewis Lawrence Smith European travel diary), Niagara Falls and the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s (Smith Western Trip Notebook), reports from the Franco-Prussian War (Benjamin H. Smith's 1870 diary), accounts of antebellum dentistry (A. Lewis Smith diary, dated 3/31/1856), and turn of the century university life (Harry C. Smith diaries). Two sets of papers in this collection deserve special attention, especially for researchers interested in women's history: the George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers and the diaries of Margaretta Mary Wood (later Margaretta Mary Smith).
 
The George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers include five diaries that span 1859-1906, the first of which is signed by a Margaret Smith, wife of Dr. George Smith (1859). That volumes features accounts of religious services and prayer meetings, domestic activities (e.g. chess playing, sewing, and dressmaking, social affairs), recreation (including sleighing, learning to ice skate, and a "royal game of ball" on 3/10), and family affairs, including both a funeral (2/20) and wedding (4/28/1859). Getrude Smith's entries provide glimpses into her interior life, including her reading and her private interpretation of religion and morality. For example, she writes: "Dr. George [Frumar?] preached a long sermon—discoursed on war, oath, &c, the beginning of the Society of Friends, the object in keeping silence—other societies. Stated that present-time would be looked on as a dark period by future Christian worlds" (9/4). Alongside person ruminations, Smith's diary also notes numerous visits to Haverford College, a summer trip into Wyoming Valley (beginning 8/4), two solar eclipses (2/17 and 7/29), and her father's visit to an insane asylum (11/3).
 
Traversing the 54-year period of 1860-1914, Margaretta Smith's diaries provide a thorough and near-continuous account of her adult life, which spanned from the Civil War to the outbreak of the first World War. While Smith's accounts of the lived experience of the Civil War are arguably this collection's greatest treasure, her subsequent diaries provide glimpses at postbellum religion, natural disasters, politics, as well as early-twentieth century domesticity.
 
Smith offers accounts of weather, travel by carriage, train, and ship (especially during an 1875 European trip), records of personal affairs such as family visits, weddings, funerals, and personal health troubles (especially her struggle with "neuralgia," marked by crippling headaches), house chores (e.g. cooking, baking, making preserves, sewing, and making ice cream), and recreational activities (including horseback riding, skating, sledding, sleighing, chess, checkers, walks, and piano-playing). Like many of her peers, she keeps careful track of her reading (including Thackeray, Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and even John Brown) and, thanks to her marriage to Dr. George Smith, she regularly attended lectures, meetings, and commencements at Haverford. She provides firsthand accounts of the Blizzards of 1888 and 1899 (March 1888 and February 1899), and records the election of President Grant (11/4/1868), and assassination of and funeral for President McKinley (9/14-9/19/1901).
 
Most remarkably, however, Smith provides a first-hand account of the outbreak and resolution of the Civil War. She presages the outbreak of war, recording the news that "Fort [Sumter] is besieged" (1/4/1861), the "warlike news" following Mississippi's secession (1/10/1861), and noting fears about "what will become of the Union" (1/12/1861). After the outbreak of the war, Smith thirsts for news, relaying small and large developments. Smith's hopefulness for peace surfaces in early entries. For example, on New Years' Eve 1861, she writes, "A great country in the midst of a civil war! What shall we look for in the New Year. Peace, I trust." However, she nevertheless records attacks as she learns of them, including Fort Sumter (4/15/1861), the Battle of Bull Run (7/22/1861), the surrender of Fort Henry (2/8/1862) and Fort Donelson (2/16/1862), and the Battles of Shiloh (4/9/1862), Antietam (9/10/1862), Fredericksburg (12/15/1862), Gettysburg (7/6/1863), and Chattanooga (11/27/1863). Houston's limited access to information—she often received news via visitors to her home—reveals the slow and uneven pace at which information disseminated during the war. For example, she records the death of Confederate General Johnstone on 4/14/1862, despite the fact that he died a week earlier. Elsewhere, she appears to have access to news print, namely the Atlantic Monthly, which she cites on more than one occasion. In an 8/26/1863 she writes, "Report of English building several iron-clads to send over and assist the Rebels!" By 1864, Smith devotes fewer accounts to military defeats and victories, perhaps because she has grown inured to the bloodshed. Regarding the movements of Confederate soldiers into Chambersburg, she writes, "this does not cause the same alarm that it would two years ago" (7/20/1864). Nevertheless, the war continues to surface in her day-to-day life: she and George board Union soldiers in their home (5/21/1861 and 1/28/1865), see Confederate soldiers in the hospital (8/18/1863), and pass wounded soldiers in train cars (5/23/1864).
 
Civil War historians will find the key events commemorated at length. Those include the Emancipation Proclamation (1/11863)
 
the Battle of Five Forks (4/2-3/1865), which Smith celebrates as something like the end of the war
 
and the assassination of and funeral for Abraham Lincoln, which she records in a series of rich entries spanning 4/15-27/1865. Here, and earlier (e.g. 1/4/1863), Smith takes heart from Lucretia Mott, whom she credits "made a few beautiful remarks on the propriety of silent grief" (4/19/1863).
 
Houston Family
 
The Houston family papers features diaries from "CHS" Houston, Henry Howard Houston II, and Eleanor Houston. The "CHSH Addresses & Notebooks" box includes 20 account books, address books, and notebooks and four diaries spanning 1907-1945. The first diary is perhaps the most unusual: unsigned and undated, with a copyright of 1892, the diarist appears to have contributed entries as early as 1907 and as late as 1931. In some instances, one page features entries from multiple years. For example, November 5 includes a header note from 1931 and a diary entry from 1912 that celebrates the election of Woodrow Wilson. The lengthiest entries relate to a European trip taking in the summer of 1920, during which the diarist notes travel by train and boat, sightseeing, cultural sites, and shopping.
 
The Henry Howard Houston II Papers contain three diaries that span 1913-1917. The first, "Ward's A Line a Day Book," traverses Houston's tenure at Chestnut Hill Academy and the University of Pennsylvania (8/15/1913-3/25/1916). Most entries foreground his recreational activities, including dinners, parties, dances, balls, Greek life, sports (golf, cricket, tennis, swimming, sailing, soccer, and horseback riding), and leisure activities (which Houston variously refers to as "bumming" and "fooling around"). Researchers interested in his studies might also refer to an undated pocket journal that Houston appears to have maintained during a poetry composition class. The second diary, maintained in a French "Agenda" book, picks up less than a year later after Houston volunteered for the American Field Ambulance Service near Verdun, France. These entries (2/1-3/31/1917) reflect a remarkably different young man, who records in unusual detail the horrors of trench warfare. These diary entries present a trove for World War I scholars: Houston describes shell holes along the roadside (3/12/1917), the green light exuded during night shelling (3/14/1917), and the experience of shelling (3/16-3/18/1917). Notably, Houston declares himself a pacifist after a two-day shelling campaign (March 18). He would die on a French airfield a little more than a year later. Entries recorded between 3/11-3/25/1917 are also available in loose, typed pages in a separate box.
 
A prolific diarist, Eleanor Houston Smith maintained some 87 diaries as well various ancillary notebooks spanning 1922-1931 and 1938-1986. These diaries provide glimpses into Eleanor Houston Smith's childhood travels, education, and professional life, especially her conservation work in Maine.
 
As a child, she maintained six diaries related to trips taken in 1920 and 1927. While European scholars may value her accounts of European sites, the 1920 diaries, in particular, may interest World War I historians. The first diary, contained in a black journal entitled "My Trip Abroad" (7/2-9/7/1920) chronicles a trip to Paris that includes occasional allusions to past destruction. For example, Houston notes that Varennes had been "absolutely destroyed," and calls it one of the "saddest and dirtiest" places they visit (8/24/1920). A second diary, a red "My Trip Abroad," picks up where the first left off (9/9-10/5/1920) and includes further references to the war as well as images of the destruction (912-13/1920). Several other diaries furnish accounts of a second trip to Europe six years later.
 
Eleanor Houston Smith maintained diaries throughout her childhood and early adulthood using a variety of different types of notebooks. In some instances, she maintained more than one diary per year (e.g. 1927 and 1931), and others she consolidates multiples years in a single notebook (e.g. 1927-29 and 1924-25). These 10 notebooks include accounts of family travels in the west (summer 1922), her schooling in Paris (1926-27), visits to Yorktown and Jamestown (1931), and San Francisco's Chinatown and Mission districts (1922). Most entries emphasize her early education, secular and religious (including continued attendance of Sunday School) and her studies (e.g. French, music, painting, and golf lessons), though Houston also provides some account of her leisure time, such as play rehearsals, shopping, and socializing with friends. Perhaps most interesting for researchers interested in aviation, Houston notes that she "listened to radio reports of Byrd's flight"—an early nonstop trans-Atlantic flight—in an entry dated 6/30/1927.
 
Houston's subsequent diaries (1928-1986) are maintained in appointment books, engagement books, calendars, and daybooks. These diaries provide accounts of her personal affairs, including French lessons, opera and theater attendance, birthdays, weddings, lunches and dinners, hair and dentist appointments, and various notes about "world affairs." Perhaps most valuable for Houston scholars, her diaries record her conservation work in Maine, as well as the organizations with which she worked at both a national and international (e.g. UNESCO and Conservation Council) and local level (Athenaeum, Franklin Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania).
 
Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner Families
 
Finally, the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers also include diaries maintained by William Morris (an 1865 travel diary), Sarah Ogden (a diary dated August 1836), Thomas and Sarah Clemson (two diaries spanning 1854-1855 and 1863), and Josey and Mary Minor Kenner (two diaries with entries spanning 1849-1897). While each of these volumes warrants examination, the Sarah O. (Meredith) Ogden diary might appeal to researchers studying women's history. In a brief "diary" of eight loose manuscript pages dated August 1836, Ogden purports to offer a "mother's detached thoughts and memories, recorded for her children." In execution, Ogden's entries concerning her daughter Gertrude are anything but detached. Traversing both the concrete (such as a tooth extraction) and the abstract (praise for her daughter's imagination, memory, and childlike "intellect"), Ogden's entries are as much a record of her daughter's childhood as they are a window into Ogden's experience as a parent and spiritual guardian.

The sprawling collection of the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers feature at least 179 volumes of diaries that traverse the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The majority of the diaries were maintained by the Smith and Houston families (79 volumes and 94 volumes, respectively); however, members of the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families also kept journals. Reading across these collections, researchers will uncover textured accounts of the Philadelphia centennial exhibition, war, science, religion, nineteenth-century education and conduct, and women's history in antebellum and postbellum America.
 
The Smith and Houston families comprise the bulk of the diary holdings, though the collection also includes diaries from the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families. Smith Family
 
In the Smith family, journals were maintained by George and Gertrude Smith, Lewis Lawrence Smith, Benjamin H. Smith, A. Lewis Smith, Harry C. Smith, and Margaretta Smith. Contained within them are accounts France and England in the late-nineteenth century (The Lewis Lawrence Smith European travel diary), Niagara Falls and the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s (Smith Western Trip Notebook), reports from the Franco-Prussian War (Benjamin H. Smith's 1870 diary), accounts of antebellum dentistry (A. Lewis Smith diary, dated 3/31/1856), and turn of the century university life (Harry C. Smith diaries). Two sets of papers in this collection deserve special attention, especially for researchers interested in women's history: the George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers and the diaries of Margaretta Mary Wood (later Margaretta Mary Smith).
 
The George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers include five diaries that span 1859-1906, the first of which is signed by a Margaret Smith, wife of Dr. George Smith (1859). That volumes features accounts of religious services and prayer meetings, domestic activities (e.g. chess playing, sewing, and dressmaking, social affairs), recreation (including sleighing, learning to ice skate, and a "royal game of ball" on 3/10), and family affairs, including both a funeral (2/20) and wedding (4/28/1859). Getrude Smith's entries provide glimpses into her interior life, including her reading and her private interpretation of religion and morality. For example, she writes: "Dr. George [Frumar?] preached a long sermon—discoursed on war, oath, &c, the beginning of the Society of Friends, the object in keeping silence—other societies. Stated that present-time would be looked on as a dark period by future Christian worlds" (9/4). Alongside person ruminations, Smith's diary also notes numerous visits to Haverford College, a summer trip into Wyoming Valley (beginning 8/4), two solar eclipses (2/17 and 7/29), and her father's visit to an insane asylum (11/3).
 
Traversing the 54-year period of 1860-1914, Margaretta Smith's diaries provide a thorough and near-continuous account of her adult life, which spanned from the Civil War to the outbreak of the first World War. While Smith's accounts of the lived experience of the Civil War are arguably this collection's greatest treasure, her subsequent diaries provide glimpses at postbellum religion, natural disasters, politics, as well as early-twentieth century domesticity.
 
Smith offers accounts of weather, travel by carriage, train, and ship (especially during an 1875 European trip), records of personal affairs such as family visits, weddings, funerals, and personal health troubles (especially her struggle with "neuralgia," marked by crippling headaches), house chores (e.g. cooking, baking, making preserves, sewing, and making ice cream), and recreational activities (including horseback riding, skating, sledding, sleighing, chess, checkers, walks, and piano-playing). Like many of her peers, she keeps careful track of her reading (including Thackeray, Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and even John Brown) and, thanks to her marriage to Dr. George Smith, she regularly attended lectures, meetings, and commencements at Haverford. She provides firsthand accounts of the Blizzards of 1888 and 1899 (March 1888 and February 1899), and records the election of President Grant (11/4/1868), and assassination of and funeral for President McKinley (9/14-9/19/1901).
 
Most remarkably, however, Smith provides a first-hand account of the outbreak and resolution of the Civil War. She presages the outbreak of war, recording the news that "Fort [Sumter] is besieged" (1/4/1861), the "warlike news" following Mississippi's secession (1/10/1861), and noting fears about "what will become of the Union" (1/12/1861). After the outbreak of the war, Smith thirsts for news, relaying small and large developments. Smith's hopefulness for peace surfaces in early entries. For example, on New Years' Eve 1861, she writes, "A great country in the midst of a civil war! What shall we look for in the New Year. Peace, I trust." However, she nevertheless records attacks as she learns of them, including Fort Sumter (4/15/1861), the Battle of Bull Run (7/22/1861), the surrender of Fort Henry (2/8/1862) and Fort Donelson (2/16/1862), and the Battles of Shiloh (4/9/1862), Antietam (9/10/1862), Fredericksburg (12/15/1862), Gettysburg (7/6/1863), and Chattanooga (11/27/1863). Houston's limited access to information—she often received news via visitors to her home—reveals the slow and uneven pace at which information disseminated during the war. For example, she records the death of Confederate General Johnstone on 4/14/1862, despite the fact that he died a week earlier. Elsewhere, she appears to have access to news print, namely the Atlantic Monthly, which she cites on more than one occasion. In an 8/26/1863 she writes, "Report of English building several iron-clads to send over and assist the Rebels!" By 1864, Smith devotes fewer accounts to military defeats and victories, perhaps because she has grown inured to the bloodshed. Regarding the movements of Confederate soldiers into Chambersburg, she writes, "this does not cause the same alarm that it would two years ago" (7/20/1864). Nevertheless, the war continues to surface in her day-to-day life: she and George board Union soldiers in their home (5/21/1861 and 1/28/1865), see Confederate soldiers in the hospital (8/18/1863), and pass wounded soldiers in train cars (5/23/1864).
 
Civil War historians will find the key events commemorated at length. Those include the Emancipation Proclamation (1/11863)
 
the Battle of Five Forks (4/2-3/1865), which Smith celebrates as something like the end of the war
 
and the assassination of and funeral for Abraham Lincoln, which she records in a series of rich entries spanning 4/15-27/1865. Here, and earlier (e.g. 1/4/1863), Smith takes heart from Lucretia Mott, whom she credits "made a few beautiful remarks on the propriety of silent grief" (4/19/1863).
 
Houston Family
 
The Houston family papers features diaries from "CHS" Houston, Henry Howard Houston II, and Eleanor Houston. The "CHSH Addresses & Notebooks" box includes 20 account books, address books, and notebooks and four diaries spanning 1907-1945. The first diary is perhaps the most unusual: unsigned and undated, with a copyright of 1892, the diarist appears to have contributed entries as early as 1907 and as late as 1931. In some instances, one page features entries from multiple years. For example, November 5 includes a header note from 1931 and a diary entry from 1912 that celebrates the election of Woodrow Wilson. The lengthiest entries relate to a European trip taking in the summer of 1920, during which the diarist notes travel by train and boat, sightseeing, cultural sites, and shopping.
 
The Henry Howard Houston II Papers contain three diaries that span 1913-1917. The first, "Ward's A Line a Day Book," traverses Houston's tenure at Chestnut Hill Academy and the University of Pennsylvania (8/15/1913-3/25/1916). Most entries foreground his recreational activities, including dinners, parties, dances, balls, Greek life, sports (golf, cricket, tennis, swimming, sailing, soccer, and horseback riding), and leisure activities (which Houston variously refers to as "bumming" and "fooling around"). Researchers interested in his studies might also refer to an undated pocket journal that Houston appears to have maintained during a poetry composition class. The second diary, maintained in a French "Agenda" book, picks up less than a year later after Houston volunteered for the American Field Ambulance Service near Verdun, France. These entries (2/1-3/31/1917) reflect a remarkably different young man, who records in unusual detail the horrors of trench warfare. These diary entries present a trove for World War I scholars: Houston describes shell holes along the roadside (3/12/1917), the green light exuded during night shelling (3/14/1917), and the experience of shelling (3/16-3/18/1917). Notably, Houston declares himself a pacifist after a two-day shelling campaign (March 18). He would die on a French airfield a little more than a year later. Entries recorded between 3/11-3/25/1917 are also available in loose, typed pages in a separate box.
 
A prolific diarist, Eleanor Houston Smith maintained some 87 diaries as well various ancillary notebooks spanning 1922-1931 and 1938-1986. These diaries provide glimpses into Eleanor Houston Smith's childhood travels, education, and professional life, especially her conservation work in Maine.
 
As a child, she maintained six diaries related to trips taken in 1920 and 1927. While European scholars may value her accounts of European sites, the 1920 diaries, in particular, may interest World War I historians. The first diary, contained in a black journal entitled "My Trip Abroad" (7/2-9/7/1920) chronicles a trip to Paris that includes occasional allusions to past destruction. For example, Houston notes that Varennes had been "absolutely destroyed," and calls it one of the "saddest and dirtiest" places they visit (8/24/1920). A second diary, a red "My Trip Abroad," picks up where the first left off (9/9-10/5/1920) and includes further references to the war as well as images of the destruction (912-13/1920). Several other diaries furnish accounts of a second trip to Europe six years later.
 
Eleanor Houston Smith maintained diaries throughout her childhood and early adulthood using a variety of different types of notebooks. In some instances, she maintained more than one diary per year (e.g. 1927 and 1931), and others she consolidates multiples years in a single notebook (e.g. 1927-29 and 1924-25). These 10 notebooks include accounts of family travels in the west (summer 1922), her schooling in Paris (1926-27), visits to Yorktown and Jamestown (1931), and San Francisco's Chinatown and Mission districts (1922). Most entries emphasize her early education, secular and religious (including continued attendance of Sunday School) and her studies (e.g. French, music, painting, and golf lessons), though Houston also provides some account of her leisure time, such as play rehearsals, shopping, and socializing with friends. Perhaps most interesting for researchers interested in aviation, Houston notes that she "listened to radio reports of Byrd's flight"—an early nonstop trans-Atlantic flight—in an entry dated 6/30/1927.
 
Houston's subsequent diaries (1928-1986) are maintained in appointment books, engagement books, calendars, and daybooks. These diaries provide accounts of her personal affairs, including French lessons, opera and theater attendance, birthdays, weddings, lunches and dinners, hair and dentist appointments, and various notes about "world affairs." Perhaps most valuable for Houston scholars, her diaries record her conservation work in Maine, as well as the organizations with which she worked at both a national and international (e.g. UNESCO and Conservation Council) and local level (Athenaeum, Franklin Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania).
 
Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner Families
 
Finally, the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers also include diaries maintained by William Morris (an 1865 travel diary), Sarah Ogden (a diary dated August 1836), Thomas and Sarah Clemson (two diaries spanning 1854-1855 and 1863), and Josey and Mary Minor Kenner (two diaries with entries spanning 1849-1897). While each of these volumes warrants examination, the Sarah O. (Meredith) Ogden diary might appeal to researchers studying women's history. In a brief "diary" of eight loose manuscript pages dated August 1836, Ogden purports to offer a "mother's detached thoughts and memories, recorded for her children." In execution, Ogden's entries concerning her daughter Gertrude are anything but detached. Traversing both the concrete (such as a tooth extraction) and the abstract (praise for her daughter's imagination, memory, and childlike "intellect"), Ogden's entries are as much a record of her daughter's childhood as they are a window into Ogden's experience as a parent and spiritual guardian.

Researchers interested in Haney's biography will find that these volumes meticulously document his education, literary interests, and career. Volumes from the 1890s capture his voracious reading habits. For example, in August 1895, he reads and comments upon Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (8/11) and the Bible (8/18) in the same week. Throughout his journals, Haney provides a useful homespun index at the end of each journal. Beginning in 1898, he adds annual reviews in which he takes stock of his progress. (Those reviews become so exhaustive that, by 1907, he begins adding subcategories of assessment, such as "My Relation to the World At Large," "Literary Work," "Travel," "People Whom I Met," "Drama & Music," "Reading," "Financial," "Family Affairs"). Scholars interested in Philadelphia regional history will note that these early volumes recount Haney frequent visits to book dealer A.S.W. Rosenbach, during which the two discuss books and university affairs (e.g. 6/10/1896, 8/17/1899).
 
Haney's professional career begins in earnest in 1900, when he accepts his position at Central High School. While he acknowledges the significance of the offer at the time (6/29/1900), Haney reflects at greater length in a later entry (9/4/1935). In that year's annual review, he summarizes his progress: "I am inclined to regard 1900 as the most significant year thus far…the development of the bibliography, our experience at Washington and New York
 
the completion of my first novel
 
the work on my thesis
 
my appointment at the High School--truly a diversified array of interests." While Haney's bibliography of Coleridge wouldn't be published for some time (he celebrates receipt of his copy on 9/1/1903), the next twenty years bring significant milestones in his career: Haney becomes department chair (1905 review) and, after a "strenuous campaign," is elected president of Central High School (1920 review).
 
Alongside his literary interests, Haney proves a studious observer of contemporary economics and world affairs. Although he evinces sympathies for laissez-faire capitalism (reference an excerpt from the 1926 annual review), Haney records labor strikes from the 1890s (12/17-18/1895 and 1/3/1896), Black Tuesday (10/29/29, 1929 annual review), and the lived experience of the Great Depression (1930-34 annual reviews). Haney also visits the Chicago World's Fair (1933 review) and discusses the Blizzard of 1899 (2/10/1899), Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight (5/21/1927), the discovery of Pluto (1930 review), Hughes' flight around the world (1938 review), and Russia's launch of a satellite, which he calls a "catastrophe for the West" (1957 review).
 
Haney also demonstrates a sustained interest in domestic (Republican) politics. After the McKinley assassination, he recounts reports of news over almost two weeks (9/7-9/19/1901). He reports considerable excitement concerning President Roosevelt's visit to CHS (11/12/1902), and celebrates the electoral gains of our "virile president" (11/9/1904). (Haney thinks less highly of President Wilson.) He records ratification of women's suffrage (1920 annual review), repeal of 18th Amendment, and passage of the 20th and 21st Amendments (1933 review). A tireless critic of F.D.R., Haney bemoans his election (11/8-9/1932) and reelections (1936 review, 11/6/1940, 11/8/1944), needling his "imprudent Supreme Court Packing idea" (1937 review) and fretting that, "A new American Gestapo set up in Washington is ready to hound any citizen who criticizes the Government" (1944 review). In fact, Haney's critiques of F.D.R. offer a window into conservative backlash against the New Deal, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1935 review). In one of his final journals, he also notes the emergence of new racial coalitions associated with the Civil Rights era, writing, "The Negroes, once grateful to the G.O.P. for bringing about their liberation in the South, have turned their backs on the Republicans and cheerfully vote for politicians who given them untold millions in 'relief' of every sort" (1957 review).
 
Finally, war historians will discover countless accounts of U.S. military activity between the Spanish-American War and World War II. Haney celebrates the destruction of Pascual Cervera y Topete's naval fleet (7/4/1898), and notes with increasing alarm the "gathering war clouds in Europe" (7/30/1914, 1914 annual review). In his next annual review, he mourns Western civilization: "The year 1915 has probably been the most discreditable year since the dawn of civilization-discreditable to civilization and to all that such a state of existence implies. The Great European War, begun about August 1st of the previous year, ran a full twelve-month of slaughter during 1915 with no end in sight…The good name of Germany and of the Teutonic culture has been thrown to the winds. The future of the world's peace demands the defeat of the power that stands for militarism and for brute force" (1915 review). Haney marks Armistice Day as "one of the remarkable days of my life" (11/11/1918), but he soon finds himself profoundly disappointed with reconstruction efforts, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1920 annual review). Haney's 1920s and 1930s entries offer a sobering account of the failures of League of Nations and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. His volumes record milestones of World War II, from the attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941) to the bombing of Hiroshima (8/6-7/1941). "It was epochal," writes Haney. "Papers & radio features the devastating atomic bomb. A new age has begun" (8/7/1941).

John Louis Haney papers contain 33 volumes that Haney maintained from the age of 10 until a year before his death (1887-1959). The first twelve volumes are devoted to his educations (including Sunday School, German School, and the University of Pennsylvania), whereas subsequent volumes trace his career as professor of English (1900-1920) and president of Philadelphia's Central High School (1920-1943), during which Haney published numerous books on Coleridge and Shakespeare. These volumes may interest a host of different scholars—certainly those exploring twentieth-century education and the field of literary criticism—but well as those researching the Great Depression, the 1933 World's Fair, twentieth century U.S. politics (particularly for conservative critique of F.D.R.), the institutional history of the American Philosophical Society (in which Haney was elected a member in 1929), and the history of the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. Researchers may also choose to mine this collection for its rich ephemera, including self-portraits interspersed in diaries (e.g. 1898, 1904-6, 1910-13, 1918-22), as well as an ancillary book of newspaper clippings, a folder of other ephemera, and two volumes of his personal reading lists.
 
Researchers interested in Haney's biography will find that these volumes meticulously document his education, literary interests, and career. Volumes from the 1890s capture his voracious reading habits. For example, in August 1895, he reads and comments upon Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (8/11) and the Bible (8/18) in the same week. Throughout his journals, Haney provides a useful homespun index at the end of each journal. Beginning in 1898, he adds annual reviews in which he takes stock of his progress. (Those reviews become so exhaustive that, by 1907, he begins adding subcategories of assessment, such as "My Relation to the World At Large," "Literary Work," "Travel," "People Whom I Met," "Drama & Music," "Reading," "Financial," "Family Affairs"). Scholars interested in Philadelphia regional history will note that these early volumes recount Haney frequent visits to book dealer A.S.W. Rosenbach, during which the two discuss books and university affairs (e.g. 6/10/1896, 8/17/1899).
 
Haney's professional career begins in earnest in 1900, when he accepts his position at Central High School. While he acknowledges the significance of the offer at the time (6/29/1900), Haney reflects at greater length in a later entry (9/4/1935). In that year's annual review, he summarizes his progress: "I am inclined to regard 1900 as the most significant year thus far…the development of the bibliography, our experience at Washington and New York
 
the completion of my first novel
 
the work on my thesis
 
my appointment at the High School--truly a diversified array of interests." While Haney's bibliography of Coleridge wouldn't be published for some time (he celebrates receipt of his copy on 9/1/1903), the next twenty years bring significant milestones in his career: Haney becomes department chair (1905 review) and, after a "strenuous campaign," is elected president of Central High School (1920 review).
 
Alongside his literary interests, Haney proves a studious observer of contemporary economics and world affairs. Although he evinces sympathies for laissez-faire capitalism (reference an excerpt from the 1926 annual review), Haney records labor strikes from the 1890s (12/17-18/1895 and 1/3/1896), Black Tuesday (10/29/29, 1929 annual review), and the lived experience of the Great Depression (1930-34 annual reviews). Haney also visits the Chicago World's Fair (1933 review) and discusses the Blizzard of 1899 (2/10/1899), Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight (5/21/1927), the discovery of Pluto (1930 review), Hughes' flight around the world (1938 review), and Russia's launch of a satellite, which he calls a "catastrophe for the West" (1957 review).
 
Haney also demonstrates a sustained interest in domestic (Republican) politics. After the McKinley assassination, he recounts reports of news over almost two weeks (9/7-9/19/1901). He reports considerable excitement concerning President Roosevelt's visit to CHS (11/12/1902), and celebrates the electoral gains of our "virile president" (11/9/1904). (Haney thinks less highly of President Wilson.) He records ratification of women's suffrage (1920 annual review), repeal of 18th Amendment, and passage of the 20th and 21st Amendments (1933 review). A tireless critic of F.D.R., Haney bemoans his election (11/8-9/1932) and reelections (1936 review, 11/6/1940, 11/8/1944), needling his "imprudent Supreme Court Packing idea" (1937 review) and fretting that, "A new American Gestapo set up in Washington is ready to hound any citizen who criticizes the Government" (1944 review). In fact, Haney's critiques of F.D.R. offer a window into conservative backlash against the New Deal, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1935 review). In one of his final journals, he also notes the emergence of new racial coalitions associated with the Civil Rights era, writing, "The Negroes, once grateful to the G.O.P. for bringing about their liberation in the South, have turned their backs on the Republicans and cheerfully vote for politicians who given them untold millions in 'relief' of every sort" (1957 review).
 
Finally, war historians will discover countless accounts of U.S. military activity between the Spanish-American War and World War II. Haney celebrates the destruction of Pascual Cervera y Topete's naval fleet (7/4/1898), and notes with increasing alarm the "gathering war clouds in Europe" (7/30/1914, 1914 annual review). In his next annual review, he mourns Western civilization: "The year 1915 has probably been the most discreditable year since the dawn of civilization-discreditable to civilization and to all that such a state of existence implies. The Great European War, begun about August 1st of the previous year, ran a full twelve-month of slaughter during 1915 with no end in sight…The good name of Germany and of the Teutonic culture has been thrown to the winds. The future of the world's peace demands the defeat of the power that stands for militarism and for brute force" (1915 review). Haney marks Armistice Day as "one of the remarkable days of my life" (11/11/1918), but he soon finds himself profoundly disappointed with reconstruction efforts, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1920 annual review). Haney's 1920s and 1930s entries offer a sobering account of the failures of League of Nations and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. His volumes record milestones of World War II, from the attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941) to the bombing of Hiroshima (8/6-7/1941). "It was epochal," writes Haney. "Papers & radio features the devastating atomic bomb. A new age has begun" (8/7/1941).