Researchers will likely gravitate to Strahan's first volume, a detailed, six-week account of European travels taken in 1751 (7/6-8/28). Alongside accounts of weather, road and travel conditions, and various social gatherings (e.g. breakfasts, dinners, teas), Strahan's entries offer glimpses into eighteenth-century English conduct, church services, universities, courts, libraries, as well as villages, towns, and cities and their inhabitants. For example, Straham describes Newcastle as a "a place of Business and Industry equal to London" (7/15) and Paisley as a "perfect hive of industrious people" (8/6). Attending a trial, he remarks upon the conduct of the participants, writing, "The court was very solemn and the lawyers were both elegant and behaved with remarkable decency" (7/22). Strahan even visits a poorhouse in Edinburgh, by which, he remarks, "the City is not only freed of all beggars, but the offspring of such are [tirelessly] snatched from Destruction, so that the Race of disorderly people are hereby extinguished" (7/30).
 
The second (1759, 1760, 1766), third (1768, 1773, 1777), and fourth volumes (1755-1761) are much less detailed but sketch his travel (and distances covered). The fourth volume, in particular, more closely resembles an account book than a journal. As he takes stock of his properties, assets, and debts, Straham records his increasingly wealth—from £ 5,000 in total assets in 1755 to £ 12,000 in 1761.

The William Strahan diary encompasses four volumes spanning 1751-1777. The first volume features the most detailed entries, whereas the second and third volumes include shorter accounts of multiple excursions and the fourth volume serves less as a journal than a summation of accounts, debts, and holdings. The first volume's accounts of mid-eighteenth-century England ought to interest researchers interested in English urban space, governance, and social conduct.
 
Researchers will likely gravitate to Strahan's first volume, a detailed, six-week account of European travels taken in 1751 (7/6-8/28). Alongside accounts of weather, road and travel conditions, and various social gatherings (e.g. breakfasts, dinners, teas), Strahan's entries offer glimpses into eighteenth-century English conduct, church services, universities, courts, libraries, as well as villages, towns, and cities and their inhabitants. For example, Straham describes Newcastle as a "a place of Business and Industry equal to London" (7/15) and Paisley as a "perfect hive of industrious people" (8/6). Attending a trial, he remarks upon the conduct of the participants, writing, "The court was very solemn and the lawyers were both elegant and behaved with remarkable decency" (7/22). Strahan even visits a poorhouse in Edinburgh, by which, he remarks, "the City is not only freed of all beggars, but the offspring of such are [tirelessly] snatched from Destruction, so that the Race of disorderly people are hereby extinguished" (7/30).
 
The second (1759, 1760, 1766), third (1768, 1773, 1777), and fourth volumes (1755-1761) are much less detailed but sketch his travel (and distances covered). The fourth volume, in particular, more closely resembles an account book than a journal. As he takes stock of his properties, assets, and debts, Straham records his increasingly wealth—from £ 5,000 in total assets in 1755 to £ 12,000 in 1761.

The "Bedawin" diaries are contained in two typed volumes. In a prefatory note dated February 1919, Albert M. Lythgoe, founder of the department of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, justifies copying the journal to ensure that, "we might have on record in the Egyptian Department of the Museum the many facts which it contains relative to the archaeological work of Theodore M. Davis." He adds that the entries provide a "charming description" of "river-life on the 'Bedawin'" (February 1919).
 
In addition to recording the weather, travel, lodging, and sights, Andrews's entries also provide accounts of accidents (e.g. 1/5/1890, 5/4/1897, 1/26/1912), discoveries (1/27/00), and the education (2/3/1902, 1/14/1903), work (1/3/1893), diet (1/1/1890, 3/12/1893), attire (1/7/1890), diseases (12/12/1900), burial grounds (1/20/1890), and religion (2/28/1893) of the peoples who inhabit the Nile.
 
Not unsurprisingly, her entries evince her colonial sympathies. For example, she describes the salubrious effects of English officers of their Egyptian counterparts: "[the] influence of the English officers commanding [the army], was a potent engine for civilization and good" (1/24/1890). On passing some dead orange groves, she notes, "This is why Egyptians and Egypt will always need some intelligent domineering" (3/21/1899).
 
Despite those biases, Andrews is continuously charmed by her surroundings, lavishing lyrical descriptions upon Egyptian pyramids (12/14/1892), ruins (1/8/1890, 1/21/1890), hieroglyphics (2/2/1890), and the Nile (2/3/1900). Researchers interested in turn of the century Europe will also be rewarded with detailed accounts of Rome (3/21/1890, 4/19/93), Paris (5/23/1893), and London (6/8/1893).
 
For those seeking still more detail and context, visit the Emma B. Andrews Diary Project: http://www.emmabandrews.org/

While accompanying Theodore M. Davis on numerous archaeological trips to Egypt in the fin de siecle, Emma B. Andrews maintained a detailed diary between 1889-1913, which furnish researchers with cultural and archaeological insights into colonial Egypt and early-twentieth century Italy.
 
The "Bedawin" diaries are contained in two typed volumes. In a prefatory note dated February 1919, Albert M. Lythgoe, founder of the department of Egyptian art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, justifies copying the journal to ensure that, "we might have on record in the Egyptian Department of the Museum the many facts which it contains relative to the archaeological work of Theodore M. Davis." He adds that the entries provide a "charming description" of "river-life on the 'Bedawin'" (February 1919).
 
In addition to recording the weather, travel, lodging, and sights, Andrews's entries also provide accounts of accidents (e.g. 1/5/1890, 5/4/1897, 1/26/1912), discoveries (1/27/00), and the education (2/3/1902, 1/14/1903), work (1/3/1893), diet (1/1/1890, 3/12/1893), attire (1/7/1890), diseases (12/12/1900), burial grounds (1/20/1890), and religion (2/28/1893) of the peoples who inhabit the Nile.
 
Not unsurprisingly, her entries evince her colonial sympathies. For example, she describes the salubrious effects of English officers of their Egyptian counterparts: "[the] influence of the English officers commanding [the army], was a potent engine for civilization and good" (1/24/1890). On passing some dead orange groves, she notes, "This is why Egyptians and Egypt will always need some intelligent domineering" (3/21/1899).
 
Despite those biases, Andrews is continuously charmed by her surroundings, lavishing lyrical descriptions upon Egyptian pyramids (12/14/1892), ruins (1/8/1890, 1/21/1890), hieroglyphics (2/2/1890), and the Nile (2/3/1900). Researchers interested in turn of the century Europe will also be rewarded with detailed accounts of Rome (3/21/1890, 4/19/93), Paris (5/23/1893), and London (6/8/1893).
 
For those seeking still more detail and context, visit the Emma B. Andrews Diary Project: http://www.emmabandrews.org/

John Lyon's botany journal offers a record of travels in the eastern U.S. at the turn of nineteenth century. The volume includes memoranda dated 1799, with entries spanning 9/6/1802-8/6/1814. Lyon's entries document expenses—plants purchased and collected—with occasional notes about the places and peoples he encounters. Entries related to his travels in the eastern and southeastern U.S. record a visit to plantations (4/23/1803), an Indian settlement in Georgia (7/19/1803), and medical treatments for palsy, jaundice, and cancer (12/1/1808). Notably, Lyon discusses an albino slave in Athens, Georgia, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (9/25/1804). In the spring of 1806, he records travel to Dublin, Liverpool, and London. Thus, while the Lyon journal will certainly appeal to researchers exploring nineteenth century botany, they also feature content with wider appeal, such as U.S. slavery, transatlantic travel, indigenous trade, and antebellum medicine.
 

The meteorological observations contain at least 30 volumes spanning 1748-1822. Maintained by William Adair, Peter Legaux, James Madison, Phineas Pemberton, and other prominent figures from the early national period, these volumes capture meteorological data, thermometer readings, winds, and occasionally longitudes, latitudes, graphs, and miscellaneous notes. Phineas Pemberton recorded approximately half of the volumes, in or around Philadelphia during colonial and revolutionary period (August 1748-December 1776). Other volumes record meteorological data from New England (Samuel Williams), Natchez (William Dunbar), and Peru and northern Chile (Samuel Curson). Scholars researching late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth weather conditions will be well-served by this collection.
 

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.

This collection contains at least 18 diaries spanning more than thirty-five years (1917-1954) of unusual diaries available as both loose pages (contained in 5 folders) and traditional notebooks (11 bound volumes). Maintained by crystallographer Rose Mooney-Slater, these records offer insights into her graduate education at Tulane University and the University of Chicago, Guggenheim Fellowship in Europe on the eve of World War II, and noteworthy career during the postwar period. Alongside many rich ancillary materials--such as a Friendship Book with numerous photographs from 1914-17--Mooney-Slater's diaries provide detailed information about her personal and professional life. Of particular note is a diary describing her aborted Guggenheim Fellowship in Holland at the outset of World War II, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (9/1/1939). With the outbreak of war, Mooney-Slater cuts short her fellowship and books passage back to the United States as others rush to leave Europe. Early diaries provide glimpses into her struggles to balance marriage with graduate education (1928-29) and later diaries document her wide-ranging professional travels during the postwar period, including trips to Europe in both 1951 and 1954. Unfortunately, many of these volumes are water-damaged, and it can be challenging to trace the chronology of materials in folders (particular items in the 1917-1952 folder). However, scholars willing to take the time to peruse these records will be richly rewarded with insights into twentieth-century science, the postwar research university, and the inner life of a remarkable female scientist.
 

Chemist and mineralogist Thomas P. Smith maintained a five-volume journal during a tour through Europe between 1800-1802. Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1799, Smith bequeathed his journal to the APS with the request that it be published if found to contain information "useful to the manufactories of my country." Although his observations tend to concentrate on European technological improvements in manufacturing and mining (sometimes with rough diagrams), these volumes also document his travels across Europe and comments on European society and culture. Of particular note may be his accounts of Luxemburg (7/14/1800), Hamburg (7/15/1800), and Stockholm (8/22/1800), excerpted in Selected Quotations. Notably, the third volume features a "Resume du Cours del Mineralogie," written in French and English. The Thomas P. Smith journal may interest scholars researching Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century, Smith's career in mineralogy, as well as the institutional history of American Philosophical Society.
 

As secretary to John Anstey, Loyalists' Claims Commissioner, Robert Woodruff offers a detailed record of the U.S. in the early national period from the unique vantage of an English loyalist. His journal (1785-1788) documents his trip through the Northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and Southeastern states (as far south as Georgia). In his travels, Woodruff references many colonial leaders, including George Washington (10/27/1986), Samuel Vaughan (11/2/1786), and Benjamin Franklin (11/4/1786). Notably, Woodruff dines in house where "Lord Cornwallis in December 1776 held a council of war whether he should cross the Delaware to attack General Washington" (10/30/1786), witnesses Franklin's reelection as President of the Pennsylvania state house (11/4/1786), and mentions the American Philosophical Society (5/8/1787).
 

Russian-readers will be richly rewarded, given that Dobzhansky modulates entries between Russian and English. In some entries, he self-consciously reflects on the language he opts to use. For example, on February 16, 1952, he imagines his child (Sophie) as the audience of his entries: "I am switching to English, in order that my child would find it easier to accompany her father's experiences, is she wants to accompany them."
 
Even in diaries recorded predominantly in Russian, Dobzhansky encloses numerous ephemera—business cards, letters, hand-drawn sketches, recognitions/awards, medical test results, newspaper clippings, and more—accessible to English-speakers. In many of his diaries from the 1950s and 1960s, typed letters provide some insights into his thoughts on health, mortality, and faith (e.g. 2/16/1952, 5/16/1957, 7/16/1968, 10/13/1969)
 
(strained) relations with his children (e.g. 5/16/1957, 10/28/1968, 12/31/1968)
 
and career (3/25/1970
 
6/30/1970, 1/25/1975).
 
Dobzhansky traveled widely, providing particularly detailed accounts of South America and the American West. While English entries largely abstains from discussing politics, he does occasionally discuss Brazilian politics (e.g. 9/7/1954, 10/16/1955), and the election of Richard Nixon, about whom he is consistently critical (e.g. 11/6/1970, 12/31/1973, 8/8/1974).
 
Throughout his four decades of journal-writing, Dobzhansky expresses one consistent concern: his desire to continue doing useful work. Marking his final birthday, he writes, "So, I have lived ¾ of a century. Today begins the last quarter, or rather past thereof…Oh God, give me power to finish my life serving you by doing my life work in science! In 75 years I have not yet exhausted either my interest or, I hope, my ability" (1/25/1975).

The Dobzhansky Papers feature 47 volumes spanning 1934-1975. (The boxes in which they are enclosed also include other notebooks and workbooks without sequential entries.) These diaries ought to interest researchers studying genetics and evolutionary biology, early-twentieth-century travel expeditions (particularly into the Amazon), the creationist debate (especially in textbooks and public schools), the post-war university (Columbia University, in particular), South American politics, and Dobzhansky's biography.
 
Russian-readers will be richly rewarded, given that Dobzhansky modulates entries between Russian and English. In some entries, he self-consciously reflects on the language he opts to use. For example, on February 16, 1952, he imagines his child (Sophie) as the audience of his entries: "I am switching to English, in order that my child would find it easier to accompany her father's experiences, is she wants to accompany them."
 
Even in diaries recorded predominantly in Russian, Dobzhansky encloses numerous ephemera—business cards, letters, hand-drawn sketches, recognitions/awards, medical test results, newspaper clippings, and more—accessible to English-speakers. In many of his diaries from the 1950s and 1960s, typed letters provide some insights into his thoughts on health, mortality, and faith (e.g. 2/16/1952, 5/16/1957, 7/16/1968, 10/13/1969)
 
(strained) relations with his children (e.g. 5/16/1957, 10/28/1968, 12/31/1968)
 
and career (3/25/1970
 
6/30/1970, 1/25/1975).
 
Dobzhansky traveled widely, providing particularly detailed accounts of South America and the American West. While English entries largely abstains from discussing politics, he does occasionally discuss Brazilian politics (e.g. 9/7/1954, 10/16/1955), and the election of Richard Nixon, about whom he is consistently critical (e.g. 11/6/1970, 12/31/1973, 8/8/1974).
 
Throughout his four decades of journal-writing, Dobzhansky expresses one consistent concern: his desire to continue doing useful work. Marking his final birthday, he writes, "So, I have lived ¾ of a century. Today begins the last quarter, or rather past thereof…Oh God, give me power to finish my life serving you by doing my life work in science! In 75 years I have not yet exhausted either my interest or, I hope, my ability" (1/25/1975).

The travel journals of Harvard professor, curator, and evolutionary biologist George Gaylord Simpson ought to be near the top research lists of scholars investigating twentieth-century history, travel, conservation, anthropology, and paleontology. Available in seven boxes of handwritten journals, typed pages, carbon copies, and countless ephemera, Simpson's travel writings provide textured insights into his life, research, intellectual, philosophical, and political positions. Over the course of six decades of journaling (1924-1984), Simpson records at least 36 distinct expeditions, traveling to every continent and documenting discoveries in extraordinary detail and literary style. (Consider the locations identified with this note representative rather than comprehensive of his diverse travels.) Noteworthy journals include: Depression-era trips to Patagonia (1931, 1934), an extended tour of Venezuela in the late-1930s (1938-39), trips to Brazil and the Amazon basin (1954-56, 1983-84), a tour to Spain under Franco (1960), expeditions in North Africa and the Middle East just before the Six Day War (1967), visits to Australia (1951, 1968), Fiji (1968), Indonesia (1975), Papua New Guinea (1976), trips to the Galapagos (1970, 1974), expeditions to the Arctic (1974) and Antarctica (1971-73), a trip to Soviet Union during the Cold War (1977), and a tour of China after its economic reforms (1980).; In his travels, Simpson's mastery of detail is matched only by his curiosity and literary flourish. For example, during his 1938-39 Venezuela tour, he discusses everything from population density (4/25/1939) and the work of Catholic missionaries with indigenous populations (1/15/1939) to the sweet coffee in Barquisimeto (9/21/1938) and his method for killing an opossum without damaging its skin (10/6/1938). At times, his reflections blur the boundaries of prose and poetry. In a collection of reminders from his time in Los Robles, he lists: "The noise they make to shoo animals--This can't be written even approximately, something like the clearing of a throat long and viciously. The sound of rain falling on canvas, on bushes, everywhere, the roar of flooding gullies, and slip and thud of landslides. The sound of pigs slashing and shearing by night outside the kitchen. The smell of fresh, heavily roasted coffee being ground…Hillsides brilliant yellow and pale green with mecutera" (12/19/1938). Researchers may anticipate discovering such redolent entries scattered throughout Simpson's journals, as suggested by Selected Quotations. Although items are not individually cataloged, scholars may choose to begin to mine this rich collection using Anne Roe Simpson's "Note on travel diaries."
 

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.
 

The Heiser diaries are without peer when it comes to their scope--spanning the first seven decades of the twentieth-century--global reach, and detail. Scholars exploring the history of medicine might gravitate towards entries related to his public health work in the Philippines (1908-1916). Researchers interested in the history of zionism will be richly rewarded by volumes from 1922 and 1926--an excerpt from Heiser's July 1922 journey to Palestine is excerpted in Selected Quotations. And those interested in colonial India will discover a numerous reflections on Gandhi and 1920s non-violent resistance movements (also excerpted in Selected Quotations).
 
Perhaps most surprising are Heiser's detailed accounts of European travel between the 1920s and 1930s, during which he expresses some sympathy for nationalist movements. Traveling war-torn Italy, he remarked on there "appears to be unanimous agreement among natives and foreigners" that the new prime minister, Benito Mussolini, "has accomplished extraordinary results and that he is honest and genuinely patriotic" (11/19/1923). Several years later, he documents the nation's progress in developing infrastructure and improving services. He concludes his 4/29/1926 entry with an ominous justification for fascism: "Democracy gradually became so inefficient that all came to a standstill and a dictator was able to start the machinery on an effective basis."
 
Heiser traveled widely during the decade preceding World War II. In the late-1930s, he returned to Italy and decries the ubiquitous military presence, government propaganda, and oppressive taxation. And yet, he ends his entry with a section entitled "The Other Side." Heiser writes: "A whole new social order has been created. Instead of people finding fault with what government fails in, the press and government propaganda constantly drive into their ears what government is doing for the people. (In the end will this not produce more peace of mind and happiness than our democratic way of emphasizing fault-finding)" (4/25/1937).
 
On the topic of promoting public happiness, Heiser draws a similar conclusion during a contemporaneous visit to Germany. While he decries the Nazi government's "censorship, prohibitions and [intrusion into] one's private affairs," he adds: "And yet one begins to wonder whether there is not much to be said in favor of the good type of dictatorships, in promoting human happiness. In democracies people are [annoyed] to say or think little of the good things government does for them and to place main emphasis upon petty fault finding" (6/3/1937). Finally, just one year prior to the outbreak of World War II, Heiser pens perhaps his most generous account of dictatorships. That account, "Further Impressions Dictatorships," is excerpted in Selected Quotations.

By any measure, public health leader Victor George Heiser lived a long, productive, and vigorous life. His 86 diaries (1890-1972) predate the Spanish-American War and post-date U.S. escalation in Vietnam, while his career in public health put him in contact with politicians, diplomats, ambassadors, and government officials across the globe. An astute political observer, Heiser offers rich, on-the-ground insights into twentieth-century history as it unfolded, from the rise of Gandhi to the fall of Hitler. His 1920s and 1930s entries also offer candid explanations of and justifications for dictatorship. The Heiser diaries may interest a wide range of scholars, including those researching the history of science, American public health policy in the Philippines, the history of Zionism and Israeli statehood, colonialism in Asia (most especially India), and Europe between World War I and World War II.
 
The Heiser diaries are without peer when it comes to their scope--spanning the first seven decades of the twentieth-century--global reach, and detail. Scholars exploring the history of medicine might gravitate towards entries related to his public health work in the Philippines (1908-1916). Researchers interested in the history of zionism will be richly rewarded by volumes from 1922 and 1926--an excerpt from Heiser's July 1922 journey to Palestine is excerpted in Selected Quotations. And those interested in colonial India will discover a numerous reflections on Gandhi and 1920s non-violent resistance movements (also excerpted in Selected Quotations).
 
Perhaps most surprising are Heiser's detailed accounts of European travel between the 1920s and 1930s, during which he expresses some sympathy for nationalist movements. Traveling war-torn Italy, he remarked on there "appears to be unanimous agreement among natives and foreigners" that the new prime minister, Benito Mussolini, "has accomplished extraordinary results and that he is honest and genuinely patriotic" (11/19/1923). Several years later, he documents the nation's progress in developing infrastructure and improving services. He concludes his 4/29/1926 entry with an ominous justification for fascism: "Democracy gradually became so inefficient that all came to a standstill and a dictator was able to start the machinery on an effective basis."
 
Heiser traveled widely during the decade preceding World War II. In the late-1930s, he returned to Italy and decries the ubiquitous military presence, government propaganda, and oppressive taxation. And yet, he ends his entry with a section entitled "The Other Side." Heiser writes: "A whole new social order has been created. Instead of people finding fault with what government fails in, the press and government propaganda constantly drive into their ears what government is doing for the people. (In the end will this not produce more peace of mind and happiness than our democratic way of emphasizing fault-finding)" (4/25/1937).
 
On the topic of promoting public happiness, Heiser draws a similar conclusion during a contemporaneous visit to Germany. While he decries the Nazi government's "censorship, prohibitions and [intrusion into] one's private affairs," he adds: "And yet one begins to wonder whether there is not much to be said in favor of the good type of dictatorships, in promoting human happiness. In democracies people are [annoyed] to say or think little of the good things government does for them and to place main emphasis upon petty fault finding" (6/3/1937). Finally, just one year prior to the outbreak of World War II, Heiser pens perhaps his most generous account of dictatorships. That account, "Further Impressions Dictatorships," is excerpted in Selected Quotations.

The first journal, "Diary of a Trip to England & Scotland in the Summer of 1912" documents a three-month trip (6/22-9/23) that Amelia and Philip Calvert took while attending the Second International Congress of Entomology. Given the numerous references to "P," it appears that Amelia maintained most if not all of this volume. The journal is remarkable for its variety of modes of transportation: the narrative begins with the transatlantic voyage from Philadelphia to Liverpool aboard a steamer (the S.S. Merion), and includes transport by sailboat, rail, carriage, auto, and funicular. Calvert also furnishes numerous descriptions of European towns and cities, architecture, people, dress, history, weather, and sightseeing of religious and cultural institutions. Notably, the journal includes occasional illustrations and ephemera such as advertisements, receipts, bills, and even a peacock feather (280).
 
The second journal, "Diary of Trip to Europe 1929" follows much the same structure. Once again, it provides an account of a several months travel (7/12-10/2) associated with work, this time a visit to the Zoologists Institute at Freiburg. The couple travels from New York to Antwerp by steamer (the S.S. Lapland). Alongside notes concerning sightseeing—and illustrations and ephemera—Calvert furnishes some comparative observations that might interest twentieth century historians. For example, she writes, "While there are many automobiles and trucks on the streets of Brussels, there is not yet the density of traffic to be seen in Philadelphia" (7/23/1929).

Amelia Smith Calvert maintained two journals of European trips taken in the summer of 1912 and 1929. Although both trips appear to coincide with scientific conferences, Calvert dedicates most of her entries to enthusiastic observations of sightseeing in the United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Italy. These volumes may interest researchers exploring early-twentieth-century science and European travel.
 
The first journal, "Diary of a Trip to England & Scotland in the Summer of 1912" documents a three-month trip (6/22-9/23) that Amelia and Philip Calvert took while attending the Second International Congress of Entomology. Given the numerous references to "P," it appears that Amelia maintained most if not all of this volume. The journal is remarkable for its variety of modes of transportation: the narrative begins with the transatlantic voyage from Philadelphia to Liverpool aboard a steamer (the S.S. Merion), and includes transport by sailboat, rail, carriage, auto, and funicular. Calvert also furnishes numerous descriptions of European towns and cities, architecture, people, dress, history, weather, and sightseeing of religious and cultural institutions. Notably, the journal includes occasional illustrations and ephemera such as advertisements, receipts, bills, and even a peacock feather (280).
 
The second journal, "Diary of Trip to Europe 1929" follows much the same structure. Once again, it provides an account of a several months travel (7/12-10/2) associated with work, this time a visit to the Zoologists Institute at Freiburg. The couple travels from New York to Antwerp by steamer (the S.S. Lapland). Alongside notes concerning sightseeing—and illustrations and ephemera—Calvert furnishes some comparative observations that might interest twentieth century historians. For example, she writes, "While there are many automobiles and trucks on the streets of Brussels, there is not yet the density of traffic to be seen in Philadelphia" (7/23/1929).

Early lab notes provide insights into Flexner's research in Asia. For example, an 1899-1900 diary offers a window into Manilla hospitals, travel by rickshaw in Tokyo, and observations on geisha, saki, kimonos, and Emperor in Japan. A later notebook, which purports to document a "Trip to China" in August 1915, actually features observations on the population of Honolulu, female education in Korea, and treatment of tuberculosis in Japan.
 
Later notebooks record Flexner's travels in Europe and final years as director of the Rockefeller Institute. A book misdated "January 3, 1931" provides an account of his journey to England and France to attend the Inter-Allied Scientific Conference (9/15-12/28/1918). Notably, on that trip, Flexner learns of the armistice from his waiter and wonders what the future will hold for Germany after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary (11/11/1918). Interspersed in later journals, researchers will discover Flexner's reflections on "Hitler & Jewish intellectuals" (4/12/1933) and the musings on the "German University Situation" (4/15/1933). In a notebook dated December 1934, Flexner documents a trip to Cairo (12/21/1934) and an encounter with FDR, Jr. (1/18/1935). Several notebooks document his directorship at the Rockefeller Institute between 1930-35, including the effects of the Great Depression on the Institute's budget (6/5/1932), encounters with Rockefeller family in (1931 and 1935), and his personal ambitions (1931).
 
Perhaps most surprising are a series of loosely-bound notes from 1938-1944. Those notes include a trip to England on the eve of World War II (1/1/1938-2/7/1939) as well as reflections on the outbreak and progress of the war. "England & France having exhausted every effort to influence Hitler declared war on Poland," he writes two days after Germany invades Poland, adding, "No enthusiasm on the part of any population—German, English, French—on [going late] this war as happened in 1914!" (9/3/1939). A year later, he records the German invasion of Paris, writing, "poor French, poor world civilization" (6/15/1940). Researchers interested in the history of World War II will discover that Flexner studiously records and comments upon key events, including Italy's entrance into the war (6/10/1940), FDR's declaration of a state of emergency (5/27-5/28/1941), the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941), the U.S. declaration of war on Japan (12/8/1941), the surrender of Italy (9/4/1943), D-Day (6/6/1944), the liberation of Paris (8/23/1944), and FDR's landslide reelection to a fourth term (11/7/1944).

With 38 volumes spanning 1899-1944, the Simon Flexner Diaries (1899-1944) provide rich insights into Flexner's laboratory work, leadership at the Rockefeller Institute, study of pathology and bacteriology in the Philippines, and observations on Europe at the outbreak of World War II. Alongside his laboratory notes from Manila (1899-1900), early notebooks record medical and ethnographic observations from Japan (1900, 1915), Korea (1915), and Hawaii (1915), whereas later journals document his late-tenure as director of the Rockefeller Institute (1930-35), travels in colonial Egypt (1934), and visit to France (1918, 1931) and England (1918, 1931, 1938-39) in the years between World War I and World War II. The diaries contained in the Simon Flexner Papers ought to interest scholars researching twentieth-century medicine, philanthropy, colonialism, and war, as well as Flexner's leadership of the Rockefeller Institute and contributions to the fields of pathology and bacteriology.
 
Early lab notes provide insights into Flexner's research in Asia. For example, an 1899-1900 diary offers a window into Manilla hospitals, travel by rickshaw in Tokyo, and observations on geisha, saki, kimonos, and Emperor in Japan. A later notebook, which purports to document a "Trip to China" in August 1915, actually features observations on the population of Honolulu, female education in Korea, and treatment of tuberculosis in Japan.
 
Later notebooks record Flexner's travels in Europe and final years as director of the Rockefeller Institute. A book misdated "January 3, 1931" provides an account of his journey to England and France to attend the Inter-Allied Scientific Conference (9/15-12/28/1918). Notably, on that trip, Flexner learns of the armistice from his waiter and wonders what the future will hold for Germany after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary (11/11/1918). Interspersed in later journals, researchers will discover Flexner's reflections on "Hitler & Jewish intellectuals" (4/12/1933) and the musings on the "German University Situation" (4/15/1933). In a notebook dated December 1934, Flexner documents a trip to Cairo (12/21/1934) and an encounter with FDR, Jr. (1/18/1935). Several notebooks document his directorship at the Rockefeller Institute between 1930-35, including the effects of the Great Depression on the Institute's budget (6/5/1932), encounters with Rockefeller family in (1931 and 1935), and his personal ambitions (1931).
 
Perhaps most surprising are a series of loosely-bound notes from 1938-1944. Those notes include a trip to England on the eve of World War II (1/1/1938-2/7/1939) as well as reflections on the outbreak and progress of the war. "England & France having exhausted every effort to influence Hitler declared war on Poland," he writes two days after Germany invades Poland, adding, "No enthusiasm on the part of any population—German, English, French—on [going late] this war as happened in 1914!" (9/3/1939). A year later, he records the German invasion of Paris, writing, "poor French, poor world civilization" (6/15/1940). Researchers interested in the history of World War II will discover that Flexner studiously records and comments upon key events, including Italy's entrance into the war (6/10/1940), FDR's declaration of a state of emergency (5/27-5/28/1941), the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941), the U.S. declaration of war on Japan (12/8/1941), the surrender of Italy (9/4/1943), D-Day (6/6/1944), the liberation of Paris (8/23/1944), and FDR's landslide reelection to a fourth term (11/7/1944).

Davenport employed a host of different types of notebooks to record entries. Those include: Standard Diary, A Line a Day, Red Star Diary, Nassau Diary, Loesen Engagement Book, Daily Reminder, Vaughan's, New Census, Marquette, and various loosely bound notebooks. While he records weather conditions (often with temperatures), meetings, and accounts throughout those records, his earliest accounts proffer his most personal and narrative entries.
 
Between 1878-84, Davenport writes regularly about his religious upbringing, studies, work at the Polytechnic Institute, and political observations. Religion features prominently in Davenport's youth: In addition to regularly attending church and Sunday School, he records notes and thoughts about particular readings and sermons (consider for example 1/6/1878, 1/29/1882, and 2/16/1882). In a 1/22/1882 entry, he even notes the visit of a Mormon woman from Utah, which he later marks as a "principal personal event."
 
Alongside notes about subjects related to studies, Davenport records household chores (7/16/1881), recreational activities (walks, rides, croquet), trips (e.g. a summer visit to the New Hampshire White Mountains in 1884), cultural excursions (the American Museum of Natural History on 1/6/1879), personal readings (1/3/1881), and some of the first evidence of his interest in surveying (illustrations of a chapel hall, 1/2/1880). The young Davenport also demonstrated an unusual curiosity in current affairs and politics. For example, his first journal includes an enthusiastic account of election day (11/5-11/6/1878), and his 1881 diary features several entries dedicated to assassination of President James Garfield and ascension of Chester A. Arthur (9/26-9/30/1881). These early diaries are also some of Davenport's most playful: he self-consciously reflects on diary-writing (2/6-2/7/1878, 1878 memoranda, 1880 front matter, and 9/6/1880) and intersperses doodles to commemorate holidays (12/311878 and 2/22/1879, 5/30/1879, 6/1/1879).
 
Subsequent diaries are less narrative in nature, but illuminating their own right. Davenport maintains notebooks on subject area interests, including a journal entitled "Ornithology 1885" which includes migration charts from the American Ornithologists' Union," notebooks dedicated to topology, mineralogy, budding and regeneration, and research on the human brain (1885-1892), and various notebooks dedicated to the study of human inheritance. As Davenport's career begins to take off around the fin de siecle, he includes more notes related to lectures, seminars, student meetings, dinners, and lab work. His marriage to Gertrude Crotty surfaces in the five-year diary spanning 1899-1905 via birthday reminders (2/28/1899), city outings (9/11/1900), and notes related to their child, Janet (1/2/1899).
 
Researchers will find that Davenport's early-twentieth century diaries provide insights into his burgeoning career in genetics. In addition to notebooks pertaining to expeditions to the Biloxi, Mississippi (March 1901), Europe (September-October 1902 and 1909-10), and Mt. Washington (August 1908), a 1903 notebook features notes on "Topics of Inheritance" and allusions to work on a laboratory—almost certainly his Carnegie-funded lab in Cold Spring Harbor. Nevertheless, many of his entries could easily be confused with those of a farmer: Davenport records notes to purchase chicken feed, coal, grain, and rat poison, and a 1909-10 diary features numerous and meticulous illustrations of fish (October 1909 – March 1910). Concurrently, Davenport notes numerous meetings with leaders in genetics, botany, and zoology, including George Harrison Shull, Herbert Spencer Jennings, Edward Bagnall Poulton, Albert Francis Blakeslee, and Edmund Beecher Wilson. Perhaps most significantly, beginning around 1911, Davenport starts to reference Mary Harriman, who would later fund his work in eugenics.
 
Eugenics surface most directly in Davenport's diaries maintained throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Alongside regular visits to the "Harriman House," Davenport notes the opening of his laboratory ("Bio Lab Opens," 6/26/1912) and his increasing commitments to the field of eugenics. That includes notes on "Dwarfs of Lamar Lamar" (11/14/1911), reminders of "families to study (e.g. "chemists," "artists," "statesmen," "vocalists," and "naval" in his 1913 memoranda), and an account of "negative" and "positive eugenics" (January 1920). One notebook (dated "February 12") is less a diary than a set of eugenics lecture notes, including a "Field worker's guide" that describes the consequences of segregation, limitations of the law of heredity, and pages allocated for recording hair color, skin color, stature, mental activity, feeble-mindedness (e.g. pauperism, crime, insanity, criminality).
 
Between 1914-1930, Davenport makes numerous trips to Europe to study eugenics (including (1914, 1922, and 1929). His 1914 trip is explicitly labeled "Eugenics in Holland" (10/22). A series of loose, typed pages entitled "Diary of Trip to Europe, September 13 to October 31, 1922," includes notes on a lecture entitled "Das Mutations Problem" in Vienna (9/25) and his participation in the Second Commission of Eugenics through which he "Voted to admit Germany and all other, properly qualified countries to the Commission" (10/9). Perhaps most remarkably, at the end of that trip, Davenport records a meeting with Charles Darwin's son, Leonard: "At Lewes was met by Darwin and taken to his home in Sussex. Private conference on eugenical matters" (10/20).
 
That engagement carries home, where, in a 1930 diary, he includes a series of relevant newspaper clippings: "Racial related to a Racial Integrity Bill Signed" in Richmond, Virginia (3/14), "Extols African Marriage" (3/4), "Senate Refuses to Shelve Harris Quota Bill: Senate Again Rejects Motion by Glass aimed at Salvaging National origins Clause" (4/24), and "Dr. Adler Closes Psychology Clinic: Noted Viennese Scientist Declared Target of Medical Center Critics" (5/31). In some loose pages associated with that diary, Davenport compares a colleague (simply identified as "Gordon") to the Croatian-American geneticist Milislav Demerec: While Davenport finds Gordon "industrious and fertile in ideas," he adds that he is "not so brilliant as Demerec" (6/3).
 
Davenport's remaining diaries (1931-1944) mostly focus on various trips, with occasional mentions of the outbreak of World War II. The early-1930s feature a series of notebooks dedicated to travel in the Americas, including a "Western Trip" and "Trip to the West by Automobile" (which collectively span July-October 1931), as well as trips to Bermuda, Mexico, and Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia trip is noteworthy because Davenport explicitly notes an encounter with Russian-American geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky. In his late-1930s journals, World War II surfaces, if only briefly. In a diary spanning 1937-39, Davenport notes Germany's seizure of Poland (9/1/1939) and Great Britain's subsequent declaration of war (9/3/1939). Curiously, he also alludes to a "Cox: Atomic Nuclear" in multiple entries of June and July in his 1940 diary.
 
Finally, the Davenport diaries are noteworthy for their idiosyncrasies: these include at least one volume authored by his wife, and the eclectic range of ephemera include inside and alongside the diaries. In a volume signed "G.L. Davenport"—and bearing numerous allusions to "Charles and Charlie throughout—Gertrude Davenport records a series of entries between 4/1/1905 to 3/16/1913. Of particular interest is her protest of race track gambling (4/19/1908 and 4/23/1908) and the dedication to Carnegie Lab, with a note of an encounter with Andrew Carnegie, who "disappointed the department by not adding to the endowment" (1/3/1910). Alongside accounts of various farm and house work (mending garments, cleaning, and, unusual for a homemaker, making concrete blocks), this diary also notes Gertrude's reading, namely Harper's Monthly and the Century.
 
Across the series 95 diaries, Davenport includes a host of rich and sometimes peculiar ephemera: a letter, dated March 20, 1901 enclosed in an 1889 notebook, an image of Robert E. Lee (7/13/1905), a doodle of a family crest (3/17/1910), pamphlets related to ornithology (1920) and major snowstorm (2/2/1930), membership cards for the Arts Center of New York (1925) and the American Museum of Natural History (1943), Davenport's 1922 and 1925 passports, programs for a meeting of the Eugenics Research Association (6/3/1930) and a symposium on "Theory and Development" at Davenport's home (3/21/1930), train tickets to Washington (9/5/1918 and 7/9/1919), the ferry service between Staten Island and Brooklyn (5/3/1925), and the Long Island Railroad schedule (1927), receipts, deposit slips, and scraps of paper labeled everything from "OBESITY" (8/19/1915) to "Committee on Ways and Means" (1917), and even wooden toothpicks, which Davenport appeared to have used as bookmarks (9/5/1918, 10/31/1918, 3/12/1933, and 5/7/1933).
 
Although Davenport rarely uses his diaries for reflection, his enclosure of ancillary materials reveals his personal networks and popular reading. Throughout the diaries, scholars will discover business and calling cards for William Cohill (1902), Edith Reeves (1911), "Brinkerhoff" (1911), Sidney Ball (1914), "Antipodes" (1914), George Laible (1915), H. Lundborg (1923), Charles Herrman (1925), E.J. Lidbetter (1927), Gebruder Dippe (1930), H.J. Parsen (1933), and Ji-Yen Rikamaru (1937). Davenport also regularly encloses snippets from newspapers, including a piece Russian mogul named M. Rachatnikoff who sought "the improvement of the human race" (12/9/1906), Mary Harriman's purchase of land and sheep (9/25/1911), op-eds on immigration policy (9/9/1915) and access to birth control (1920), an obituary for Dwight Comstock (9/16/1932), and reports of Nassau County budget cuts (11/9/1942).

The Charles Benedict Davenport Papers include 95 diaries—and numerous ancillary materials—spanning 66 years (1878-1944). In fact, the collection traverses Davenport's formative years and adult life, beginning with student notebooks that he maintained at the age of 12 to a five-year diary that culminates with an entry recorded less than two weeks before his death (dated 2/5/1944). Davenport's diaries contain a wealth of material valuable to researchers investigating his personal life, scientific research—especially the field of Eugenics—religion (Congregationalism), politics, and World War II. At least one diary, which spans 4/1/1905 to 3/16/1913, appears to have been maintained by his wife, Gertrude.
 
Davenport employed a host of different types of notebooks to record entries. Those include: Standard Diary, A Line a Day, Red Star Diary, Nassau Diary, Loesen Engagement Book, Daily Reminder, Vaughan's, New Census, Marquette, and various loosely bound notebooks. While he records weather conditions (often with temperatures), meetings, and accounts throughout those records, his earliest accounts proffer his most personal and narrative entries.
 
Between 1878-84, Davenport writes regularly about his religious upbringing, studies, work at the Polytechnic Institute, and political observations. Religion features prominently in Davenport's youth: In addition to regularly attending church and Sunday School, he records notes and thoughts about particular readings and sermons (consider for example 1/6/1878, 1/29/1882, and 2/16/1882). In a 1/22/1882 entry, he even notes the visit of a Mormon woman from Utah, which he later marks as a "principal personal event."
 
Alongside notes about subjects related to studies, Davenport records household chores (7/16/1881), recreational activities (walks, rides, croquet), trips (e.g. a summer visit to the New Hampshire White Mountains in 1884), cultural excursions (the American Museum of Natural History on 1/6/1879), personal readings (1/3/1881), and some of the first evidence of his interest in surveying (illustrations of a chapel hall, 1/2/1880). The young Davenport also demonstrated an unusual curiosity in current affairs and politics. For example, his first journal includes an enthusiastic account of election day (11/5-11/6/1878), and his 1881 diary features several entries dedicated to assassination of President James Garfield and ascension of Chester A. Arthur (9/26-9/30/1881). These early diaries are also some of Davenport's most playful: he self-consciously reflects on diary-writing (2/6-2/7/1878, 1878 memoranda, 1880 front matter, and 9/6/1880) and intersperses doodles to commemorate holidays (12/311878 and 2/22/1879, 5/30/1879, 6/1/1879).
 
Subsequent diaries are less narrative in nature, but illuminating their own right. Davenport maintains notebooks on subject area interests, including a journal entitled "Ornithology 1885" which includes migration charts from the American Ornithologists' Union," notebooks dedicated to topology, mineralogy, budding and regeneration, and research on the human brain (1885-1892), and various notebooks dedicated to the study of human inheritance. As Davenport's career begins to take off around the fin de siecle, he includes more notes related to lectures, seminars, student meetings, dinners, and lab work. His marriage to Gertrude Crotty surfaces in the five-year diary spanning 1899-1905 via birthday reminders (2/28/1899), city outings (9/11/1900), and notes related to their child, Janet (1/2/1899).
 
Researchers will find that Davenport's early-twentieth century diaries provide insights into his burgeoning career in genetics. In addition to notebooks pertaining to expeditions to the Biloxi, Mississippi (March 1901), Europe (September-October 1902 and 1909-10), and Mt. Washington (August 1908), a 1903 notebook features notes on "Topics of Inheritance" and allusions to work on a laboratory—almost certainly his Carnegie-funded lab in Cold Spring Harbor. Nevertheless, many of his entries could easily be confused with those of a farmer: Davenport records notes to purchase chicken feed, coal, grain, and rat poison, and a 1909-10 diary features numerous and meticulous illustrations of fish (October 1909 – March 1910). Concurrently, Davenport notes numerous meetings with leaders in genetics, botany, and zoology, including George Harrison Shull, Herbert Spencer Jennings, Edward Bagnall Poulton, Albert Francis Blakeslee, and Edmund Beecher Wilson. Perhaps most significantly, beginning around 1911, Davenport starts to reference Mary Harriman, who would later fund his work in eugenics.
 
Eugenics surface most directly in Davenport's diaries maintained throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Alongside regular visits to the "Harriman House," Davenport notes the opening of his laboratory ("Bio Lab Opens," 6/26/1912) and his increasing commitments to the field of eugenics. That includes notes on "Dwarfs of Lamar Lamar" (11/14/1911), reminders of "families to study (e.g. "chemists," "artists," "statesmen," "vocalists," and "naval" in his 1913 memoranda), and an account of "negative" and "positive eugenics" (January 1920). One notebook (dated "February 12") is less a diary than a set of eugenics lecture notes, including a "Field worker's guide" that describes the consequences of segregation, limitations of the law of heredity, and pages allocated for recording hair color, skin color, stature, mental activity, feeble-mindedness (e.g. pauperism, crime, insanity, criminality).
 
Between 1914-1930, Davenport makes numerous trips to Europe to study eugenics (including (1914, 1922, and 1929). His 1914 trip is explicitly labeled "Eugenics in Holland" (10/22). A series of loose, typed pages entitled "Diary of Trip to Europe, September 13 to October 31, 1922," includes notes on a lecture entitled "Das Mutations Problem" in Vienna (9/25) and his participation in the Second Commission of Eugenics through which he "Voted to admit Germany and all other, properly qualified countries to the Commission" (10/9). Perhaps most remarkably, at the end of that trip, Davenport records a meeting with Charles Darwin's son, Leonard: "At Lewes was met by Darwin and taken to his home in Sussex. Private conference on eugenical matters" (10/20).
 
That engagement carries home, where, in a 1930 diary, he includes a series of relevant newspaper clippings: "Racial related to a Racial Integrity Bill Signed" in Richmond, Virginia (3/14), "Extols African Marriage" (3/4), "Senate Refuses to Shelve Harris Quota Bill: Senate Again Rejects Motion by Glass aimed at Salvaging National origins Clause" (4/24), and "Dr. Adler Closes Psychology Clinic: Noted Viennese Scientist Declared Target of Medical Center Critics" (5/31). In some loose pages associated with that diary, Davenport compares a colleague (simply identified as "Gordon") to the Croatian-American geneticist Milislav Demerec: While Davenport finds Gordon "industrious and fertile in ideas," he adds that he is "not so brilliant as Demerec" (6/3).
 
Davenport's remaining diaries (1931-1944) mostly focus on various trips, with occasional mentions of the outbreak of World War II. The early-1930s feature a series of notebooks dedicated to travel in the Americas, including a "Western Trip" and "Trip to the West by Automobile" (which collectively span July-October 1931), as well as trips to Bermuda, Mexico, and Nova Scotia. The Nova Scotia trip is noteworthy because Davenport explicitly notes an encounter with Russian-American geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky. In his late-1930s journals, World War II surfaces, if only briefly. In a diary spanning 1937-39, Davenport notes Germany's seizure of Poland (9/1/1939) and Great Britain's subsequent declaration of war (9/3/1939). Curiously, he also alludes to a "Cox: Atomic Nuclear" in multiple entries of June and July in his 1940 diary.
 
Finally, the Davenport diaries are noteworthy for their idiosyncrasies: these include at least one volume authored by his wife, and the eclectic range of ephemera include inside and alongside the diaries. In a volume signed "G.L. Davenport"—and bearing numerous allusions to "Charles and Charlie throughout—Gertrude Davenport records a series of entries between 4/1/1905 to 3/16/1913. Of particular interest is her protest of race track gambling (4/19/1908 and 4/23/1908) and the dedication to Carnegie Lab, with a note of an encounter with Andrew Carnegie, who "disappointed the department by not adding to the endowment" (1/3/1910). Alongside accounts of various farm and house work (mending garments, cleaning, and, unusual for a homemaker, making concrete blocks), this diary also notes Gertrude's reading, namely Harper's Monthly and the Century.
 
Across the series 95 diaries, Davenport includes a host of rich and sometimes peculiar ephemera: a letter, dated March 20, 1901 enclosed in an 1889 notebook, an image of Robert E. Lee (7/13/1905), a doodle of a family crest (3/17/1910), pamphlets related to ornithology (1920) and major snowstorm (2/2/1930), membership cards for the Arts Center of New York (1925) and the American Museum of Natural History (1943), Davenport's 1922 and 1925 passports, programs for a meeting of the Eugenics Research Association (6/3/1930) and a symposium on "Theory and Development" at Davenport's home (3/21/1930), train tickets to Washington (9/5/1918 and 7/9/1919), the ferry service between Staten Island and Brooklyn (5/3/1925), and the Long Island Railroad schedule (1927), receipts, deposit slips, and scraps of paper labeled everything from "OBESITY" (8/19/1915) to "Committee on Ways and Means" (1917), and even wooden toothpicks, which Davenport appeared to have used as bookmarks (9/5/1918, 10/31/1918, 3/12/1933, and 5/7/1933).
 
Although Davenport rarely uses his diaries for reflection, his enclosure of ancillary materials reveals his personal networks and popular reading. Throughout the diaries, scholars will discover business and calling cards for William Cohill (1902), Edith Reeves (1911), "Brinkerhoff" (1911), Sidney Ball (1914), "Antipodes" (1914), George Laible (1915), H. Lundborg (1923), Charles Herrman (1925), E.J. Lidbetter (1927), Gebruder Dippe (1930), H.J. Parsen (1933), and Ji-Yen Rikamaru (1937). Davenport also regularly encloses snippets from newspapers, including a piece Russian mogul named M. Rachatnikoff who sought "the improvement of the human race" (12/9/1906), Mary Harriman's purchase of land and sheep (9/25/1911), op-eds on immigration policy (9/9/1915) and access to birth control (1920), an obituary for Dwight Comstock (9/16/1932), and reports of Nassau County budget cuts (11/9/1942).

In contrast to many other scientists, Donaldson captures many world events in his journal. Entries include an on-the-ground account of the 1893 World's Fair (5/13-5/27/1893) and news pertaining to the Great Baltimore Fire (2/7/1904), Russo-Japanese War (2/8/1904), and World War I. Donaldson studiously records the spread of war in Europe (7/31/1914), the increasing likelihood of U.S. involvement (2/4/1917), and false reports of peace. Several days before the Armistice, he writes, "Peace was reported here about 1 pm. The town went wild & remained wild most of the night. Report was a hoax" (11/7/1918). Donaldson also proves an active observer of and participant in U.S. politics. For example, in addition to recording the election of President Wilson (11/5/1912) and death of President Harding (8/2/1923), he writes that he travels to Harrisburg to lobby against an "anti-vivisection bill" (4/25/1907) and attends a "League of Nations dinner" (1/15/1932).
 
Perhaps most surprising is how personal affairs infiltrate the Donaldson diaries. Sometimes such asides are amusing
 
for example, in one entry he writes that he was "attacked by goose without cause" (3/31/1917). Elsewhere, they're more serious and evocative. Shortly after Donaldson writes that his first wife, Julia, is "diagnosed melancholia" and put on an "opium treatment" (9/13/1904), he records her suicide: "our dear Julia was found dead by her own hand at 7 o'clock this morning. She was still warm when found. It is desolation—the saddest of days" (11/10/1904). Several years later, he notes his engagement to Emma Brock (3/1/1907) and, still later, the birth of a son Harry, (3/16/1920). In the 1930s, his health appears to deteriorate: Donaldson begins tracking weight fluctuations on 7/13/1931 and undergoes a metabolism test on 10/17/1934. His last entry, written in third-person in a different hand, appears to have been maintained by someone else, possibly Emma. The diary concludes, "The end at 2 a.m." (1/23/1938).

Contained in 49 volumes, the Herbert Donaldson diaries traverse 1890-1938 and provide glimpses of his neurological work at the University of Chicago and the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, meetings with leading scientists--including Boas and Davenport--European and American travels, recreational activities, personal affairs, and leadership at the National Academy of the Sciences, the American Neurological Association, the Physiological Society, the Lenape Club, the Rush Society, as well as the American Philosophical Society, where he was elected a member in 1906 and vice president in 1935. The Donaldson diaries may interest researchers exploring the history of mental health, American Philosophical Society membership, twentieth-century U.S. politics, the 1893 World's Fair, and World War I.
 
In contrast to many other scientists, Donaldson captures many world events in his journal. Entries include an on-the-ground account of the 1893 World's Fair (5/13-5/27/1893) and news pertaining to the Great Baltimore Fire (2/7/1904), Russo-Japanese War (2/8/1904), and World War I. Donaldson studiously records the spread of war in Europe (7/31/1914), the increasing likelihood of U.S. involvement (2/4/1917), and false reports of peace. Several days before the Armistice, he writes, "Peace was reported here about 1 pm. The town went wild & remained wild most of the night. Report was a hoax" (11/7/1918). Donaldson also proves an active observer of and participant in U.S. politics. For example, in addition to recording the election of President Wilson (11/5/1912) and death of President Harding (8/2/1923), he writes that he travels to Harrisburg to lobby against an "anti-vivisection bill" (4/25/1907) and attends a "League of Nations dinner" (1/15/1932).
 
Perhaps most surprising is how personal affairs infiltrate the Donaldson diaries. Sometimes such asides are amusing
 
for example, in one entry he writes that he was "attacked by goose without cause" (3/31/1917). Elsewhere, they're more serious and evocative. Shortly after Donaldson writes that his first wife, Julia, is "diagnosed melancholia" and put on an "opium treatment" (9/13/1904), he records her suicide: "our dear Julia was found dead by her own hand at 7 o'clock this morning. She was still warm when found. It is desolation—the saddest of days" (11/10/1904). Several years later, he notes his engagement to Emma Brock (3/1/1907) and, still later, the birth of a son Harry, (3/16/1920). In the 1930s, his health appears to deteriorate: Donaldson begins tracking weight fluctuations on 7/13/1931 and undergoes a metabolism test on 10/17/1934. His last entry, written in third-person in a different hand, appears to have been maintained by someone else, possibly Emma. The diary concludes, "The end at 2 a.m." (1/23/1938).

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).

The majority Vaux diaries are maintained at least two generations of George Vaux (1800-1927). Those volumes include entries that may interest researchers investigating late-antebellum politics, religion, and Vaux family history (1854-59 diaries), postbellum weather and meteorological observations (1853-1915 daybooks), late-nineteenth century architecture and urban development ("Llsyfran Diary," 1886-1915), and the religious practices of American Friends in the nineteenth century (1825-1927 and 1886-1901 diaries). However, there are also noteworthy volumes from William Vaux, Richard Vaux, Samuel Sansom, and Mary Vaux.
 
William Vaux
 
The diaries of William Vaux (1883-1908) may interest researchers exploring Philadelphia regional history, western expeditions, late-nineteenth century science (especially photography), late-nineteenth century presidential politics, and the 1893 World's Fair, for which Vaux includes a dedicated volume. In addition to accounts of education, marriage, funerals, and the religious practices of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, William Vaux offers at least one account of Brigham Young and the Mormons (1883 diary). Most volumes emphasize his participation in university life (Haverford College and the Drexel Institute), athletics (the American Alpine Club), and postbellum science (the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, the Quaker Asylum and Penitentiary), with occasional notes pertaining to presidential politics, such as the election and assassination of William McKinley.
 
Richard Vaux
 
Two volumes contained in the Richard Vaux papers warrant careful attention. A typed transcript of a 1781 diary (1/1-10/27) furnishes an account of a loyalist during the American Revolution. As detailed in George Vaux's short introduction to the diary, Vaux apprenticed with Samuel Sansom in Philadelphia beginning in 1768. (The original diary, which begins in March 1779 is unavailable.) A loyalist, he spent much of the war in London and returned to Philadelphia shortly after the revolution (c. 1784). Each entry includes paragraph-length account of personal affairs of and socializing with the English upper class, typically beginning with breakfast meetings and running until often quite late at night (usually Vaux notes that he returns home around 11 or midnight, though several entries are much later). Typical social events include breakfasts and dinners (and the individuals involved), pipe smoking, excursions around England, theater showings (e.g. Covent Garden Play House), daily visits to coffee shops (especially Lloyd's Coffee House), painting exhibitions (including the work of Benjamin West), and the Free Mason Lodge. As George Vaux notes in his introduction, Richard is a "man of the world." He also spends a fairly extraordinary amount of time and money on inns and taverns (including Ambrose Lloyd's, Queens Head Tavern, Bull Tavern, March's Tavern, and Falcon Inn). Equally descriptive are his meticulous accounts of expenses: coffee houses and coaches are the most frequent expenses, though Richard Vaux also notes spending on charity, tobacco, tea, newspapers, baths, books, brandy, and milk.
 
Beginning in September 1781, Richard Vaux embarks on a transatlantic voyage, during which he measures daily progress (distance traveled) and coordinates (latitudes). His time on board is marked by ubiquitous illness, particularly sea sickness, injuries, and fevers. The reader also gains a rich sense of the sailors' diets (including pickled tongues) and daily trials (e.g. pests, as Richard records "dismal nights with the bugs" on multiple occasions, including 10/8 and 10/16). Notably, the narrative ends when the ship is boarded by the Hendrik Privateer, a New England ship under the command of Thomas Bensom, which seizes their brig as a "prize to America" and ransacks their stores (10/26).
 
Samuel Sansom
 
Also included in the Richard Vaux papers is the European travel journal of Samuel Sansom (1759-1760), which provides some of the lengthiest, most conversational, and public-facing diary entries researchers will encounter anywhere in the APS collections. The Sansom diary opens with a note from his former apprentice, Richard Vaux, and other front matter suggests that the journal was transcribed at sea from loose pages so that the author could enable his friends to "partake with him in the entertainment he experiences (in the days of his youth)." The volume also features an excerpt from Elizabeth Drinker's journal with a silhouette of Sansom and a note that Sansom left London on 4/1/1760 and returned to Philadelphia on 5/4/1760.
 
Sansom's account begins at the outset of his transatlantic journey, and pays significant attention to travel delays
 
in fact, leaks require his ship to return to Philadelphia just nine days after departure. Upon arriving in London, Sansom travels widely and socializes continuously, particularly with the English upper class. He attends Quaker meetings, frequents coffee houses, and he is preoccupied with various curiosities, from wax figures (11/13/1759) to a dwarf and giant (2/22/1760). Sansom proves a studious observer of the mechanics of production (e.g. grist mills), English towns and cities (especially Birmingham), and Quaker sermons and religious practices. He regularly intersperses prosaic observations with grand musings (reference the 12/20/1759 and 2/1/1760 entries for examples) intended to instruct and delight the friends he imagines will later read his volume with rapt anticipation.
 
Mary Vaux
 
Finally, the Mary Walsh James Vaux maintained a diary in 1906 and for most of the period spanning 1921-1951. Those 40 volumes may interest researchers interested in women's history, Philadelphia regional history, Vaux family history, western expeditions, and the outbreak of WWII. Vaux's diaries include inspirational quotes, notes from religious meetings, lectures, and receptions, shopping lists, addresses, and notes on the weather. Her entries frequently reference the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting (Society of Friends) as well as the League of Women Voters, Female Society for the Relief and Employ of the Poor, and the Salvation Army. Diaries sometimes include ephemera, such as dried leaves and photographs (1927).
 
Although Mary Vaux tends to record cursory notes, sometimes her entries provide insights into her emotional state. Vaux appears to have suffered from depression (reference, for example, 10/29/1927, 11/3/1927, 11/13/1939, and 5/4/1940) and often register significant shifts in mood (compare 9/24/1906 to 11/4/1906). A notebook also appears to include numerous personal letters Mary Vaux collected from her husband, George Vaux, spanning 1932-34. (Each entry begins, "George Vaux is here to speak to Mary"). World War II surfaces in her later diary entries. While Mary Vaux rarely discusses politics or war, her 1940 Pomernatz diary includes draft numbers in place of the 10/27-29 entries. The 12/7/1941 entry in her Excelsior diary and the 12/8/1941 entry in her Pomernatz diary note the outbreak of World War II.

The sprawling Vaux Family Papers include at least 160 volumes of diaries traversing two centuries of American history (1759-1951). While those journals are maintained predominantly by generations of George, Richard, and William Vaux the collection is bookended by Richard Vaux (1781) and Mary Walsh James Vaux (1906-1951), both of whom supply some of the most surprising records in the collection. (In fact, the Vaux family included some 10 Georges, three Richards, and two Williams.) Reading across these papers, researchers will discover accounts of early American religion during the Second Great Awakening (especially the Society of Friends and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), European towns and cities between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, late-nineteenth century conservation (with accounts of 1880s Yosemite and Theodore Roosevelt), ante and postbellum U.S. politics (including short-lived factions such as the Locofocos), the fields of business, architecture, and photography, and women's history.
 
The majority Vaux diaries are maintained at least two generations of George Vaux (1800-1927). Those volumes include entries that may interest researchers investigating late-antebellum politics, religion, and Vaux family history (1854-59 diaries), postbellum weather and meteorological observations (1853-1915 daybooks), late-nineteenth century architecture and urban development ("Llsyfran Diary," 1886-1915), and the religious practices of American Friends in the nineteenth century (1825-1927 and 1886-1901 diaries). However, there are also noteworthy volumes from William Vaux, Richard Vaux, Samuel Sansom, and Mary Vaux.
 
William Vaux
 
The diaries of William Vaux (1883-1908) may interest researchers exploring Philadelphia regional history, western expeditions, late-nineteenth century science (especially photography), late-nineteenth century presidential politics, and the 1893 World's Fair, for which Vaux includes a dedicated volume. In addition to accounts of education, marriage, funerals, and the religious practices of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, William Vaux offers at least one account of Brigham Young and the Mormons (1883 diary). Most volumes emphasize his participation in university life (Haverford College and the Drexel Institute), athletics (the American Alpine Club), and postbellum science (the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, the Quaker Asylum and Penitentiary), with occasional notes pertaining to presidential politics, such as the election and assassination of William McKinley.
 
Richard Vaux
 
Two volumes contained in the Richard Vaux papers warrant careful attention. A typed transcript of a 1781 diary (1/1-10/27) furnishes an account of a loyalist during the American Revolution. As detailed in George Vaux's short introduction to the diary, Vaux apprenticed with Samuel Sansom in Philadelphia beginning in 1768. (The original diary, which begins in March 1779 is unavailable.) A loyalist, he spent much of the war in London and returned to Philadelphia shortly after the revolution (c. 1784). Each entry includes paragraph-length account of personal affairs of and socializing with the English upper class, typically beginning with breakfast meetings and running until often quite late at night (usually Vaux notes that he returns home around 11 or midnight, though several entries are much later). Typical social events include breakfasts and dinners (and the individuals involved), pipe smoking, excursions around England, theater showings (e.g. Covent Garden Play House), daily visits to coffee shops (especially Lloyd's Coffee House), painting exhibitions (including the work of Benjamin West), and the Free Mason Lodge. As George Vaux notes in his introduction, Richard is a "man of the world." He also spends a fairly extraordinary amount of time and money on inns and taverns (including Ambrose Lloyd's, Queens Head Tavern, Bull Tavern, March's Tavern, and Falcon Inn). Equally descriptive are his meticulous accounts of expenses: coffee houses and coaches are the most frequent expenses, though Richard Vaux also notes spending on charity, tobacco, tea, newspapers, baths, books, brandy, and milk.
 
Beginning in September 1781, Richard Vaux embarks on a transatlantic voyage, during which he measures daily progress (distance traveled) and coordinates (latitudes). His time on board is marked by ubiquitous illness, particularly sea sickness, injuries, and fevers. The reader also gains a rich sense of the sailors' diets (including pickled tongues) and daily trials (e.g. pests, as Richard records "dismal nights with the bugs" on multiple occasions, including 10/8 and 10/16). Notably, the narrative ends when the ship is boarded by the Hendrik Privateer, a New England ship under the command of Thomas Bensom, which seizes their brig as a "prize to America" and ransacks their stores (10/26).
 
Samuel Sansom
 
Also included in the Richard Vaux papers is the European travel journal of Samuel Sansom (1759-1760), which provides some of the lengthiest, most conversational, and public-facing diary entries researchers will encounter anywhere in the APS collections. The Sansom diary opens with a note from his former apprentice, Richard Vaux, and other front matter suggests that the journal was transcribed at sea from loose pages so that the author could enable his friends to "partake with him in the entertainment he experiences (in the days of his youth)." The volume also features an excerpt from Elizabeth Drinker's journal with a silhouette of Sansom and a note that Sansom left London on 4/1/1760 and returned to Philadelphia on 5/4/1760.
 
Sansom's account begins at the outset of his transatlantic journey, and pays significant attention to travel delays
 
in fact, leaks require his ship to return to Philadelphia just nine days after departure. Upon arriving in London, Sansom travels widely and socializes continuously, particularly with the English upper class. He attends Quaker meetings, frequents coffee houses, and he is preoccupied with various curiosities, from wax figures (11/13/1759) to a dwarf and giant (2/22/1760). Sansom proves a studious observer of the mechanics of production (e.g. grist mills), English towns and cities (especially Birmingham), and Quaker sermons and religious practices. He regularly intersperses prosaic observations with grand musings (reference the 12/20/1759 and 2/1/1760 entries for examples) intended to instruct and delight the friends he imagines will later read his volume with rapt anticipation.
 
Mary Vaux
 
Finally, the Mary Walsh James Vaux maintained a diary in 1906 and for most of the period spanning 1921-1951. Those 40 volumes may interest researchers interested in women's history, Philadelphia regional history, Vaux family history, western expeditions, and the outbreak of WWII. Vaux's diaries include inspirational quotes, notes from religious meetings, lectures, and receptions, shopping lists, addresses, and notes on the weather. Her entries frequently reference the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting (Society of Friends) as well as the League of Women Voters, Female Society for the Relief and Employ of the Poor, and the Salvation Army. Diaries sometimes include ephemera, such as dried leaves and photographs (1927).
 
Although Mary Vaux tends to record cursory notes, sometimes her entries provide insights into her emotional state. Vaux appears to have suffered from depression (reference, for example, 10/29/1927, 11/3/1927, 11/13/1939, and 5/4/1940) and often register significant shifts in mood (compare 9/24/1906 to 11/4/1906). A notebook also appears to include numerous personal letters Mary Vaux collected from her husband, George Vaux, spanning 1932-34. (Each entry begins, "George Vaux is here to speak to Mary"). World War II surfaces in her later diary entries. While Mary Vaux rarely discusses politics or war, her 1940 Pomernatz diary includes draft numbers in place of the 10/27-29 entries. The 12/7/1941 entry in her Excelsior diary and the 12/8/1941 entry in her Pomernatz diary note the outbreak of World War II.

The John Slater Papers include abstracts from his diaries, available as loose, mostly typed pages, which traverse his consequential career in physics (1900-1975). These abstracts trace Slater's doctoral study at Harvard (1923) and postgraduate work at Cambridge University, appointment at MIT (1930), work at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science during World War II, and late-career at the University of Florida (after his retirement from MIT in 1966). His diaries contain notes about a trip to Japan (including Hiroshima and Nagasaki) in the fall 1953, meetings with defense contractors (such as Lockheed Martin) throughout the 1950s and 1960s, a sighting of Sputnik (7/20/1958), notes about an "NSF proposal for computing center" (4/30/1965), associations with and publications of APS members (7/7/1951, 7/7/1972), and Slater's own personal affairs, as excerpted in Selected Quotations. As such, these abstracts may interest scholars researching John Clark Slater's career in the field of physics, biochemistry, atomic history, and the history of science more broadly, as well as those considering World War II and military contractors in the Cold War period, the space race, the history of computing, and the institutional history of the American Philosophical Society.; To supplement these diary abstracts, researchers might choose to expand their exploration of the Slater Papers, which also contain 133 research notebooks (1944-1976), a lengthy series of folders, containing lectures, scientific notes, drafts of manuscripts and papers, correspondence from his collaboration with the Los Alamos Labs (1966-1970), and correspondence relating to the National Academy of Science.