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1.Title:  Richard Harlan Journals (1816-1817, 1833)
 Dates:  1816 - 1833 
 Extent:  2 volumes  
 Locations:  Belfast | Bologna | Brighton | Calcutta | Cambridge | Dublin | Edinburgh | Florence | Geneva | Genoa | Glasgow | Kalpi | Le Havre | Liverpool | London | Lyon | Milan | Mont Blanc | Mount Vesuvius | Naples | New York | Paris | Parma | Philadelphia | Rome 
 Abstract:  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.
 
    
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.
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  Selected Quotations
  • "As you approach Calcutta, the shores are beautified with country-seats, or Bungalows, as they are here called, belonging to some of the residents. The houses of which are superbly elegant. Six or eight miles below the city is the Companies Botanic Garden, on the right bank of the River" (3/9/1817)

  • "We cannot but lament that awful obscurity of ignorance, which withholds from them that 'light which shineth in darkness,' those mild and elegant doctrines contained in the sacred writings. But it might be supposed that minds so little elevated, and expanded above that of brutes, utterly incapable of conceiving such sublime doctrines. However, time and long intercourse with Europeans may eventually do away these barbarous customs

  • at least I have no doubt, but that futurity will see them converted to Christian Faith" (4/11/1817)

  • "Mr. Shields has rather a more intellectual [as frontis] than has Mr. C. Connell

  • but the latter has a far more commanding stature:--his eye is too small for beauty, with somewhat the expression of that of the Elephant-He attacked me on the subject of my Country's Slavery-after having occupied some time on the subject next his heart-the sufferings of poor Ireland-I maintained the intellectual superiority of the white races of mankind, which he opposing, led to long arguments &c (6/21/1833)
 
 Subjects:  Asia. | Colonialisms | Diaries. | East India Company. | Europe. | Indigenous people. | Medicine. | Phrenology. | Religion. | Science. | Seafaring life. | Slavery. | Travel. | Weather. 
 Collection:  Richard Harlan Journals  (Mss.B.H228)  
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2.Title:  Thomas Sullivan Journal (1775-1778)
 Dates:  1775 - 1778 
 Extent:  1 volume  
 Locations:  Boston | Brunswick | Burlington | Cambridge | Cork | Darby | Dublin | Elizabeth | Fort Lee | Germantown | Halifax | Hillsborough Township | Kingston | Lake Champlain | New Brunswick | New York | Newark | Newport | Peekskill | Pennington | Philadelphia | Princeton | Quebec City | Rockport | Saratoga Springs | Tarrytown | Trenton | West Goshen | White Plains | Whitemarsh Township 
 Abstract:  In a fragile, single-volume journal (split in two), a non-commissioned British soldier named Thomas Sullivan records his experience fighting in the American Revolution (1775-1778). Sullivan offers a first-hand account of the earlier years of the war, including the evacuation of Boston, New Jersey campaign, and occupation of Philadelphia. He studiously documents significant early battles, including Bunker Hill (p.12) and Brandywine (229), as well as reports of events he did not personally witness. Notably, before Sullivan deserts the British Army and joins the Continental Army—serving under Nathanael Greene—he describes in a lengthy entry his shifting loyalties and common cause with the colonists as an Irish citizen (404-6). Interspersed between accounts of battles, Sullivan offers descriptions of indigenous peoples in Nova Scotia (52), American loyalists in New York (71), and a peculiar lightning strike en route to Philadelphia (229-230). Sullivan maintains his journal in an ornate script, suggested that he may have intended it for publication, and stops writing abruptly after he joins the Continental Army (422). This fascinating volume ought to particularly interest scholars researching turncoats and loyalists during the American Revolution. 
    
The "Contents" section of journal highlights key events in Sullivan's service and travels. Extracts from the journal were printed in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1910. The complete journal, edited by Joseph Lee Boyle, was published by Heritage Books in 1997.
 
    
In a fragile, single-volume journal (split in two), a non-commissioned British soldier named Thomas Sullivan records his experience fighting in the American Revolution (1775-1778). Sullivan offers a first-hand account of the earlier years of the war, including the evacuation of Boston, New Jersey campaign, and occupation of Philadelphia. He studiously documents significant early battles, including Bunker Hill (p.12) and Brandywine (229), as well as reports of events he did not personally witness. Notably, before Sullivan deserts the British Army and joins the Continental Army—serving under Nathanael Greene—he describes in a lengthy entry his shifting loyalties and common cause with the colonists as an Irish citizen (404-6). Interspersed between accounts of battles, Sullivan offers descriptions of indigenous peoples in Nova Scotia (52), American loyalists in New York (71), and a peculiar lightning strike en route to Philadelphia (229-230). Sullivan maintains his journal in an ornate script, suggested that he may have intended it for publication, and stops writing abruptly after he joins the Continental Army (422). This fascinating volume ought to particularly interest scholars researching turncoats and loyalists during the American Revolution.
 
The "Contents" section of journal highlights key events in Sullivan's service and travels. Extracts from the journal were printed in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1910. The complete journal, edited by Joseph Lee Boyle, was published by Heritage Books in 1997.
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  Selected Quotations
  • "A very remarkable event happened that Night, which was thus: A Woman's shirt being burnt upon her body, lying in a Birth on board a Transport, and she a Sleep, by a Flash of Lightening, without the least damage to her skin or Flesh. Also a Man's Coat and Shirt was burnt likewise on his Back, without his knowing of it till next morning" (229-230)

  • "HAVING now come to that part of my Journal, in which I am determined to keep a more compact and closer account of my persona and private affairs, as it was at this period I gained that freedom which every heart should wish for, i.e. being their own Masters, or at least so much at their own Disposal, as to be no further confined that what Society, convenience and good breeding may require, I shall for the future, (god permitting) give my reader an exact account of my travels, from the time that I gained that Liberty to the present, likewise the manner of my obtaining it, which will be the subject of a few pages following. My seeing American under Arms, when first I arrived in it, and upon my examining the reason, finding they striving to throw off the Yoke, under my native Country sunk-for many years, induced me upon a serious Consideration to share the same freedom that America strove for. I communicated my thoughts to my Comrades, as also to many of the men that entered into the service, at the same time with me, whom I knew to be no less sensible of the oppression of many a family in the mother Country, than I was…A Breadth of freedom still glowed in my breast, altho many events presented themselves to quench and discourage it: But like a lingering disease, it broke out at last, being partly roused to it by the ill usage I received (undeservedly,) when I was in the 49th Battalion, and partly on account of my being married to a young women that was born in America, whom I knew wished me to be clear of the Army" (404-6)

  • Ends abruptly on 7/28/1778: "Upon my departure from Philadelphia, I left my wife there, with directions to follow me, as soon as I wrote for her, she having engaged as House-Keeper in the same family with me. It was with the greatest impatience I waited her coming from Philadelphia, after my writing two letters for her, and to my great satisfaction she reached the Plains this day. Any man that tasted the sweets of Matrimony, and the blessing of a contented life, may conceive the joy and pleasure I felt, in meeting the woman from whom I received the strongest tyes of love and obedience, that could be expected from any of the sex, without exception" (422)
 
 Subjects:  American loyalists. | Diaries. | Greene, Nathanael, 1742-1786. | Indigenous people. | Irish--United States. | Loyalist | United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783. | Weather. 
 Collection:  Journal of the operations of the American War  (Mss.973.3.Su5)  
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3.Title:  Franz Boas Diaries (1883-1912)
 Dates:  1883 - 1912 
 Extent:  7 volumes  
 Locations:  Baffin Island | Mexico City 
 Abstract:  The Boas collections include seven diaries that Franz Boas maintained between 1883-1912. These diaries will interest German-reading researchers interested Boas's work with the Baffinland Inuit and his lecture tour in Mexico. Non-German speakers may also browse these diaries for his personal sketches. These diaries ought to interest researchers exploring Boas's career and the history of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics. 
    
Five diaries traverse 1883-84: the Baffinland Diary & Notebook, 1883
 
Baffinland Diary, July 1883-January 1884
 
Wilhelm Weike Diary, June 1883-September 1884
 
Baffinland Diary, 1883
 
and Baffinland Diary, 1884.
 
The American Philosophical Society also possesses two diaries maintained as loose pages: seven pages from an 1888 diary, also available electronically (http://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text:19253#page/2/mode/1up) and 24 pages related to his 1911-12 lectures in Mexico.
 
    
The Boas collections include seven diaries that Franz Boas maintained between 1883-1912. These diaries will interest German-reading researchers interested Boas's work with the Baffinland Inuit and his lecture tour in Mexico. Non-German speakers may also browse these diaries for his personal sketches. These diaries ought to interest researchers exploring Boas's career and the history of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics.
 
Five diaries traverse 1883-84: the Baffinland Diary & Notebook, 1883
 
Baffinland Diary, July 1883-January 1884
 
Wilhelm Weike Diary, June 1883-September 1884
 
Baffinland Diary, 1883
 
and Baffinland Diary, 1884.
 
The American Philosophical Society also possesses two diaries maintained as loose pages: seven pages from an 1888 diary, also available electronically (http://diglib.amphilsoc.org/islandora/object/text:19253#page/2/mode/1up) and 24 pages related to his 1911-12 lectures in Mexico.
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 Subjects:  Anthropology--Fieldwork. | Anthropology. | Diaries. | Ethnology--North America. | Indians of North America--Languages. | Indians of North America--Northwest, Pacific. | Indigenous people. | Inuit. | Jewish scientists. | Northwest Coast of North America. | Race relations. 
 Collection:  Franz Boas Papers  (Mss.B.B61)  
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4.Title:  Albert Charles Peale Diaries (1864-1877)
 Dates:  1864 - 1877 
 Extent:  9 volumes  
 Locations:  Baltimore | Bear River | Blackfoot | Buffalo Peak | Cheyenne | Chicago | Colorado Springs | Council Bluffs | Denver | Fairplay | Fremont Butte | Hamilton | Kansas City | Ogden | Omaha | Philadelphia | Pikes Peak | Richmond | Savannah | Soda Springs | Washington D.C. | Wilmington 
 Abstract:  Albert C. Peale Papers contain nine volumes that might be classified as diaries. These volumes traverse the American Civil War and Reconstruction period (1864-1877) and provide a window into the exploration and conquest of what is today Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The great-grandson of Charles Willson Peale, Albert Charles Peale was a prominent geologist in and author of numerous books in geology, mineralogy, and paleobotany. His journals offer a glimpse into his contributions to the Ferdinand Hayden expeditions, which explored and mapped the western United States. In furnishing numerous accounts of local indigenous peoples, including the Bannock and Shosoni, these volumes may interest scholars researching Native America, western exploration, the fields of geology and mineralogy, and the history of science. 
    
The first three volumes in the Albert C. Peale Papers are the most idiosyncratic. They include a daybook with weather observations (3/10-5/18/1864), a diary associated with a tour of Washington, D.C. during President Andrew Johnson's administration (c.1865-1869), and a lecture notebook pertaining to studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Of those early volumes, A. C. Peale's diary of his tour of Washington D.C. is perhaps most noteworthy. It recounts his travels from Philadelphia through Wilmington and Baltimore, tours of monuments and government buildings, including the U.S. Patent Office, Government Printing Office, and White House, and a handshake with President Johnson during that tour (2/7/1865).
 
The remaining six diaries (1872-1877) are devoted to various western expeditions in what is today Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. In his first diary (5/15-7/20/1872), A. C. Peale recounts his travel by rail from Philadelphia to Omaha, from which he would conduct his western expeditions. The second volume (5/29-8/15/1873), devotes significant attention to his mineralogical work, including gathering fossils, documenting canyons and volcanic peaks, and ascending various peaks and plateaus. Notably, he references photographer William Henry Jackson, who he writes "disturbed us to take a picture." (8/8/1873). The next two diaries (8/16-10/26/1873 and 5/14/1873-7/18/1874) recount the movement of the party over the next year, most especially campsites, weather problems, and travel constraints. The latter volume also records trip to Savannah (11/20/1873) and includes some accounts in the back of the journal.
 
The final two volumes continue in much the same vein, but offer records of interactions with Bannock and Shosoni Indians. The diary dated 7/19-11/10/1874 documents A. C. Peale's expeditions along branches of the Gunnison River, during which he encounters local tribes on multiple occasions (8/29/1874 and 9/20/1874). The final diary (5/27-10/9/1877), which corresponds with trips into western Wyoming, records numerous interactions with Bannock and Shosoni. For example, A. C. Peale writes that a Shosoni woman shares news of a fight between the whites and the Sioux (6/7/1877), and he commends the English of Bannock outside a ranch near Smith Fork (6/29/1877). Not all interactions are harmonious, however. A. C. Peale also records that Bannock kill two teamsters (8/8/1877) and that one of his his party (Gibbon) loses 300 new guns in a fight (8/23/1877).
 
    
Albert C. Peale Papers contain nine volumes that might be classified as diaries. These volumes traverse the American Civil War and Reconstruction period (1864-1877) and provide a window into the exploration and conquest of what is today Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The great-grandson of Charles Willson Peale, Albert Charles Peale was a prominent geologist in and author of numerous books in geology, mineralogy, and paleobotany. His journals offer a glimpse into his contributions to the Ferdinand Hayden expeditions, which explored and mapped the western United States. In furnishing numerous accounts of local indigenous peoples, including the Bannock and Shosoni, these volumes may interest scholars researching Native America, western exploration, the fields of geology and mineralogy, and the history of science.
 
The first three volumes in the Albert C. Peale Papers are the most idiosyncratic. They include a daybook with weather observations (3/10-5/18/1864), a diary associated with a tour of Washington, D.C. during President Andrew Johnson's administration (c.1865-1869), and a lecture notebook pertaining to studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Of those early volumes, A. C. Peale's diary of his tour of Washington D.C. is perhaps most noteworthy. It recounts his travels from Philadelphia through Wilmington and Baltimore, tours of monuments and government buildings, including the U.S. Patent Office, Government Printing Office, and White House, and a handshake with President Johnson during that tour (2/7/1865).
 
The remaining six diaries (1872-1877) are devoted to various western expeditions in what is today Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. In his first diary (5/15-7/20/1872), A. C. Peale recounts his travel by rail from Philadelphia to Omaha, from which he would conduct his western expeditions. The second volume (5/29-8/15/1873), devotes significant attention to his mineralogical work, including gathering fossils, documenting canyons and volcanic peaks, and ascending various peaks and plateaus. Notably, he references photographer William Henry Jackson, who he writes "disturbed us to take a picture." (8/8/1873). The next two diaries (8/16-10/26/1873 and 5/14/1873-7/18/1874) recount the movement of the party over the next year, most especially campsites, weather problems, and travel constraints. The latter volume also records trip to Savannah (11/20/1873) and includes some accounts in the back of the journal.
 
The final two volumes continue in much the same vein, but offer records of interactions with Bannock and Shosoni Indians. The diary dated 7/19-11/10/1874 documents A. C. Peale's expeditions along branches of the Gunnison River, during which he encounters local tribes on multiple occasions (8/29/1874 and 9/20/1874). The final diary (5/27-10/9/1877), which corresponds with trips into western Wyoming, records numerous interactions with Bannock and Shosoni. For example, A. C. Peale writes that a Shosoni woman shares news of a fight between the whites and the Sioux (6/7/1877), and he commends the English of Bannock outside a ranch near Smith Fork (6/29/1877). Not all interactions are harmonious, however. A. C. Peale also records that Bannock kill two teamsters (8/8/1877) and that one of his his party (Gibbon) loses 300 new guns in a fight (8/23/1877).
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 Subjects:  Accounts. | American Civil War, 1861-1865 | American Western Life | Bannock Indians | Diaries. | Expedition | Geology. | Indians of North America--West (U.S.) | Indigenous people. | Johnson, Andrew, 1808-1875. | Mineralogy. | Railroad | Shoshoni Indians. | Sioux Nation. | Science. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1865-1918. | University of Pennsylvania. | Weather. 
 Collection:  Albert C. Peale Papers  (Mss.SMs.Coll.5)  
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