The first diary and second diaries, 1893-1 and 1893-2, dovetail, though, the second diary, 1893-2, is dedicated to Shull's "favorite subjects of study" (botany, natural philosophy, chemistry, agriculture), and spans from 2/19/1893 – 2/10/1895. The 1895 diary spans the year, whereas the 1897 diary ends on 9/26/1897. While the notebook entitled "Notes on European Trip of Geo. H. Shull" is supposed to span from August 1907 to December 1908, it actually concludes on September 25. The first four diaries feature detailed accounts of the weather, Shull's personal life (namely visitors, friends, and family), chores (e.g. cutting firewood, fixing fences, ploughing snow, farming, cleaning stable, cutting corn, and pickling grapes), studies (agriculture, physics, natural philosophy, botany, chemistry, and optics), reading and writing, travels (including a zoo, musical, circus, lectures, and even a funicular on 9/8/1895), and his early public-school teaching.
 
1893-1 includes extensive accounts of and assessments of his reading (such as his critique of Vanity Fair on 1/7), attendance of a friend's funeral (2/8), writings and editorship of Ingleside Magazine (1/2, 2/1), hearing difficulties (8/6 and 12/17), and even a friend's trip the 1893 World's Fair (10/8). Most notably, shortly after Shull begins teaching (10/3) he shifts towards less frequent diary entries. Shull encloses various ephemera, including his own sketches of insects, in the final pages of this diary.
 
1893-2, which purports to provide "research, failures, & everyday account of events of my life which has any bearing upon my favorite subjects of study," particularly botany. On 3/15/93, in fact, Shull confesses to having caught "grafting fever." The diary jumps from 9/18/93 to 10/20/94, upon which Shull notes the "complete cessation from scientific activity during the period of 8 ½ months following 10/3/1893 while I was teaching my first term of public school."
 
The 1895 and 1897 diaries reveal Shull's growing Christianity: he opens both diaries with Psalms and speaks regularly about his evolving faith (2/17/1895, 6/2/1895, and 1/17/1897). On several occasions, he even revisits and quotes from early entries (1/17/1897 and 7/18/1897). Shull's study of phrenology and physiognomy surfaces throughout both notebooks, including in accounts of religious practitioners (6/2/1895), students (1/10/1897), and colleagues (3/7/1897). His heterogeneous political views include support for women's suffrage (1/6/1895) and women's rights (6/18/1895), attendance of the Republican primaries (3/17/95), his own local advocacy for a temperance petition (3/14/1897), and some sympathies for Social Darwinism, particularly with regards to immigration (2/21/1897) and education (3/7/1897). The 1897 diary concludes shortly after Shull began his studies at Antioch College.
 
In a notebook pertaining to his 1908 "European Trip," Shull provides a detailed account of his steamship journey from New York City to London (8/15-8/25/1908) with attention to sights (e.g. passing the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island) and the social life of the ship (namely card-playing, concerts, dinners, and walks). Upon arrival in London, Shull and his party visit a range of historical sites in London, Wales, Ireland, France, and Belgium. He dedicates his most rigorous accounts, however to the various botanical gardens and methods of plant cross-breeding and grafting. This diary concludes in Ghent, bound for Berlin, and includes a printed, 12-page "Americanization" pamphlet (dated 1919), for which Will Fenton developed an online exhibit: https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/labs/americanization/

The George Harrison Shull Papers include five diaries spanning 1893-1895 and 1908. Most of these notebooks reflect Shull's early education and nascent teaching career until his enrollment in Antioch College, whereas his 1908 notes on his European trip reflect his growing interest in botany and plant breeding. The Shull diaries will interest researchers investigating those fields as well as those considering common schools and late-nineteenth-century pedagogy, postbellum politics (especially temperance and women's suffrage movements), as well as social Darwinism, phrenology, and physiognomy.
 
The first diary and second diaries, 1893-1 and 1893-2, dovetail, though, the second diary, 1893-2, is dedicated to Shull's "favorite subjects of study" (botany, natural philosophy, chemistry, agriculture), and spans from 2/19/1893 – 2/10/1895. The 1895 diary spans the year, whereas the 1897 diary ends on 9/26/1897. While the notebook entitled "Notes on European Trip of Geo. H. Shull" is supposed to span from August 1907 to December 1908, it actually concludes on September 25. The first four diaries feature detailed accounts of the weather, Shull's personal life (namely visitors, friends, and family), chores (e.g. cutting firewood, fixing fences, ploughing snow, farming, cleaning stable, cutting corn, and pickling grapes), studies (agriculture, physics, natural philosophy, botany, chemistry, and optics), reading and writing, travels (including a zoo, musical, circus, lectures, and even a funicular on 9/8/1895), and his early public-school teaching.
 
1893-1 includes extensive accounts of and assessments of his reading (such as his critique of Vanity Fair on 1/7), attendance of a friend's funeral (2/8), writings and editorship of Ingleside Magazine (1/2, 2/1), hearing difficulties (8/6 and 12/17), and even a friend's trip the 1893 World's Fair (10/8). Most notably, shortly after Shull begins teaching (10/3) he shifts towards less frequent diary entries. Shull encloses various ephemera, including his own sketches of insects, in the final pages of this diary.
 
1893-2, which purports to provide "research, failures, & everyday account of events of my life which has any bearing upon my favorite subjects of study," particularly botany. On 3/15/93, in fact, Shull confesses to having caught "grafting fever." The diary jumps from 9/18/93 to 10/20/94, upon which Shull notes the "complete cessation from scientific activity during the period of 8 ½ months following 10/3/1893 while I was teaching my first term of public school."
 
The 1895 and 1897 diaries reveal Shull's growing Christianity: he opens both diaries with Psalms and speaks regularly about his evolving faith (2/17/1895, 6/2/1895, and 1/17/1897). On several occasions, he even revisits and quotes from early entries (1/17/1897 and 7/18/1897). Shull's study of phrenology and physiognomy surfaces throughout both notebooks, including in accounts of religious practitioners (6/2/1895), students (1/10/1897), and colleagues (3/7/1897). His heterogeneous political views include support for women's suffrage (1/6/1895) and women's rights (6/18/1895), attendance of the Republican primaries (3/17/95), his own local advocacy for a temperance petition (3/14/1897), and some sympathies for Social Darwinism, particularly with regards to immigration (2/21/1897) and education (3/7/1897). The 1897 diary concludes shortly after Shull began his studies at Antioch College.
 
In a notebook pertaining to his 1908 "European Trip," Shull provides a detailed account of his steamship journey from New York City to London (8/15-8/25/1908) with attention to sights (e.g. passing the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island) and the social life of the ship (namely card-playing, concerts, dinners, and walks). Upon arrival in London, Shull and his party visit a range of historical sites in London, Wales, Ireland, France, and Belgium. He dedicates his most rigorous accounts, however to the various botanical gardens and methods of plant cross-breeding and grafting. This diary concludes in Ghent, bound for Berlin, and includes a printed, 12-page "Americanization" pamphlet (dated 1919), for which Will Fenton developed an online exhibit: https://diglib.amphilsoc.org/labs/americanization/

A similar printed version of the journal, edited by Anthony F.C. Wallace, was published in Pennsylvania History in 1952.

In a journal documenting his residence with the Seneca Nation in New York, Pennsylvania Quaker Halliday Jackson offers a detailed, daily account of his missionary life, travels, and Seneca customs at the turn of the nineteenth century (1798-99). Jackson offers numerous accounts of land, cultivation, and development, including early accounts of Pittsburg (p.8-9), a Seneca settlement (19), and Niagara Falls (163-64). Native American studies scholars may gravitate to the volume's descriptions of Seneca food preparation (17), marriage (148-9), alcohol consumption (14, 124-125), land deeds (53-54, 75), Quaker diplomacy (23-24, 32-33), and increasingly strained relations with backcountry settlers (126, 131-133, 146-47, 178-79), many of which are voiced by the Seneca themselves and transcribed by Jackson at council meetings. This volume also features entries that will interest scholars researching the early national period, including the Bank of the United States (75), the yellow fever epidemic (74, 114-15), and the death of George Washington (176).
 
A similar printed version of the journal, edited by Anthony F.C. Wallace, was published in Pennsylvania History in 1952.

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

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