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).

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.

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 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.
 

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).
 

The Bayard journal offers a detailed record of the first half of his tenure as American Commissioner of Claims in London. In that capacity, Bayard writes regularly about his correspondence with Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (5/29/1795, 11/1/1795, 11/2/1795), meetings with Vice President John Adams (11/13/1795, 1/22/1796), and various news to the French Revolution (e.g. 5/29/1795 and 5/31/1795), the Jay Treaty (8/8/1795), and warning signs of what would become the Panic of 1796-97 (6/26/1795, 7/14/1795). Notably, his notes concerning the financial panic underscore the interconnectedness of national markets. "Alarm prevails - some bad news from India," writes Bayard. "A great scarcity of money - India stocks fall…American stocks have fallen also in consequence of the scarcity of cash & the late news from the U.S." (5/25/1796).
 
What researchers might find most surprising, however, is how much of this volume strays from international law and diplomacy into the eighteenth-century arts and sciences. Bayard records a gallery opening at the Royal Academy (5/25/1795), attends a Methodist meeting (6/28/1795), goes to theater (9/24/1796), and visits numerous coffee houses in London, Bath, Bristol, and Oxford. In his travels, he meets a number of significant figures in the arts and sciences. He writes about a meeting with writer and collector William Henry Ireland, who shows him "a copy of one Shakespeare's manuscripts" (9/16/1795). The next year, that "new play," Vortigern and Rowena, would later be discovered to be a forgery, the subject of significant controversy. Towards the end of his volume, he also notes an encounter with astronomer William Herschel, who shows him his 40-foot telescope behind his house (6/13/1796).

Appointed by President Washington as American Commissioner of Claims to represent the United States in the British courts, Samuel Bayard appeared before the admiralty courts in London for four years, during which time he obtained more than ten million dollars in compensation for American interests. His journal, which accounts for the first half of his tenure (5/8/1795-12/31/1796), offers a window into international law at the turn of the nineteenth century, the French Revolution, the Panic of 1796-97, and the early national period in an international context. Alongside his work in international law, Bayard demonstrates a keen interest in the arts, especially literature, and at one point crosses paths with writer and collector William Henry Ireland.
 
The Bayard journal offers a detailed record of the first half of his tenure as American Commissioner of Claims in London. In that capacity, Bayard writes regularly about his correspondence with Secretary of State Timothy Pickering (5/29/1795, 11/1/1795, 11/2/1795), meetings with Vice President John Adams (11/13/1795, 1/22/1796), and various news to the French Revolution (e.g. 5/29/1795 and 5/31/1795), the Jay Treaty (8/8/1795), and warning signs of what would become the Panic of 1796-97 (6/26/1795, 7/14/1795). Notably, his notes concerning the financial panic underscore the interconnectedness of national markets. "Alarm prevails - some bad news from India," writes Bayard. "A great scarcity of money - India stocks fall…American stocks have fallen also in consequence of the scarcity of cash & the late news from the U.S." (5/25/1796).
 
What researchers might find most surprising, however, is how much of this volume strays from international law and diplomacy into the eighteenth-century arts and sciences. Bayard records a gallery opening at the Royal Academy (5/25/1795), attends a Methodist meeting (6/28/1795), goes to theater (9/24/1796), and visits numerous coffee houses in London, Bath, Bristol, and Oxford. In his travels, he meets a number of significant figures in the arts and sciences. He writes about a meeting with writer and collector William Henry Ireland, who shows him "a copy of one Shakespeare's manuscripts" (9/16/1795). The next year, that "new play," Vortigern and Rowena, would later be discovered to be a forgery, the subject of significant controversy. Towards the end of his volume, he also notes an encounter with astronomer William Herschel, who shows him his 40-foot telescope behind his house (6/13/1796).

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

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

The Lewis and Clark Journals are among the most treasured and well-known collections at the American Philosophical Society. These 30 manuscript journals provide a detail record of the travels of Lewis and Clark to the source of the Missouri River and across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, including interlineations by Nicholas Biddle, who later published the narrative "History of the Expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark" (1814). Interested researchers may refer to the Finding Aid for a detailed account of the collection. Scholars researching the Lewis and Clark Expedition and western exploration in the early national period may choose to complement these volumes by paging the Meriwether Lewis Journal (Mss.917.3.L58), which provides an early account of the river trip from Pittsburgh to the winter camp of the expedition (1803), and the William Clark Diary (Mss.917.3.L58c), which details Clark's diplomatic expedition into the Missouri Territory after the expedition (1808).
 

Garwin's notebooks are a veritable who's who of contemporary geopolitics. Throughout his work with and through dozens of educational, consulting, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, Garwin notes encounters with countless business leaders, advisors, and heads of state, including George Soros (4/15/1997), Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan (1/19/1998), Benjamin Netanyahu (5/5/1999), John Bolton (2/26/2001), Paul Wolfowitz (3/16/2001), Condoleezza Rice (5/12/1999, 1/15/2002), and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (5/23/2010). In fact, he uses his notebooks as scrapbooks, recording names, addresses, and phone numbers, to-do lists, web URLs and IP addresses, and a trove of ephemera, including newspaper clippings, business cards, post-it notes, and various sketches, diagrams, and formulas. Interspersed are glimpses into his personal life, such as visits to the theater (e.g. Romeo & Juliet, 5/4/1988) and personal accounts (3/15/1990, 2/6/1997, 9/3/1997).
 
While these notebooks will captivate a range of scholars, they may be divided into three core research interests: the culmination of the Cold War and diplomatic efforts towards nuclear non-proliferation
 
Middle East military engagement, including the 1990-91 Gulf War, 9/11, and 2003 Iraq invasion
 
and personal computing between the years of 1990-2010.
 
Garwin was deeply engaged in nuclear non-proliferation, particularly via the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. In an 8/29/1989 entry, he observes "Soviets are rational about their own survival," and adds that "Progress in START dominates all other operations" (9/19/1990). After the signing of the treaty, Garwin continues to follow Russia with interest: he records notes from the Secretary of Defense (3/25/1992), a meeting with James Baker (5/1/1993), a "seismic false alarm in Russia" (12/12/1997), and personal concerns over nuclear missile defense systems (3/17/1999). In later entries, he regularly references the revised treaty, including the geopolitical constraints of Dmitry Medvedev with regards to Vladimir Putin (10/19/2009).
 
Garwin also offers insider accounts of U.S. Middle East policy between 1991 and 2003. In the last month of the Gulf War, he writes, "oil well fires: how to put out fires in Kuwait…oil wells are set by demo charges" (1/10/1991). Several months later he adds, "Kuwait not sitting well with people of US" (4/5/1991). Ten years later, he records internal divisions between cabinet members favoring coalition-building and unilateral action (9/19/2001), and, soon after, notes a "new policy of preemption" (6/13/2002). Garwin himself appears resistant to military intervention. In a 11/29/2002 entry, for example, he presents "problems" with the Iraq program.
 
Finally, Garwin's notebooks evince a sustained interest in computer technology. He records a computer purchase in one of his earliest notebooks (4/28/1988), meets with a UPS executive about barcode technology (12/22/1993), includes ephemera related to a Columbia University text retrieval project (6/27/1993), and even alludes to GPS technology (12/14/1997). His twenty-first century entries include a New York Times news clipping on space weapons (5/8/2005), a note about Google Voice (10/19/2009), and a reference to Google's self-driving car (11/3/2010).

With the exception of the Blumberg diaries, the Richard Garwin notebooks are perhaps the foremost collection to provide personal insights into late twentieth and early twenty-first century media, technology, and geopolitics in the APS archives. Spanning 1988-2011, these 57 notebooks offer an aerial view of Garwin's career and professional networks at consulates, consulting firms (especially Rand and Booz Allen), research universities, and prominent organizations such as the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Security Council (NSC), and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Over the course of his illustrious career, Garwin crossed paths with nearly every leader in contemporary geopolitics, and researchers investigating post-Vietnam American politics, the end of the Cold War, nuclear non-proliferation, globalization, and various Middle East military interventions, will be richly rewarded. For those interested in the history of computing, his notebooks also record key developments of the past three decades, from the rise of the personal computer to the proliferation of GPS technology to the emergence of autonomous vehicles.
 
Garwin's notebooks are a veritable who's who of contemporary geopolitics. Throughout his work with and through dozens of educational, consulting, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, Garwin notes encounters with countless business leaders, advisors, and heads of state, including George Soros (4/15/1997), Bob Dole and Pat Buchanan (1/19/1998), Benjamin Netanyahu (5/5/1999), John Bolton (2/26/2001), Paul Wolfowitz (3/16/2001), Condoleezza Rice (5/12/1999, 1/15/2002), and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (5/23/2010). In fact, he uses his notebooks as scrapbooks, recording names, addresses, and phone numbers, to-do lists, web URLs and IP addresses, and a trove of ephemera, including newspaper clippings, business cards, post-it notes, and various sketches, diagrams, and formulas. Interspersed are glimpses into his personal life, such as visits to the theater (e.g. Romeo & Juliet, 5/4/1988) and personal accounts (3/15/1990, 2/6/1997, 9/3/1997).
 
While these notebooks will captivate a range of scholars, they may be divided into three core research interests: the culmination of the Cold War and diplomatic efforts towards nuclear non-proliferation
 
Middle East military engagement, including the 1990-91 Gulf War, 9/11, and 2003 Iraq invasion
 
and personal computing between the years of 1990-2010.
 
Garwin was deeply engaged in nuclear non-proliferation, particularly via the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. In an 8/29/1989 entry, he observes "Soviets are rational about their own survival," and adds that "Progress in START dominates all other operations" (9/19/1990). After the signing of the treaty, Garwin continues to follow Russia with interest: he records notes from the Secretary of Defense (3/25/1992), a meeting with James Baker (5/1/1993), a "seismic false alarm in Russia" (12/12/1997), and personal concerns over nuclear missile defense systems (3/17/1999). In later entries, he regularly references the revised treaty, including the geopolitical constraints of Dmitry Medvedev with regards to Vladimir Putin (10/19/2009).
 
Garwin also offers insider accounts of U.S. Middle East policy between 1991 and 2003. In the last month of the Gulf War, he writes, "oil well fires: how to put out fires in Kuwait…oil wells are set by demo charges" (1/10/1991). Several months later he adds, "Kuwait not sitting well with people of US" (4/5/1991). Ten years later, he records internal divisions between cabinet members favoring coalition-building and unilateral action (9/19/2001), and, soon after, notes a "new policy of preemption" (6/13/2002). Garwin himself appears resistant to military intervention. In a 11/29/2002 entry, for example, he presents "problems" with the Iraq program.
 
Finally, Garwin's notebooks evince a sustained interest in computer technology. He records a computer purchase in one of his earliest notebooks (4/28/1988), meets with a UPS executive about barcode technology (12/22/1993), includes ephemera related to a Columbia University text retrieval project (6/27/1993), and even alludes to GPS technology (12/14/1997). His twenty-first century entries include a New York Times news clipping on space weapons (5/8/2005), a note about Google Voice (10/19/2009), and a reference to Google's self-driving car (11/3/2010).

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).

Given the sheer volume of material contained in the Blumberg Papers--at least 127 volumes traversing almost 70 years of his professional career--it may be helpful to periodize these journals using landmarks from his professional career. This extended note suggests four main periods (1942-1957, 1957-1974, 1974-1994, and 1994-2011) that researchers may use to explore these remarkably rich collections.
 
The first 15 years of Blumberg diaries (1942-1957) traverse his education and travels to Suriname, Nigeria, much of Europe (including Italy, Germany, and France), and, notably, Israel, during the post-war period. While the Blumberg Papers include a school notebook from February 1942, his diaries begin in earnest in 1948, when he traveled by ship to the Cancer Institute in Portugal. In the early-1950s, Blumberg maintained diaries pertaining to a medical trip in Dutch Guiana (1950), his tenure at New York's Bellevue Hospital (1951-52), and medical trips to Venezuela and Aruba (1953), during which he worked to contain outbreaks of yellow fever, smallpox, and typhus. In that latter volume, Blumberg provides rich accounts of Venezuela under military dictatorship. "We passed a super-market which had been built by the Nelson Rockefeller-Venezuelan development group," writes Blumberg. "There are many vestiges of this enlightened business effect in Venezuela—although you hear much talk of it."
 
The volume entitled "Asia Minor S. Europe 1953" offers noteworthy insights into gay subculture in 1950s New York, postwar Europe, and Israel in its early years as a nation state. Aboard the S.S. Italia, Blumberg meets Phyllis Fitzgerald, a clothes model in New York's garment district, who introduces him to some new terminology, including "gay bar." (Reference Selected Quotations for an excerpt from that encounter.) Arriving in Europe, Blumberg furnishes numerous descriptions of Italy, including Naples, of which he writes: "It is far from beautiful and the back streets contain slums and small mean shops. The Italian peasantry and lower class city dweller is still quite depressed. We have poverty in our cities but the large lower class one sees in Southern Europe doesn't seem to occupy as an important portion of the population" (7/14/1953). From Italy, Blumberg travels to Israel, which had been established as a state just five years earlier. He furnishes detailed descriptions of the kibbutzim, the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv, and the young Israelis he encounters in his travels. Notably, he discusses vestiges from the War of Independence (7/7/1953), the Gaza Strip (7/24/1953), Israeli politics (8/19/1953), and religious orthodoxy, of which he writes: "In Israel there is only orthodox religion—and that of a radical sort—or no (or even anti-) religion. There's no in between. There appears to be a spiritual barrenness in the country for which there's no answer. When people [move] here they see no need to keep up the conservative or reformed Judaism which did them so well at home & [make] them feel as one with their race" (8/5/1953).
 
Following his trip to "Asia Minor," Blumberg records substantial changes in his personal and professional life. He notes his wedding to Jean Lieblsman--after which they "ate leftover food & then went to a movie 'Hell or High Water'" (4/5/1954)--and several volumes that correspond with his enrollment at Oxford Balliol College ("Europe 1955," "Southeastern Europe," and "Spain 1956, Nigeria 1957," "West Africa"). From Oxford, Blumberg makes trips across Europe, including a "motor trip to [Josip Broz] Tito's birthplace" (4/12/1956). As with so many of Blumberg's journals, these volumes are remarkable for their entries as well as the ephemera he collects--postcards, photographs, and local newspaper clippings.
 
The next 17 years of diaries (1957-1974) follow Blumberg's early career, including his tenure at the National Institutes of Health (1957-64) and the Institute for Cancer Research (1964-67), as well as field trips across the globe to develop the hepatitis B vaccine. As such, this series of diaries will certainly interest researchers examining Blumberg's medical career. However, his diverse travels will captivate a host of other researchers. Blumberg documents trips to Alaska ("American Arctic 1958"), the Marshall Islands ("Central Pacific 1959"), Quebec ("Canada 1962"), Norway ("Account of trip to England and Scandinavia," 1963), and Brazil ("Trip to Brazil," 1963). A three-ring binder of assorted travel logs (1961-68) record lab work in Greece and Israel, and, notably, field work with indigenous peoples in Labrador (1962), Arizona (1967) and New Mexico (1967).
 
Beginning in 1967, Blumberg begins record-keeping using volumes entitled "General Notes," some of which lack dated entries and test the boundaries of journaling. For example, a volume for October 1967 - July 1968 includes no dated entries, but features extensive notes pertaining to cell studies, genetics data, epidemiology, and a wealth of ancillary materials related to the American Cancer Society. ("General Notes," September 1968 - February 1970 and February 1970 - November 1971" also lack dated entries.) Other volumes contain only sporadic entries, as with the four volumes dedicated to 1973. However, researchers who take the time to sift through those records will discover detailed notes about the Institute of Cancer Research. (Researchers interested specifically in his work at the Institute of Cancer Research would be well-advised to examine his "General Notes" from September 1973 - August 1974.)
 
In 1973, Blumberg begins a self-conscious account of his research--the first of two volumes entitled "Narrative History of Research." (The Blumberg Papers include another copy of the 1973 edition and a second volume from 1984.) Researchers interested in Blumberg's research, the field of genetics in the second half of the twentieth-century, and the history of science more broadly will be richly rewarded by these "narratives." Blumberg discusses his understanding of the scientific method, philosophy of science, methodological concerns (especially post-hoc reasoning), influences (e.g. Karl Popper and Jacob Bronowski), and professional networks, which include luminaries such as Harold Brown, Alexander Ogston, Tony Allison, Harvey Alter, Batsheba Boone, Alton Sutrick, Cyril Levine, Barbara Werner, Rongelap Atoll, Robert Conard, Tom London, William Summerskill, and Gary Getnick.
 
The next 20 years of diaries (1974-1994) recount some of Blumberg's most significant professional honors, most especially his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1976) and appointment as Master at Oxford University Balliol College (1989-1994). Those who have explored the Dobzhansky Papers will take note that Blumberg attended a Symposium on Evolution in his memory ("General Notes," May 1975 - September 1976). However, the next volume may overshadow it: "General Notes" (September 1976 - July 1978) documents Blumberg's receipt of the Nobel Prize, including a wealth of notes and ephemera related to travel, preparation, and formalities. Interspersed with those preparations are the kind of idiosyncratic record-keeping that Blumberg researchers will come to expect. For example, he records "Ages of Winners of Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine" (p.31), presumably to measure his own progress. Scholars from the Philadelphia metropolitan area may flag a photograph that shows Blumberg being awarded the Philadelphia Bowl in October 1976 by the infamous mayor Frank Rizzo (p.87), and researchers interested in the history of the American Philosophical Society may bookmark a program for a symposium that featured a presentation by George Wharton Pepper.
 
Blumberg maintained numerous notebooks related to his travels to Senegal, Hawaii, Japan, China, and the Soviet Union in the late-1970s. Scholars invested in modern China will take particular notice of the notebooks related to a trip to China on the eve of historic economic reforms (October 1977). In a black three-ring binder dedicated to the trip, Blumberg celebrates the "now-awakening city" of Tokyo, whose cultural advancement he measures through the prevalence of joggers--particularly women joggers (p.1, p.7). While in Tokyo, Blumberg meets with the mayor and compares the city favorably to New York, calling it cleaner and more "wholesome looking" (p.9, p.10). In Peking, he records "great changes," writing that "Maoist interest in developing a new China and obliterating to an extent the vestiges of the past" (p.18). A subsequent notebook ("General Notes," 9/28/1978-5/31/1979) notes travel to Moscow for a Hepatitis Conference, where Blumberg alludes to problems with anti-semitism. He writes that Garri Abelev finds himself in "some jeopardy as a consequence of his being Jewish and because of some transgression the nature of which I do not know" (p.47). Blumberg maintains at least four botanical field books related to these trips.
 
Notebooks from the early-1980s continue to document Blumberg's wide-ranging travels, and they also offer a glimpse at Blumberg's sense of humor. While those interested in his career may choose to focus on "General Notes" (2/28-11/17/1980), which includes a draft of his talk for a Nobel Lecture Series (3/22/1980) as well as notes about space exploration that pressage his later work for NASA (5/3/1980), Blumberg also interweaves notes and ephemera that give researchers a sense of his personality. For example, he encloses an invitation to a United Nations roundtable with the note: "Don't use the toaster (it's not ready to work in France)." In his next set of "General Notes" (11/12/1980-6/31/1981), Blumberg juxtaposes invitations to lectureships, awards, and notes from research councils with a photograph of himself running 10K under which he transcribes a quip from the boxer Saad Muhammad, "hey man, your pants are falling down" (10/11/1980). In a later trip to New York, he welcomes the opportunity to catch up on jokes, several of which he transcribes in his journal (1/19-11/24/1982).
 
These volumes--and others--provide a textured sense of Blumberg the scientist and Blumberg the human being. Blumberg often registers his religious (Jewish) upbringing through ephemera. For example, he encloses a program for "The Jew in American Today: Where are We?" at the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia (2/4-2/6/1983). He also demonstrates a sustained interest in literature, particularly the writings of James Joyce. After a trip to Japan later that year, he includes a newspaper clipping for "Bloomsday: A Joycean Celebration" from the Philadelphia Inquirer (6/17/1983), and later records reading Finnegans Wake and Ulysses. Blumberg even attends a lecture on psychoanalysis and anthropology (though he dismisses the discussion as "pretty thin stuff, pretentious," 2/10/1984).
 
Between in 1984-1986, Blumberg transitions to larger notebooks that accommodate even more ephemera, including newspaper clippings on China's one-child policy (8/11/1984), Elie Wiesel's visit to the White House (4/20/1985), and reporting on the AIDS epidemic (10/7/1985). Blumberg maintained a pair of diaries related to a 1985 trip to Chile, which, notably, discuss the "problem of torture" under Pinochet and ethical challenges U.S. scientists face working with their counterparts in "non-democratic countries" (p.4, p.10, p.43). A notebook on a visit to India ("India Diary 1986") reveals Blumberg's thoughts on Hinduism, meeting with the prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi), and notes for a presentation about Gandhi's influence on Martin Luther King, Jr. (p.19, p.35-36, p.49-50). Other notebooks from 1986-88 document travels to Nepal, Japan, Taiwan, and Trinidad and Tobago, and even conference of Nobel Laureates in Paris (1/9/1988).
 
Perhaps most notably, Blumberg acknowledges his historic appointment as Master at Balliol College obliquely--through newspaper clippings--in these 1988 entries. One clipping, from the London Sundry Times notes that Blumberg is the first American to receive the honor (June 1988). It isn't until 1989 "General Notes" (1/1-8/9/1989) that he reflects upon the recognition, writing: "I looked at myself in the mirror, dark suite, striped Balliol tie, Master gown and thought what a strange series of event had brought me to this election. First American, first foreigner, first scientist, first Jew—I wish my father and mother could have known about this
 
how pleased they would have been" (6/3/1989). Blumberg's departure for the post appears bitter suite. He records a farewell party at the Fox Chase Cancer Center with an excerpt of his remarks: "[T]he world is a big playground for scientists and FCCC for 25 years has been my playground" (9/14/1989).
 
The early-1990s journals follow Blumberg's tenure at Balliol, marked by a series of notable personal events, including the death of his brother, wedding of his daughter, and birth of his first grandchild. Blumberg encloses a draft of his eulogy for his brother (6/30/1992) and an account of the funeral (7/1/1992). The next summer brings the wedding of his daughter, Anne Blumberg to Jonathan Dorfman (7/4/1993). After he completes his appointment at Balliol (10/1/1994), Blumberg celebrates the birth of Isabella Jean Dorfman, writing, "our first-borne—Anne—had our first Jewish grandchild" (4/2/1995).
 
The remaining notebooks (1994-2011) offer candid insights into Blumberg's late-career, including his directorship of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (1999-2002) and presidency of the American Philosophical Society (2005). Upon completing his appointment at Oxford, Blumberg appears to reach something of an impasse. On the occasion of his 72nd birthday, he writes: "feeling somewhat ill at ease about the direction my life should take. I'm so accustomed to being fully engaged and scheduled, being on vacation is a distraction…I should focus on the writing and make that my main goal at least for the present. That means I have to learn the discipline of writing, something I had nearly acquired when I was at LASBs. Enough philo. I'm delighted to have made it to 72 still intact and active" (7/28/1997). Blumberg would ascertain that direction in short order. In fact, included in that volume is a NASA Ames Research Center visitor's badge that anticipates the next chapter in his career.
 
Although Blumberg would not formally assume the role of director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute until May 1999, his journals suggest that conversations and preparations began much earlier. In "General Notes" (6/17/1998-3/10/1999), Blumberg attends an Astrobiology Roadmap Workshop (7/20-22/1998), where he writes (in third-person): "BSB spoke to the study of humans and their microorganisms" (7/22/1998). Shortly thereafter, he adds, "Malcolm Cohen called and told me that the scientists at NASA had taken up on this idea and want to have a conference about it early next year" (10/6/1998). Blumberg's exchanges with NASA leadership appear to have piqued his interest in space exploration, as evidenced in newspaper clippings that he collects in his journals (e.g. 3/19/1999). In his next volume of "General Notes" (3/11-10/13/1999), Blumberg records his "conditions for NASA employment" (p.3). Finally, he documents his appointment via newspaper clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times dated 5/19/1999.
 
Blumberg's tenure at the Astrobiology Institute granted him new political and administrative responsibilities, which he documents thoroughly in "General Notes" and "Astrobiology" notebooks. Blumberg recounts a meeting with Newt Gingrich on 11/18/1999 with the gloss "Fascinating discussion. Far-ranging, visionary." In a subsequent volume of "General Notes" (5/11/2000-1/30/2001), researchers gain insights into the administrative work behind the Institute. "Spoke with Armstrong and Cerrel," writes Blumberg. "We arranged budget for ~ 20 million. 10 teams @ 1.5 x 106 plus 5 x 106 for supplementary funding an administration" (p153). Blumberg's commitment to the agency, and space exploration more broadly, endures well-past his tenure. In 2004, he travels to Puerto Rico to visit the radio telescope, and, on the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik, he recollects, "On Oct 4, 1957. Jean Anne and BSB were crossing the Atlantic on the SS France and I saw Sput" (10/4/2007).
 
In the early-aughts, Blumberg returns to travel and private reflection. Notably, he records the September 11 terrorist attacks in an entry entitled "Day of Horror," writing, "I awake this morning to see on TV the horrible scenes of the bombing the World Trade Towers. I have written about it in my computer diary" (9/11/2001). (Unfortunately, it is unclear whether Blumberg printed that diary and included it with his papers.) He continues to attend Nobel conferences and symposia, including a 100th anniversary celebration of the Prize hosted by the White House on 11/27/2001. In a later journal, he notes that he attends a conference for Nobel Laureates that features speeches by King Abdullah II, Ted Koppel, Richard Holbrooke, and others (6/21/2006). Blumberg returns to Israel, Australia and China in 2002. In Israel, he notes the "terrible" condition of the West Bank (5/26/2002). In China, he recollects his 1977 trip as "most important (field) trip taken." Marveling at the "enormous changes" in the country, he writes that Shanghai is "only city I've visited that causes me to question solitary greatness of New York" (5/3/2002). New York remains a favorite stop for Blumberg
 
in fact, researchers interested in the arts will note that he meticulously records the opening of "The Gates" at Central Park (2/18/2005).
 
Alongside wide-ranging travels, later diaries offer unusually candid assessments of U.S. politics and media. Blumberg discusses immigration politics in late-2006, writing, "Bush admin has no interest in reality of data, they have been hopeless in responding to the problem [illegal immigration]. Punishment is their first response" (11/10/2006). After attending a talk on the media with Gwen Ifill and Tom Brokaw, he observes, "Republicans control press--board of directors compared to the Democrat's college dormitory" (4/28/2007).
 
The last five years of diaries may hold the greatest appeal to researchers exploring the institutional history of the American Philosophical Society. Although Blumberg doesn't appear to write directly about his election as president in 2005, the APS figures prominently in his final journals. He discusses a 2006 visit to the Google campus with APS members, where he marvels, "The place is bursting with intellectual energy. Masses of very young people…average age must be 25" (11/8/2006). Blumberg regularly records attendance of APS meetings, often enclosing programs. Perhaps most notably, he notes a meeting with former librarian Martin Levitt, during which Levitt conveyed the institution's interest in his diaries and its plans for a "NA DH Center," presumably the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research.

The Baruch S. Blumberg Papers feature one of the most remarkable--and expansive--collections of diaries available in the collections at the American Philosophical Society. Containing at least 127 volumes spanning nearly seven decades (1942-2011), these journals comprehensively document Baruch Blumberg's career in science, including: his undergraduate and graduate education, field work across the globe, development of the hepatitis B vaccine, receipt of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, appointment as Master at Oxford University Balliol College, directorship of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, and presidency of the American Philosophical Society. Through his wide-ranging travels, Blumberg furnishes on-the-ground accounts of post-war Europe, the early years of Israeli statehood, China on the eve of economic reforms, Chile under Pinochet, and New York after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Alongside personal recollections, Blumberg uses his journals as veritable scrapbooks, packing volumes with newspaper clippings, programs, postcards, business cards, and various other forms of ephemera. Thus, while the Bloomberg diaries will attract researchers investigating his career, the field of genetics, and the history of science more broadly, these notebooks will captivate scholars interested in material culture, sexuality, religion, U.S. politics and foreign policy, media and technology, and much more.
 
Given the sheer volume of material contained in the Blumberg Papers--at least 127 volumes traversing almost 70 years of his professional career--it may be helpful to periodize these journals using landmarks from his professional career. This extended note suggests four main periods (1942-1957, 1957-1974, 1974-1994, and 1994-2011) that researchers may use to explore these remarkably rich collections.
 
The first 15 years of Blumberg diaries (1942-1957) traverse his education and travels to Suriname, Nigeria, much of Europe (including Italy, Germany, and France), and, notably, Israel, during the post-war period. While the Blumberg Papers include a school notebook from February 1942, his diaries begin in earnest in 1948, when he traveled by ship to the Cancer Institute in Portugal. In the early-1950s, Blumberg maintained diaries pertaining to a medical trip in Dutch Guiana (1950), his tenure at New York's Bellevue Hospital (1951-52), and medical trips to Venezuela and Aruba (1953), during which he worked to contain outbreaks of yellow fever, smallpox, and typhus. In that latter volume, Blumberg provides rich accounts of Venezuela under military dictatorship. "We passed a super-market which had been built by the Nelson Rockefeller-Venezuelan development group," writes Blumberg. "There are many vestiges of this enlightened business effect in Venezuela—although you hear much talk of it."
 
The volume entitled "Asia Minor S. Europe 1953" offers noteworthy insights into gay subculture in 1950s New York, postwar Europe, and Israel in its early years as a nation state. Aboard the S.S. Italia, Blumberg meets Phyllis Fitzgerald, a clothes model in New York's garment district, who introduces him to some new terminology, including "gay bar." (Reference Selected Quotations for an excerpt from that encounter.) Arriving in Europe, Blumberg furnishes numerous descriptions of Italy, including Naples, of which he writes: "It is far from beautiful and the back streets contain slums and small mean shops. The Italian peasantry and lower class city dweller is still quite depressed. We have poverty in our cities but the large lower class one sees in Southern Europe doesn't seem to occupy as an important portion of the population" (7/14/1953). From Italy, Blumberg travels to Israel, which had been established as a state just five years earlier. He furnishes detailed descriptions of the kibbutzim, the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv, and the young Israelis he encounters in his travels. Notably, he discusses vestiges from the War of Independence (7/7/1953), the Gaza Strip (7/24/1953), Israeli politics (8/19/1953), and religious orthodoxy, of which he writes: "In Israel there is only orthodox religion—and that of a radical sort—or no (or even anti-) religion. There's no in between. There appears to be a spiritual barrenness in the country for which there's no answer. When people [move] here they see no need to keep up the conservative or reformed Judaism which did them so well at home & [make] them feel as one with their race" (8/5/1953).
 
Following his trip to "Asia Minor," Blumberg records substantial changes in his personal and professional life. He notes his wedding to Jean Lieblsman--after which they "ate leftover food & then went to a movie 'Hell or High Water'" (4/5/1954)--and several volumes that correspond with his enrollment at Oxford Balliol College ("Europe 1955," "Southeastern Europe," and "Spain 1956, Nigeria 1957," "West Africa"). From Oxford, Blumberg makes trips across Europe, including a "motor trip to [Josip Broz] Tito's birthplace" (4/12/1956). As with so many of Blumberg's journals, these volumes are remarkable for their entries as well as the ephemera he collects--postcards, photographs, and local newspaper clippings.
 
The next 17 years of diaries (1957-1974) follow Blumberg's early career, including his tenure at the National Institutes of Health (1957-64) and the Institute for Cancer Research (1964-67), as well as field trips across the globe to develop the hepatitis B vaccine. As such, this series of diaries will certainly interest researchers examining Blumberg's medical career. However, his diverse travels will captivate a host of other researchers. Blumberg documents trips to Alaska ("American Arctic 1958"), the Marshall Islands ("Central Pacific 1959"), Quebec ("Canada 1962"), Norway ("Account of trip to England and Scandinavia," 1963), and Brazil ("Trip to Brazil," 1963). A three-ring binder of assorted travel logs (1961-68) record lab work in Greece and Israel, and, notably, field work with indigenous peoples in Labrador (1962), Arizona (1967) and New Mexico (1967).
 
Beginning in 1967, Blumberg begins record-keeping using volumes entitled "General Notes," some of which lack dated entries and test the boundaries of journaling. For example, a volume for October 1967 - July 1968 includes no dated entries, but features extensive notes pertaining to cell studies, genetics data, epidemiology, and a wealth of ancillary materials related to the American Cancer Society. ("General Notes," September 1968 - February 1970 and February 1970 - November 1971" also lack dated entries.) Other volumes contain only sporadic entries, as with the four volumes dedicated to 1973. However, researchers who take the time to sift through those records will discover detailed notes about the Institute of Cancer Research. (Researchers interested specifically in his work at the Institute of Cancer Research would be well-advised to examine his "General Notes" from September 1973 - August 1974.)
 
In 1973, Blumberg begins a self-conscious account of his research--the first of two volumes entitled "Narrative History of Research." (The Blumberg Papers include another copy of the 1973 edition and a second volume from 1984.) Researchers interested in Blumberg's research, the field of genetics in the second half of the twentieth-century, and the history of science more broadly will be richly rewarded by these "narratives." Blumberg discusses his understanding of the scientific method, philosophy of science, methodological concerns (especially post-hoc reasoning), influences (e.g. Karl Popper and Jacob Bronowski), and professional networks, which include luminaries such as Harold Brown, Alexander Ogston, Tony Allison, Harvey Alter, Batsheba Boone, Alton Sutrick, Cyril Levine, Barbara Werner, Rongelap Atoll, Robert Conard, Tom London, William Summerskill, and Gary Getnick.
 
The next 20 years of diaries (1974-1994) recount some of Blumberg's most significant professional honors, most especially his receipt of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1976) and appointment as Master at Oxford University Balliol College (1989-1994). Those who have explored the Dobzhansky Papers will take note that Blumberg attended a Symposium on Evolution in his memory ("General Notes," May 1975 - September 1976). However, the next volume may overshadow it: "General Notes" (September 1976 - July 1978) documents Blumberg's receipt of the Nobel Prize, including a wealth of notes and ephemera related to travel, preparation, and formalities. Interspersed with those preparations are the kind of idiosyncratic record-keeping that Blumberg researchers will come to expect. For example, he records "Ages of Winners of Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine" (p.31), presumably to measure his own progress. Scholars from the Philadelphia metropolitan area may flag a photograph that shows Blumberg being awarded the Philadelphia Bowl in October 1976 by the infamous mayor Frank Rizzo (p.87), and researchers interested in the history of the American Philosophical Society may bookmark a program for a symposium that featured a presentation by George Wharton Pepper.
 
Blumberg maintained numerous notebooks related to his travels to Senegal, Hawaii, Japan, China, and the Soviet Union in the late-1970s. Scholars invested in modern China will take particular notice of the notebooks related to a trip to China on the eve of historic economic reforms (October 1977). In a black three-ring binder dedicated to the trip, Blumberg celebrates the "now-awakening city" of Tokyo, whose cultural advancement he measures through the prevalence of joggers--particularly women joggers (p.1, p.7). While in Tokyo, Blumberg meets with the mayor and compares the city favorably to New York, calling it cleaner and more "wholesome looking" (p.9, p.10). In Peking, he records "great changes," writing that "Maoist interest in developing a new China and obliterating to an extent the vestiges of the past" (p.18). A subsequent notebook ("General Notes," 9/28/1978-5/31/1979) notes travel to Moscow for a Hepatitis Conference, where Blumberg alludes to problems with anti-semitism. He writes that Garri Abelev finds himself in "some jeopardy as a consequence of his being Jewish and because of some transgression the nature of which I do not know" (p.47). Blumberg maintains at least four botanical field books related to these trips.
 
Notebooks from the early-1980s continue to document Blumberg's wide-ranging travels, and they also offer a glimpse at Blumberg's sense of humor. While those interested in his career may choose to focus on "General Notes" (2/28-11/17/1980), which includes a draft of his talk for a Nobel Lecture Series (3/22/1980) as well as notes about space exploration that pressage his later work for NASA (5/3/1980), Blumberg also interweaves notes and ephemera that give researchers a sense of his personality. For example, he encloses an invitation to a United Nations roundtable with the note: "Don't use the toaster (it's not ready to work in France)." In his next set of "General Notes" (11/12/1980-6/31/1981), Blumberg juxtaposes invitations to lectureships, awards, and notes from research councils with a photograph of himself running 10K under which he transcribes a quip from the boxer Saad Muhammad, "hey man, your pants are falling down" (10/11/1980). In a later trip to New York, he welcomes the opportunity to catch up on jokes, several of which he transcribes in his journal (1/19-11/24/1982).
 
These volumes--and others--provide a textured sense of Blumberg the scientist and Blumberg the human being. Blumberg often registers his religious (Jewish) upbringing through ephemera. For example, he encloses a program for "The Jew in American Today: Where are We?" at the Society Hill Synagogue in Philadelphia (2/4-2/6/1983). He also demonstrates a sustained interest in literature, particularly the writings of James Joyce. After a trip to Japan later that year, he includes a newspaper clipping for "Bloomsday: A Joycean Celebration" from the Philadelphia Inquirer (6/17/1983), and later records reading Finnegans Wake and Ulysses. Blumberg even attends a lecture on psychoanalysis and anthropology (though he dismisses the discussion as "pretty thin stuff, pretentious," 2/10/1984).
 
Between in 1984-1986, Blumberg transitions to larger notebooks that accommodate even more ephemera, including newspaper clippings on China's one-child policy (8/11/1984), Elie Wiesel's visit to the White House (4/20/1985), and reporting on the AIDS epidemic (10/7/1985). Blumberg maintained a pair of diaries related to a 1985 trip to Chile, which, notably, discuss the "problem of torture" under Pinochet and ethical challenges U.S. scientists face working with their counterparts in "non-democratic countries" (p.4, p.10, p.43). A notebook on a visit to India ("India Diary 1986") reveals Blumberg's thoughts on Hinduism, meeting with the prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi), and notes for a presentation about Gandhi's influence on Martin Luther King, Jr. (p.19, p.35-36, p.49-50). Other notebooks from 1986-88 document travels to Nepal, Japan, Taiwan, and Trinidad and Tobago, and even conference of Nobel Laureates in Paris (1/9/1988).
 
Perhaps most notably, Blumberg acknowledges his historic appointment as Master at Balliol College obliquely--through newspaper clippings--in these 1988 entries. One clipping, from the London Sundry Times notes that Blumberg is the first American to receive the honor (June 1988). It isn't until 1989 "General Notes" (1/1-8/9/1989) that he reflects upon the recognition, writing: "I looked at myself in the mirror, dark suite, striped Balliol tie, Master gown and thought what a strange series of event had brought me to this election. First American, first foreigner, first scientist, first Jew—I wish my father and mother could have known about this
 
how pleased they would have been" (6/3/1989). Blumberg's departure for the post appears bitter suite. He records a farewell party at the Fox Chase Cancer Center with an excerpt of his remarks: "[T]he world is a big playground for scientists and FCCC for 25 years has been my playground" (9/14/1989).
 
The early-1990s journals follow Blumberg's tenure at Balliol, marked by a series of notable personal events, including the death of his brother, wedding of his daughter, and birth of his first grandchild. Blumberg encloses a draft of his eulogy for his brother (6/30/1992) and an account of the funeral (7/1/1992). The next summer brings the wedding of his daughter, Anne Blumberg to Jonathan Dorfman (7/4/1993). After he completes his appointment at Balliol (10/1/1994), Blumberg celebrates the birth of Isabella Jean Dorfman, writing, "our first-borne—Anne—had our first Jewish grandchild" (4/2/1995).
 
The remaining notebooks (1994-2011) offer candid insights into Blumberg's late-career, including his directorship of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (1999-2002) and presidency of the American Philosophical Society (2005). Upon completing his appointment at Oxford, Blumberg appears to reach something of an impasse. On the occasion of his 72nd birthday, he writes: "feeling somewhat ill at ease about the direction my life should take. I'm so accustomed to being fully engaged and scheduled, being on vacation is a distraction…I should focus on the writing and make that my main goal at least for the present. That means I have to learn the discipline of writing, something I had nearly acquired when I was at LASBs. Enough philo. I'm delighted to have made it to 72 still intact and active" (7/28/1997). Blumberg would ascertain that direction in short order. In fact, included in that volume is a NASA Ames Research Center visitor's badge that anticipates the next chapter in his career.
 
Although Blumberg would not formally assume the role of director of NASA's Astrobiology Institute until May 1999, his journals suggest that conversations and preparations began much earlier. In "General Notes" (6/17/1998-3/10/1999), Blumberg attends an Astrobiology Roadmap Workshop (7/20-22/1998), where he writes (in third-person): "BSB spoke to the study of humans and their microorganisms" (7/22/1998). Shortly thereafter, he adds, "Malcolm Cohen called and told me that the scientists at NASA had taken up on this idea and want to have a conference about it early next year" (10/6/1998). Blumberg's exchanges with NASA leadership appear to have piqued his interest in space exploration, as evidenced in newspaper clippings that he collects in his journals (e.g. 3/19/1999). In his next volume of "General Notes" (3/11-10/13/1999), Blumberg records his "conditions for NASA employment" (p.3). Finally, he documents his appointment via newspaper clippings from the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times dated 5/19/1999.
 
Blumberg's tenure at the Astrobiology Institute granted him new political and administrative responsibilities, which he documents thoroughly in "General Notes" and "Astrobiology" notebooks. Blumberg recounts a meeting with Newt Gingrich on 11/18/1999 with the gloss "Fascinating discussion. Far-ranging, visionary." In a subsequent volume of "General Notes" (5/11/2000-1/30/2001), researchers gain insights into the administrative work behind the Institute. "Spoke with Armstrong and Cerrel," writes Blumberg. "We arranged budget for ~ 20 million. 10 teams @ 1.5 x 106 plus 5 x 106 for supplementary funding an administration" (p153). Blumberg's commitment to the agency, and space exploration more broadly, endures well-past his tenure. In 2004, he travels to Puerto Rico to visit the radio telescope, and, on the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik, he recollects, "On Oct 4, 1957. Jean Anne and BSB were crossing the Atlantic on the SS France and I saw Sput" (10/4/2007).
 
In the early-aughts, Blumberg returns to travel and private reflection. Notably, he records the September 11 terrorist attacks in an entry entitled "Day of Horror," writing, "I awake this morning to see on TV the horrible scenes of the bombing the World Trade Towers. I have written about it in my computer diary" (9/11/2001). (Unfortunately, it is unclear whether Blumberg printed that diary and included it with his papers.) He continues to attend Nobel conferences and symposia, including a 100th anniversary celebration of the Prize hosted by the White House on 11/27/2001. In a later journal, he notes that he attends a conference for Nobel Laureates that features speeches by King Abdullah II, Ted Koppel, Richard Holbrooke, and others (6/21/2006). Blumberg returns to Israel, Australia and China in 2002. In Israel, he notes the "terrible" condition of the West Bank (5/26/2002). In China, he recollects his 1977 trip as "most important (field) trip taken." Marveling at the "enormous changes" in the country, he writes that Shanghai is "only city I've visited that causes me to question solitary greatness of New York" (5/3/2002). New York remains a favorite stop for Blumberg
 
in fact, researchers interested in the arts will note that he meticulously records the opening of "The Gates" at Central Park (2/18/2005).
 
Alongside wide-ranging travels, later diaries offer unusually candid assessments of U.S. politics and media. Blumberg discusses immigration politics in late-2006, writing, "Bush admin has no interest in reality of data, they have been hopeless in responding to the problem [illegal immigration]. Punishment is their first response" (11/10/2006). After attending a talk on the media with Gwen Ifill and Tom Brokaw, he observes, "Republicans control press--board of directors compared to the Democrat's college dormitory" (4/28/2007).
 
The last five years of diaries may hold the greatest appeal to researchers exploring the institutional history of the American Philosophical Society. Although Blumberg doesn't appear to write directly about his election as president in 2005, the APS figures prominently in his final journals. He discusses a 2006 visit to the Google campus with APS members, where he marvels, "The place is bursting with intellectual energy. Masses of very young people…average age must be 25" (11/8/2006). Blumberg regularly records attendance of APS meetings, often enclosing programs. Perhaps most notably, he notes a meeting with former librarian Martin Levitt, during which Levitt conveyed the institution's interest in his diaries and its plans for a "NA DH Center," presumably the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research.

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.