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1.Title:  Francis Hopkinson Notebook (1784-1791)
 Dates:  1784 - 1791 
 Extent:  1 volume  
 Locations:  Philadelphia 
 Abstract:  The Francis Hopkinson notebook provides insights into the finances, and, to a lesser degree, the personal affairs of an American statesman. Entries span 11/21/1785-9/3/1790, with one or two outlying entries, one dated 2/20/1784, and another, which records the death of a "Mr. Bordeu," from 4/8/1791. Given that Hopkinson himself died in November 1791, this volume provides a window into his final years. Most entries are devoted to accounts. For example, Hopkinson notes the purchase of a ten-volume encyclopedia (2/15/1790). However, he occasional references personal affairs, as he does on 10/15/1790, when he writes, "Nancy went to school again." This notebook may interest researchers exploring Hopkinson's biography or Philadelphia during the early national period. 
    
 
    
The Francis Hopkinson notebook provides insights into the finances, and, to a lesser degree, the personal affairs of an American statesman. Entries span 11/21/1785-9/3/1790, with one or two outlying entries, one dated 2/20/1784, and another, which records the death of a "Mr. Bordeu," from 4/8/1791. Given that Hopkinson himself died in November 1791, this volume provides a window into his final years. Most entries are devoted to accounts. For example, Hopkinson notes the purchase of a ten-volume encyclopedia (2/15/1790). However, he occasional references personal affairs, as he does on 10/15/1790, when he writes, "Nancy went to school again." This notebook may interest researchers exploring Hopkinson's biography or Philadelphia during the early national period.
 
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 Subjects:  Accounts. | Diaries. | United States--Politics and government--1783-1865. 
 Collection:  Francis Hopkinson notebook, 1784-1791  (Mss.B.H768.1)  
  Go to the collection
 
2.Title:  Jacob Hiltzheimer Diaries (1765-1798)
 Dates:  1765 - 1798 
 Extent:  28 volumes  
 Locations:  Bethlehem | Burlington | Germantown | Lancaster | New York | Philadelphia | Trenton | Washington D.C. | Wilmington 
 Abstract:  The Jacob Hiltzheimer Diary spans 28 volumes and offers insight into the social life and customs of Philadelphia between the late colonial period to the early republic (1765-1798). Hiltzheimer describes a wide range of events, such as sleigh riding to ice skating to attending a large celebration of King George's Birthday on the banks of the Schuylkill with over 380 Philadelphians (before Independence). During the imperial crisis, Hiltzheimer's observations provide an interesting perspective on the events happening within the city, including the repeal of the Stamp Act, French troop movements, Cornwallis's surrender, and ensuing mob violence against suspected loyalists (e.g. 10/24/1781). 
    
Hiltzheimer provides a detailed and textured account of the young republic through scrupulous attention to the Constitutional Convention, election and reelection of George Washington, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Wyoming Valley incident, and the ascension of John Adams. Thanks to his career in Philadelphia politics (elected as a representative of the city in the Assembly in 1786), he furnishes first-hand accounts of George Washington, the funerals of Benjamin Franklin and David Rittenhouse, and numerous entries devoted to Pennsylvania luminaries including John and Clement Biddle, Joseph Morris, Levi Hollingsworth, Henry Drinker, and Timothy Matlack.
 
Hiltzheimer's journal also records family and personal details, including plague of locusts in 1766 and 1783, a great fire in 1794, and the death of his wife (3/11/1790) and loss of both his son and daughter to Yellow Fever (11/28/1793 and 12/29/1794 respectively). Indeed, his account of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia is particularly exhaustive, with daily records of burials between 9/19-12/31/1793, as well as further accounts during the 1797 crisis, during which he ultimately contracted the disease that led to his death in September 1798.
 
    
The Jacob Hiltzheimer Diary spans 28 volumes and offers insight into the social life and customs of Philadelphia between the late colonial period to the early republic (1765-1798). Hiltzheimer describes a wide range of events, such as sleigh riding to ice skating to attending a large celebration of King George's Birthday on the banks of the Schuylkill with over 380 Philadelphians (before Independence). During the imperial crisis, Hiltzheimer's observations provide an interesting perspective on the events happening within the city, including the repeal of the Stamp Act, French troop movements, Cornwallis's surrender, and ensuing mob violence against suspected loyalists (e.g. 10/24/1781).
 
Hiltzheimer provides a detailed and textured account of the young republic through scrupulous attention to the Constitutional Convention, election and reelection of George Washington, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Wyoming Valley incident, and the ascension of John Adams. Thanks to his career in Philadelphia politics (elected as a representative of the city in the Assembly in 1786), he furnishes first-hand accounts of George Washington, the funerals of Benjamin Franklin and David Rittenhouse, and numerous entries devoted to Pennsylvania luminaries including John and Clement Biddle, Joseph Morris, Levi Hollingsworth, Henry Drinker, and Timothy Matlack.
 
Hiltzheimer's journal also records family and personal details, including plague of locusts in 1766 and 1783, a great fire in 1794, and the death of his wife (3/11/1790) and loss of both his son and daughter to Yellow Fever (11/28/1793 and 12/29/1794 respectively). Indeed, his account of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia is particularly exhaustive, with daily records of burials between 9/19-12/31/1793, as well as further accounts during the 1797 crisis, during which he ultimately contracted the disease that led to his death in September 1798.
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  Selected Quotations
  • Upon George Washington's resignation as commander-in-chief "Do therefore most Sincerely Congratulate him on the Noble Resolution he has fixed. That is, not to Accept of any Public office hereafter but to spend the Remainder of his Day in a Private Life, is undoubtedly the best Surest way to Preserve the Honours he so justly acquired during the late War" (12/15/1783)

  • Yellow Fever subsides: "Many of the Philadelphians returning from the Country" (11/9/1793)

  • On the Whiskey Rebellion: "yesterday General Neville and Dr. Lenox arrived in town from the said Neville's farm in Alleghany County from which they were obliged to fly on the 17 & 18 last month on account of they being officers of the exercise, the Rioters…" (8/9/1794)
 
 Subjects:  American Philosophical Society. | Colonial America | Constitutional conventions--United States. | Loyalist | Philadelphia history | Diaries. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783. | United States--Politics and government--1775-1783. | United States--Politics and government--1783-1809. | Washington, George, 1732-1799. | Weather. | Whiskey Rebellion Whiskey Rebellion, Pa., 1794. | Wyoming Valley (Pa.)--History. Wyoming Valley Incident Yellow fever--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia. 
 Collection:  Jacob Hiltzheimer Diaries  (Mss.B.H56d)  
  Go to the collection
 
3.Title:  Rebecca Gratz and Sarah G. Moses Diaries (1807, 1832-1846)
 Dates:  1807 - 1846 
 Extent:  8 volumes  
 Locations:  Baltimore | Charleston | Cleveland | Detroit | Lexington | Nashville | New York | Niagara Falls | Philadelphia | Richmond | Rochester | Savannah | Washington D.C. | Wheeling | Wilmington, North Carolina 
 Abstract:  The Gratz Family Papers include at least two bound volumes and six travel diary fragments of Jewish women in the antebellum period (1807-1846). The first, dated 1807, recounts a trip taken by Rebecca Gratz from Louisville to Nashville in the early national period (6/3-12/8/1807). The second bound volume can be definitively attributed to Sarah G. Moses, although the handwriting in the other fragments bears some resemblance. Recorded between 8/9-11/2/1832, Moses' bound volume recounts Philadelphia local affairs, weather, her recreational activities (e.g. reading, sewing, and embroidery), education, and religious practices (Moses makes numerous mentions of going to "Synagogue"). Notably, she frets the cholera epidemic in an early entry, excerpted in Selected Quotations (8/9/1832). Two diary fragments recount travels from New York City upstate (7/27-8/6/1842) as well as a trip between Savannah and Richmond (commenced 4/30/1846). The remaining fragments were clearly recorded in the antebellum period, but are difficult to date: There's a fragment recounting a trip between Saint Louis and Lexington, another (possibly related) fragment that details a journey from Lexington through the Alleghenies and finally to Baltimore, and two distinct midwestern tours that take the diarist from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and from Detroit to Cleveland. Notably, the latter journey must have been recorded sometime between the mid-1830s and mid-1840s, as it references an animated conversation with a Locofoco on a stagecoach (also excerpted in Selected Quotations). These fragments ought to interest scholars researching women's history, Jewish studies, and appalachia and the American South during the antebellum period. 
    
 
    
The Gratz Family Papers include at least two bound volumes and six travel diary fragments of Jewish women in the antebellum period (1807-1846). The first, dated 1807, recounts a trip taken by Rebecca Gratz from Louisville to Nashville in the early national period (6/3-12/8/1807). The second bound volume can be definitively attributed to Sarah G. Moses, although the handwriting in the other fragments bears some resemblance. Recorded between 8/9-11/2/1832, Moses' bound volume recounts Philadelphia local affairs, weather, her recreational activities (e.g. reading, sewing, and embroidery), education, and religious practices (Moses makes numerous mentions of going to "Synagogue"). Notably, she frets the cholera epidemic in an early entry, excerpted in Selected Quotations (8/9/1832). Two diary fragments recount travels from New York City upstate (7/27-8/6/1842) as well as a trip between Savannah and Richmond (commenced 4/30/1846). The remaining fragments were clearly recorded in the antebellum period, but are difficult to date: There's a fragment recounting a trip between Saint Louis and Lexington, another (possibly related) fragment that details a journey from Lexington through the Alleghenies and finally to Baltimore, and two distinct midwestern tours that take the diarist from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River and from Detroit to Cleveland. Notably, the latter journey must have been recorded sometime between the mid-1830s and mid-1840s, as it references an animated conversation with a Locofoco on a stagecoach (also excerpted in Selected Quotations). These fragments ought to interest scholars researching women's history, Jewish studies, and appalachia and the American South during the antebellum period.
 
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  Selected Quotations
  • Sarah G. Moses: "This day has been one of universal humiliation and prayer on account of the great increase of that dreadful pestilence 'The Choldera'" (8/9/1832)

  • Locofoco on stagecoach: "Slept in the stage [coach] on board of which was an odd Locofoco--who talked politics mostly basely & at the witching hour of night" (travel diary fragment beginning in Detroit)

  • Appalachian towns: "All the Western villages have a dingy look, so unlike the New England ones" (travel diary fragment beginning in 11/10)
 
 Subjects:  Diaries. | Cholera. | Philadelphia history | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States--Politics and government--1783-1865. | Women--History. 
 Collection:  Gratz Family Papers  (Mss.Ms.Coll.72)  
  Go to the collection
 
4.Title:  John Pershouse Journal (1800-1838)
 Dates:  1800 - 1838 
 Extent:  1 volume  
 Locations:  Baltimore | Belfast | Bergen | Birmingham | Bologna | Bordeaux | Boston | Brighton | Brussels | Buffalo | Canterbury | Carlisle | Chirk | Cincinnati | Darmstadt | Dieppe | Dover | Dublin | Edinburgh | Exeter | Frankfurt | Glasgow | Havre de Grace | Heidelberg | Huntsville | Kehl | Lewistown | Liverpool | Lockport | London | Louisville | Manchester | Nashville | New York | Niagara Falls | Paris | Philadelphia | Plymouth | Portsmouth | Southampton | Tuscaloosa | Washington D.C. | Wheeling | Worcester, United Kingdom 
 Abstract:  The John Pershouse papers contain two volumes of genealogical data from the late-eighteenth century, two letter books thought to belong to his nephew (Henry Pershouse), and one travel journal. The journal is noteworthy because it furnishes accounts of transatlantic travel in the early national period. While the first entry notes Pershouse's departure from Liverpool to Boston on a 56-day voyage (2/1/1800), regular entries begin around 1826 and continue to late-1838. As a Philadelphia merchant, Pershouse regularly records distances, accounts, and sights in Europe and the United States. Notably, he travels on a ship under the command of a Captain Matlack (presumably Timothy Matlack), travels extensively in the U.S. Southeast and Midwest, and notes the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution in 1830—all excerpted in Selected Quotations. Researchers interested in U.S. domestic and transatlantic travel during the antebellum period ought to find this volume particularly useful. 
    
 
    
The John Pershouse papers contain two volumes of genealogical data from the late-eighteenth century, two letter books thought to belong to his nephew (Henry Pershouse), and one travel journal. The journal is noteworthy because it furnishes accounts of transatlantic travel in the early national period. While the first entry notes Pershouse's departure from Liverpool to Boston on a 56-day voyage (2/1/1800), regular entries begin around 1826 and continue to late-1838. As a Philadelphia merchant, Pershouse regularly records distances, accounts, and sights in Europe and the United States. Notably, he travels on a ship under the command of a Captain Matlack (presumably Timothy Matlack), travels extensively in the U.S. Southeast and Midwest, and notes the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution in 1830—all excerpted in Selected Quotations. Researchers interested in U.S. domestic and transatlantic travel during the antebellum period ought to find this volume particularly useful.
 
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  Selected Quotations
  • "Embark'd in the Ship Atlantic Capt. Matlack at New York paying for passage, bedding, & liquors included $210 or £47.50. Arriv'd at Liv.l 31 Octr after rather a boisterous passage of 31 days" (9/30/1818)

  • "Oct 30 to 12 Jany 1825 in the Western States…The above journeys were in the States of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana" (10/30/1824-1/12/1825)

  • "It appears that on the 25 Augst 4 days after I had left it a revolution broke out at Brussels" (8/25/1830)
 
 Subjects:  Accounts. | Diaries. | Diplomacy. | Europe. | Matlack, Timothy, 1736-1829. | Seafaring life. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States--Politics and government--1783-1865. 
 Collection:  John Pershouse correspondence and papers, 1749-1899  (Mss.B.H228)  
  Go to the collection
 
5.Title:  Mary Rosamond Haas Diary (1928-1931)
 Dates:  1928 - 1931 
 Extent:  1 volume  
 Locations:  Chicago 
 Abstract:  In a diary that spans 1828-31, researchers receive an inside glimpse into Haas's early thinking about art, literature, dating and relationships, and even, to some degree, early-twentieth-century geopolitics. This diary ought to interest researchers interested in the arts, colonialism, psychology, and women's history. 
    
Haas opens her diary with an agenda to maintain a record of readings—and quotations pulled from those readings—as well as her own aspirations. In most entries, she responds to—and often argues with—arguments that she pulls from her diverse reading, which traverses Alcott, Balzac, Beowulf, the Bronte sisters, Dewey, Freud, Gorky, Hardy, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Thackeray, Tolstoy, and Voltaire.
 
For example, in one early entry, she takes Tolstoy to task, writing, "Some kinds of music may dull the mind, but I do not believe that all music dulls the mind. Besides, even music that dulls the mind has its place" (7/15/1928). Often, she uses those theories to rationalize her own artistic process: "Since I have studied psychology, I do not believe that artistic creation is a result of divine inspiration. My hypothesis is that these themes, which seem to be a result of divine inspiration, come in reality from my subconscious mind" (7/30/1928). Elsewhere, she advocates for limits of reason and value of emotions (e.g. 7/29/1928, 7/30/1928, and 11/25/1928).
 
While Haas largely abstains from discussing personal affairs in her correspondence, she includes several diary entries that chronicle her experiences with dating and romance (e.g. 12/2/1928 and 12/7/1930)
 
as one of her New Year's resolutions, she even adds the note: "Should not marry for at least three years" (12/1929). (Curiously, in that entry she also anticipates marrying three times.) Finally, although she mostly focuses on literature and music, Haas also includes several prescient notes on geopolitics, including the role of America in the world (e.g. 7/21/1928 and 8/2/1928) and the ebb of British colonialism (e.g. 8/7/1928).
 
Her diary concludes on 1/3/1931, with Haas enrolled at the University of Chicago, where, despite a full course roster, she plans a supplemental study regimen to guard against over-specialization: "I have planned a course of study for myself, which if carried out, will be more comprehensive than any university education could possibly be unless supplemented by wide reading."
 
    
In a diary that spans 1828-31, researchers receive an inside glimpse into Haas's early thinking about art, literature, dating and relationships, and even, to some degree, early-twentieth-century geopolitics. This diary ought to interest researchers interested in the arts, colonialism, psychology, and women's history.
 
Haas opens her diary with an agenda to maintain a record of readings—and quotations pulled from those readings—as well as her own aspirations. In most entries, she responds to—and often argues with—arguments that she pulls from her diverse reading, which traverses Alcott, Balzac, Beowulf, the Bronte sisters, Dewey, Freud, Gorky, Hardy, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Thackeray, Tolstoy, and Voltaire.
 
For example, in one early entry, she takes Tolstoy to task, writing, "Some kinds of music may dull the mind, but I do not believe that all music dulls the mind. Besides, even music that dulls the mind has its place" (7/15/1928). Often, she uses those theories to rationalize her own artistic process: "Since I have studied psychology, I do not believe that artistic creation is a result of divine inspiration. My hypothesis is that these themes, which seem to be a result of divine inspiration, come in reality from my subconscious mind" (7/30/1928). Elsewhere, she advocates for limits of reason and value of emotions (e.g. 7/29/1928, 7/30/1928, and 11/25/1928).
 
While Haas largely abstains from discussing personal affairs in her correspondence, she includes several diary entries that chronicle her experiences with dating and romance (e.g. 12/2/1928 and 12/7/1930)
 
as one of her New Year's resolutions, she even adds the note: "Should not marry for at least three years" (12/1929). (Curiously, in that entry she also anticipates marrying three times.) Finally, although she mostly focuses on literature and music, Haas also includes several prescient notes on geopolitics, including the role of America in the world (e.g. 7/21/1928 and 8/2/1928) and the ebb of British colonialism (e.g. 8/7/1928).
 
Her diary concludes on 1/3/1931, with Haas enrolled at the University of Chicago, where, despite a full course roster, she plans a supplemental study regimen to guard against over-specialization: "I have planned a course of study for myself, which if carried out, will be more comprehensive than any university education could possibly be unless supplemented by wide reading."
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  Selected Quotations
  • On America (in response to Ludwig quote "To youth belongs the world, and that is why it is now belongs to America"): "The American is a citizen of the world whom youth and favorable circumstances, effort and naivete, health, naturalness and humor have aided to a more pleasant existence than ours…What will happen when America is in her fourth act? Who will constitute the youthful nation then? Will it be such rejuvenating countries as Russia, China, and India, or will someone make another planet accessible, on which to start all over again?" (7/21/1928)

  • On Civilization: "When one stops to think about it, even the most civilized peoples are not far from being barbarians themselves. Let us look at our own country. There are hundreds of murders and rapes and like in the course of a single day…Thousands of people are getting drunk daily, or at least drinking, simply because by so doing they break federal law. In the business world, in the political world, in the so-called 'social' world, the spoils go to the victor regardless of any justice" (8/2/1928)

  • On Colonialism (in response to Thomas Hardy quotation): "The statement that Emancipation was the great question of the age is very interesting—but the most interesting point about it is that it is still the great question of this age…Look at Russia, India, China. Russia has finally freed herself from the domination of the aristocracy, but she is under a different domination that is scarcely any better. China is trying to free herself. Perhaps under the Nationalist regime she will be better off…India, at least a great part of India, wants to be free from the domination of the British. Even said Scotland is clamoring for Home Rule. Britain may wake up some day and find herself bereft of her many colonies" (8/7/1928)
 
 Subjects:  Art. | Colonialisms | Diaries. | Education. | Literature. | Music. | Psychology. | Science. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Politics and government. | University of Chicago. | Women--History. 
 Collection:  Mary Rosamond Haas papers, ca. 1910-1996  (Mss.Ms.Coll.94)  
  Go to the collection
 
6.Title:  Alexander Dallas Bache Diary (1862)
 Dates:  1862 - 1862 
 Extent:  1 volume  
 Locations:  Baton Rouge | Mobile | Natchez | New Orleans | Philadelphia | Vicksburg 
 Abstract:  The Alexander Dallas Bache diary offers an unusual view of Civil War battlefields from the perspective of the superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Bache served as Captain's Clerk aboard USS Harford flagship, one of 17 Union ships that traveled up the Mississippi River to take New Orleans. With entries spanning the spring and summer of 1862 (4/14-7/13), this volume recounts naval bombardments in the early years of the war, provides textured accounts of the Confederate South, and will no doubt interest researchers who study the Civil War, U.S. military history, and the Confederate States of America. 
    
Bache's diary provides curt but consistent accounts of the Union's military operations, particularly along the Mississippi River. Those include the Battle of Charlotte (4/25), the Battle of Baton Rouge (5/28), and the Battle of Vicksburg (6/28). Notably, Bache travels to shore on at least one occasion, furnishing first-hand accounts of the Confederate South. For example, he attends a religious service, writing, "Some of the officers went to church where they prayed for the President of the Confed. States" (5/13). Later, he describes as Natchez as a "very pretty place" (5/18). Interested researchers might consider pairing this volume with the Thomas Hewson Bache Diary, also from 1862, which provides a surgeon's perspective on the Battle of Baton Rouge.
 
    
The Alexander Dallas Bache diary offers an unusual view of Civil War battlefields from the perspective of the superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Bache served as Captain's Clerk aboard USS Harford flagship, one of 17 Union ships that traveled up the Mississippi River to take New Orleans. With entries spanning the spring and summer of 1862 (4/14-7/13), this volume recounts naval bombardments in the early years of the war, provides textured accounts of the Confederate South, and will no doubt interest researchers who study the Civil War, U.S. military history, and the Confederate States of America.
 
Bache's diary provides curt but consistent accounts of the Union's military operations, particularly along the Mississippi River. Those include the Battle of Charlotte (4/25), the Battle of Baton Rouge (5/28), and the Battle of Vicksburg (6/28). Notably, Bache travels to shore on at least one occasion, furnishing first-hand accounts of the Confederate South. For example, he attends a religious service, writing, "Some of the officers went to church where they prayed for the President of the Confed. States" (5/13). Later, he describes as Natchez as a "very pretty place" (5/18). Interested researchers might consider pairing this volume with the Thomas Hewson Bache Diary, also from 1862, which provides a surgeon's perspective on the Battle of Baton Rouge.
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  Selected Quotations
  • "the bombing in the night was beautiful" (4/19)

  • Receives news that "the American flag flies over Jackson" (4/28)

  • "Some of the officers went to church where they prayed for the President of the Confed. States" (5/13)
 
 Subjects:  American Civil War, 1861-1865 | Confederate States of America. | Diaries. | Medicine. | Religion. | Science. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States Coast Survey. | United States--Politics and government--1783-1865. | Weather. 
 Collection:  A. D. Bache Collection  (Mss.B.B123)  
  Go to the collection
 
7.Title:  Sylvanus Griswold Morley Diaries (1905-1947)
 Dates:  1905 - 1947 
 Extent:  39 volumes  
 Locations:  Baltimore | Boston | Havana | Mexico City | New York | Philadelphia | Washington D.C. | Acajutla | Aguas Calientes | Albany | Albuquerque | Altar de Sacrificios | Amapala | Antonito | Apizaco | Baldwinville | Benque Viejo del Carmen | Bluefields | Cahabon | Cambridge | Camotan | Campeche | Cayo | Chable | El Ceibal | Chester | Chenku | Chichen | Chorro | Cliff Palace | Copan | Corozal | Esperanza | Flores | Guatemala City | Ithaca | Itza | Jocotan | La Junta | Little Ruin Canyon | Livingston | Merida | Metapan | Miami | Monte Alban | Nashua | New Orleans | Oaxaca | Orizaba | Pabellon de Arteaga | Palenque | Palizada | Palm Beach | Panzos | Paso Caballos | Peten | Piedras Negras | Piste | Prinzapolka | Progreso | Puebla City | Puerto Barrios | Puerto Cortez | Puerto Morelos | Puerto San Jose | Quetzaltenango | El Remate | Rio de Janeiro | Rochester | San Cristobal | San Francisco | San Lorenzo | San Pedro Sula | San Salvador | Santa Fe | Sayaxche | Sipacate | Socorro | Springfield | Swarthmore | Tapachula | Tegucigalpa | Ticul | Tikal | Topoxte | Trujillo | Tulum | Tuxtla Gutierrez | Uaxactun | Utila | Valladolid | Wilkes-Barre | Worcester | X-Kanchakan | Xocenpich | Yaloch | Zacapa | Zacatecoluca 
 Abstract:  The 39 volumes of Sylvanus ("Vay") Griswold Morley diaries span 42 years of the first-half of the twentieth century, and provide textured accounts of Morley's personal affairs, archaeological expeditions in Central and South America, and developments of World War I and II in South America. Morley began keeping a journal while he was in school (1905) and continued maintaining it until 1946, a year before his death the year before his death (1947). Notably, all entries are typed, enabling researchers to quickly scan volumes for specific interests. 
    
Morley's early diaries provide intimate accounts of personal affairs, including his romantic relationships and education at Harvard University. In addition to documenting his budding relationship with Alice Williams, whom he would marry in 1908 and divorce in 1914, Morley writes at length about the planning of his first field trip to the Yucatan (1906-07). During that trip, he provides rich accounts of Havana (2/4/1907), Uxmal (2/15/1907), and his first excavation (8/19/1907).
 
Starting in 1912, his diary takes on a closer resemblance to a field notebook, with detailed accounts of his excavations in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. Interspersed in those records are fascinating accounts of the World War I and World War II, including oblique references to Morley's espionage work. For example, on January 9, 1914 he writes of a "curious telegram warning" from Washington: "'Make no affiliations in the C.matter. This is a danger signal. Await further advices.' I cannot imagine what this can mean. Is it a warning against H.? I sent the following reply: 'Have made no affiliations whatever. Will make none. Will preserve absolute secrecy and keep free from all entanglements. My case is in your hands. Am awaiting further instructions.' Think I will hear by Monday."
 
As the war unfolded, Morley recorded its effects in both Central and South America, including President Woodrow Wilson's "destructive" policy in Mexico (2/13/1914), the geopolitical scramble for Guatemala, and the "key-stone of the arch between the Rio Grande and the canal" (12/8/1917). Later, at the outset of World War II, Morley notes Japanese encroachment on the Dutch East Indies (2/19/1941), and even the attack on Pearl Harbor, "a series of shots that literally were heard around the world" (12/29/1941).
 
In fact, war proves disruptive for Morley's work. A colleague, Dr. Moise La Fleur, is killed during a Mexican chicleros attack (5/17-19/1916), an incident from which Morley does not soon recover. Moreover his excavation of Chichen Itza is badly delayed until 4/28/1924.
 
Nevertheless, researchers interested in both the history of South America and the field of archaeology will be rewarded with meticulous descriptions of excavations conducted between the 1920s-1940s.
 
    
The 39 volumes of Sylvanus ("Vay") Griswold Morley diaries span 42 years of the first-half of the twentieth century, and provide textured accounts of Morley's personal affairs, archaeological expeditions in Central and South America, and developments of World War I and II in South America. Morley began keeping a journal while he was in school (1905) and continued maintaining it until 1946, a year before his death the year before his death (1947). Notably, all entries are typed, enabling researchers to quickly scan volumes for specific interests.
 
Morley's early diaries provide intimate accounts of personal affairs, including his romantic relationships and education at Harvard University. In addition to documenting his budding relationship with Alice Williams, whom he would marry in 1908 and divorce in 1914, Morley writes at length about the planning of his first field trip to the Yucatan (1906-07). During that trip, he provides rich accounts of Havana (2/4/1907), Uxmal (2/15/1907), and his first excavation (8/19/1907).
 
Starting in 1912, his diary takes on a closer resemblance to a field notebook, with detailed accounts of his excavations in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. Interspersed in those records are fascinating accounts of the World War I and World War II, including oblique references to Morley's espionage work. For example, on January 9, 1914 he writes of a "curious telegram warning" from Washington: "'Make no affiliations in the C.matter. This is a danger signal. Await further advices.' I cannot imagine what this can mean. Is it a warning against H.? I sent the following reply: 'Have made no affiliations whatever. Will make none. Will preserve absolute secrecy and keep free from all entanglements. My case is in your hands. Am awaiting further instructions.' Think I will hear by Monday."
 
As the war unfolded, Morley recorded its effects in both Central and South America, including President Woodrow Wilson's "destructive" policy in Mexico (2/13/1914), the geopolitical scramble for Guatemala, and the "key-stone of the arch between the Rio Grande and the canal" (12/8/1917). Later, at the outset of World War II, Morley notes Japanese encroachment on the Dutch East Indies (2/19/1941), and even the attack on Pearl Harbor, "a series of shots that literally were heard around the world" (12/29/1941).
 
In fact, war proves disruptive for Morley's work. A colleague, Dr. Moise La Fleur, is killed during a Mexican chicleros attack (5/17-19/1916), an incident from which Morley does not soon recover. Moreover his excavation of Chichen Itza is badly delayed until 4/28/1924.
 
Nevertheless, researchers interested in both the history of South America and the field of archaeology will be rewarded with meticulous descriptions of excavations conducted between the 1920s-1940s.
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  Selected Quotations
  • Anxiety about the Chichen Itza project: "I am good for nothing to-day. My anxiety is such that when I try to concentrate my heart jumps into my mouth. A thousand times look at my watch. It reads ten I think twelve in Washington. And so it has been all day. I have done my best now the only thing to do is to wait" (1/15/1914)

  • Acknowledges difficulty of diary-writing: "These annual diaries of mind begin (usually) the day I leave Washington and should continue until I get back, but in looking over them I find that they usually stop when I get back to civilization as expressed by some frontier-town at the edge of the bush on my last trip there into. Perhaps this year of 1922 I may do better but quien sabe, a real diary of events in these eventful countries is a real business to keep going and I may fall by the wayside" (1/10/1922)

  • On marriage and work: "How could I think that June morning of 1923 10 years ago as we sat around the big mahogany table in the Board Room of the Administration Building there in Washington, that just 10 years hence I would be concluding the arrangements with the Mexican Government, which that report then presented was to inaugurate. Just 10 years getting to it. The European War intervened, came too the smashing of my married life, and a tremendous change in me. From an old-fashioned, highly conservative, and unworldly young man, I have changed into—well at least I love my work and I hope have built higher and higher ideals for myself in it. As for the rest in a few years we are gone for always never never to return. Oppressive as that thought is, it is due to our own personal conceit, it is not too dreadful. This world is a delightful place to be alive in, and the privilege of living in it at all, is worth the pains and trials that living necessarily entails" (6/6/1923)
 
 Subjects:  Archaeology. | Aztec art. | Aztec architecture. | Carnegie Institute. | Central America. | Diaries. | Expedition | Mayan hieroglyphic research | South America. | Travel. | United States--Politics and government. | World War I. | World War II. 
 Collection:  Sylvanus Griswold Morley diaries, 1905-1947  (Mss.B.M828)  
  Go to the collection
 
8.Title:  Henry DeWolf Smyth Diaries (1935-1970)
 Dates:  1935 - 1970 
 Extent:  37 volumes  
 Locations:  Bangkok | Chicago | Geneva | Hong Kong | Kyoto | London | Los Angeles | New York | Paris | Philadelphia | Princeton | Tokyo | Vienna | Washington D.C. | Zurich 
 Abstract:  Henry DeWolf Smyth is perhaps best known for authoring the "Smyth Report," the official government report on the development of the atomic bomb. His diaries offer a glimpse into that report, as well as his career as physicist, diplomat, instructor, policy maker, and administrator. Recorded in 37 notebooks spanning 35 years (1935-1970), the Smyth appointment books reveal his research, extensive professional networks, and wide-ranging travels through the records of meetings, travel arrangements, cocktail parties, and dinners that filled his schedule. While the first couple journals are maintained in small "Lest We Forget" notebooks (1935-1936), the bulk of the collection is available in larger "Frances Juvenile Home Calendar Club" (1936-1958) and "Engagements" books (1959-1970) packed with notes, lists, asides, and occasional newspaper clippings. Notably, he pastes newspaper clippings related to World War II at the front of contemporaneous diaries (1939-1945) and interweaves key news from the war into his own record-keeping, including the attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. declaration of war (12/7-12/9/1941), the death of President Roosevelt (4/12/1945), and the deployment of both atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (8/6-8/9/1941). Although the notes are spare, nested within them are insinuations of Smyth's ascendant career. For example, one note records his appointment as Commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission: "Pres. Truman sees H.— [Henry] offers commission house job. H. home for dinner. We decide yes" (4/18/1949). While it is unclear who authors all of the earlier entries, his wife, Mary C. Smyth, clearly maintains later "Engagements" books (1959-1970). Notably, the "Gray Board" hearings are also detailed in separate page associated with her 1954 diary. Thus, these volumes ought to interest scholars researching Smyth's role in atomic history and international diplomacy as well as those seeking to elevate figures—such as Mary C. Smyth—whose labor might otherwise remain invisible. 
    
 
    
Henry DeWolf Smyth is perhaps best known for authoring the "Smyth Report," the official government report on the development of the atomic bomb. His diaries offer a glimpse into that report, as well as his career as physicist, diplomat, instructor, policy maker, and administrator. Recorded in 37 notebooks spanning 35 years (1935-1970), the Smyth appointment books reveal his research, extensive professional networks, and wide-ranging travels through the records of meetings, travel arrangements, cocktail parties, and dinners that filled his schedule. While the first couple journals are maintained in small "Lest We Forget" notebooks (1935-1936), the bulk of the collection is available in larger "Frances Juvenile Home Calendar Club" (1936-1958) and "Engagements" books (1959-1970) packed with notes, lists, asides, and occasional newspaper clippings. Notably, he pastes newspaper clippings related to World War II at the front of contemporaneous diaries (1939-1945) and interweaves key news from the war into his own record-keeping, including the attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. declaration of war (12/7-12/9/1941), the death of President Roosevelt (4/12/1945), and the deployment of both atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (8/6-8/9/1941). Although the notes are spare, nested within them are insinuations of Smyth's ascendant career. For example, one note records his appointment as Commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission: "Pres. Truman sees H.— [Henry] offers commission house job. H. home for dinner. We decide yes" (4/18/1949). While it is unclear who authors all of the earlier entries, his wife, Mary C. Smyth, clearly maintains later "Engagements" books (1959-1970). Notably, the "Gray Board" hearings are also detailed in separate page associated with her 1954 diary. Thus, these volumes ought to interest scholars researching Smyth's role in atomic history and international diplomacy as well as those seeking to elevate figures—such as Mary C. Smyth—whose labor might otherwise remain invisible.
 
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  Selected Quotations
  • "H&M [Henry and Mary Smyth] together hear president & Congress declare WAR" (12/8/1941)

  • "August 6. First atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan by B-29 on August 5, Japan time. August 9. Second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan b B-29 (Aug 9, Japan time)" (8/6/1945)

  • "Pres. Truman sees H.—offers commission house job. H. home for dinner. We decide yes" (4/18/1949)
 
 Subjects:  Atomic history and culture | Cold War. | Diaries. | Diplomacy. | Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969. | Korean War, 1950-1953. | Space flight. | Travel. | Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | Women--History. | World War II. 
 Collection:  Henry DeWolf Smyth Papers  (Mss.Ms.Coll.15)  
  Go to the collection
 
9.Title:  Simon Flexner Diaries (1899-1944)
 Dates:  1899 - 1944 
 Extent:  38 volumes  
 Locations:  Baltimore | Boston | Cairo | Chicago | Hong Kong | London | Manila | New York | Paris | Rome | San Francisco | Tokyo | Washington D.C. | Alexandria | Atlantic City | Bournemouth | Bryn Mawr | Cambridge | Cleveland | Cold Spring Harbor | Dijon | Busan | Hartford | Honolulu | Ithaca | Kobe | Kyoto | Louisville | Naples | Nagasaki | Nagoya | New Haven | Nikko | Norfolk | Oxford | Palermo | Phoenix | Pinehurst | Pompeii | Portland | Princeton | Rochester | San Diego | Sicily | Seoul | Southampton | Vancouver | Williamsburg | Yokohama 
 Abstract:  With 38 volumes spanning 1899-1944, the Simon Flexner Diaries (1899-1944) provide rich insights into Flexner's laboratory work, leadership at the Rockefeller Institute, study of pathology and bacteriology in the Philippines, and observations on Europe at the outbreak of World War II. Alongside his laboratory notes from Manila (1899-1900), early notebooks record medical and ethnographic observations from Japan (1900, 1915), Korea (1915), and Hawaii (1915), whereas later journals document his late-tenure as director of the Rockefeller Institute (1930-35), travels in colonial Egypt (1934), and visit to France (1918, 1931) and England (1918, 1931, 1938-39) in the years between World War I and World War II. The diaries contained in the Simon Flexner Papers ought to interest scholars researching twentieth-century medicine, philanthropy, colonialism, and war, as well as Flexner's leadership of the Rockefeller Institute and contributions to the fields of pathology and bacteriology. 
    
Early lab notes provide insights into Flexner's research in Asia. For example, an 1899-1900 diary offers a window into Manilla hospitals, travel by rickshaw in Tokyo, and observations on geisha, saki, kimonos, and Emperor in Japan. A later notebook, which purports to document a "Trip to China" in August 1915, actually features observations on the population of Honolulu, female education in Korea, and treatment of tuberculosis in Japan.
 
Later notebooks record Flexner's travels in Europe and final years as director of the Rockefeller Institute. A book misdated "January 3, 1931" provides an account of his journey to England and France to attend the Inter-Allied Scientific Conference (9/15-12/28/1918). Notably, on that trip, Flexner learns of the armistice from his waiter and wonders what the future will hold for Germany after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary (11/11/1918). Interspersed in later journals, researchers will discover Flexner's reflections on "Hitler & Jewish intellectuals" (4/12/1933) and the musings on the "German University Situation" (4/15/1933). In a notebook dated December 1934, Flexner documents a trip to Cairo (12/21/1934) and an encounter with FDR, Jr. (1/18/1935). Several notebooks document his directorship at the Rockefeller Institute between 1930-35, including the effects of the Great Depression on the Institute's budget (6/5/1932), encounters with Rockefeller family in (1931 and 1935), and his personal ambitions (1931).
 
Perhaps most surprising are a series of loosely-bound notes from 1938-1944. Those notes include a trip to England on the eve of World War II (1/1/1938-2/7/1939) as well as reflections on the outbreak and progress of the war. "England & France having exhausted every effort to influence Hitler declared war on Poland," he writes two days after Germany invades Poland, adding, "No enthusiasm on the part of any population—German, English, French—on [going late] this war as happened in 1914!" (9/3/1939). A year later, he records the German invasion of Paris, writing, "poor French, poor world civilization" (6/15/1940). Researchers interested in the history of World War II will discover that Flexner studiously records and comments upon key events, including Italy's entrance into the war (6/10/1940), FDR's declaration of a state of emergency (5/27-5/28/1941), the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941), the U.S. declaration of war on Japan (12/8/1941), the surrender of Italy (9/4/1943), D-Day (6/6/1944), the liberation of Paris (8/23/1944), and FDR's landslide reelection to a fourth term (11/7/1944).
 
    
With 38 volumes spanning 1899-1944, the Simon Flexner Diaries (1899-1944) provide rich insights into Flexner's laboratory work, leadership at the Rockefeller Institute, study of pathology and bacteriology in the Philippines, and observations on Europe at the outbreak of World War II. Alongside his laboratory notes from Manila (1899-1900), early notebooks record medical and ethnographic observations from Japan (1900, 1915), Korea (1915), and Hawaii (1915), whereas later journals document his late-tenure as director of the Rockefeller Institute (1930-35), travels in colonial Egypt (1934), and visit to France (1918, 1931) and England (1918, 1931, 1938-39) in the years between World War I and World War II. The diaries contained in the Simon Flexner Papers ought to interest scholars researching twentieth-century medicine, philanthropy, colonialism, and war, as well as Flexner's leadership of the Rockefeller Institute and contributions to the fields of pathology and bacteriology.
 
Early lab notes provide insights into Flexner's research in Asia. For example, an 1899-1900 diary offers a window into Manilla hospitals, travel by rickshaw in Tokyo, and observations on geisha, saki, kimonos, and Emperor in Japan. A later notebook, which purports to document a "Trip to China" in August 1915, actually features observations on the population of Honolulu, female education in Korea, and treatment of tuberculosis in Japan.
 
Later notebooks record Flexner's travels in Europe and final years as director of the Rockefeller Institute. A book misdated "January 3, 1931" provides an account of his journey to England and France to attend the Inter-Allied Scientific Conference (9/15-12/28/1918). Notably, on that trip, Flexner learns of the armistice from his waiter and wonders what the future will hold for Germany after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary (11/11/1918). Interspersed in later journals, researchers will discover Flexner's reflections on "Hitler & Jewish intellectuals" (4/12/1933) and the musings on the "German University Situation" (4/15/1933). In a notebook dated December 1934, Flexner documents a trip to Cairo (12/21/1934) and an encounter with FDR, Jr. (1/18/1935). Several notebooks document his directorship at the Rockefeller Institute between 1930-35, including the effects of the Great Depression on the Institute's budget (6/5/1932), encounters with Rockefeller family in (1931 and 1935), and his personal ambitions (1931).
 
Perhaps most surprising are a series of loosely-bound notes from 1938-1944. Those notes include a trip to England on the eve of World War II (1/1/1938-2/7/1939) as well as reflections on the outbreak and progress of the war. "England & France having exhausted every effort to influence Hitler declared war on Poland," he writes two days after Germany invades Poland, adding, "No enthusiasm on the part of any population—German, English, French—on [going late] this war as happened in 1914!" (9/3/1939). A year later, he records the German invasion of Paris, writing, "poor French, poor world civilization" (6/15/1940). Researchers interested in the history of World War II will discover that Flexner studiously records and comments upon key events, including Italy's entrance into the war (6/10/1940), FDR's declaration of a state of emergency (5/27-5/28/1941), the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941), the U.S. declaration of war on Japan (12/8/1941), the surrender of Italy (9/4/1943), D-Day (6/6/1944), the liberation of Paris (8/23/1944), and FDR's landslide reelection to a fourth term (11/7/1944).
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  Selected Quotations
  • Compares WWII to WWI: "No enthusiasm on the part of any population—German, English, French—on [going late] this war as happened in 1914!" (9/3/1939)

  • On his 78th birthday: "It is not a happy time. The gloom and danger of this incredible war [hangs] heavily over the spirits" (3/25/1941)

  • The liberation of Paris: "A very exciting day. Paris has been liberated and it reported also that Marseilles has been taken together with Grenoble" (8/23/1944)
 
 Subjects:  Asia. | Bacteriology. | Diaries. | Egyptology. | Europe. | Medicine. | Pathology. | Philanthropy and society | Philippines. | Rockefeller Institute. | Science. | Travel. | United States--Politics and government. | World War I. | World War II. 
 Collection:  Simon Flexner Papers  (Mss.B.F365)  
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10.Title:  George Harrison Shull Diaries (1893-1908)
 Dates:  1893 - 1908 
 Extent:  5 volumes  
 Locations:  Antwerp | Belfast | Brussels | Cincinnati | Columbus | Dayton | Dublin | Fairfield | Ghent | Lawrenceville | London | Paris | Saint Andrews | Springfield | Versailles 
 Abstract:  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/
 
    
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/
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 Subjects:  Americanization. | Botany. | Diaries. | Education. | Europe. | Flowers. | Genetics. | Horticulture. | Phrenology. | Physiognomy. | Plant genetics. | Plants. | Religion. | Science. | Social Darwinism. | Suffragists. | Temperance. | Travel. | United States--Politics and government. | Weather. | World's Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago, Ill.) 
 Collection:  George Harrison Shull papers, 1874-1955  (Mss.B.Sh92)  
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11.Title:  Henry Herbert Donaldson Diaries (1890-1938)
 Dates:  1890 - 1938 
 Extent:  49 volumes  
 Locations:  Amsterdam | Boston | Chicago | London | New York | Paris | Philadelphia | Rome | Washington D.C. | Albany | Amherst | Ann Arbor | Arreau | Atlantic City | Avignon | Avranches | Baltimore | Bermuda | Bryn Mawr | Burlington | Bushkill | Cambridge | Charlottesville | Cherbourg | Cincinnati | Cork | Darby | Denver | Dublin | Eagleville | Edinburgh | Falmouth | Florence | Germantown | Grenoble | Harrisburg | Haverford | Heidelberg | Innsbruck | Ithaca | Jamestown | Key West | Lancaster | Liverpool | Lourdes | Malvern | Martha's Vineyard | Media | Millbrook | Milwaukee | Monticello | Montreal | Nantucket | Naples | Newark | New Haven | New Orleans | Newport | Newtown | Nimes | Norristown | North Berwick | Norwich | Northampton | Ocean City | Oxford | Paoli | Pinebluff | Pittsburg | Portland | Princeton | Providence | Quebec City | Rangeley | Richmond | Saranac Lake | Saratoga Springs | Southampton | St. Louis | Swarthmore | Warm Springs | Toronto | Toulouse | Venice | Verona | Vienna | Vignolles | Villanova | Vineland | Williamsburg | Worcester 
 Abstract:  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).
 
    
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).
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  Selected Quotations
  • 1893 World's Fair: "Boas asked me to care for the brain exhibit at the World's Fair" (5/26/1893)

  • Death of Julia: "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)

  • Organizational Leadership: "Special dinner at Lenape Club. 25th of club. 20th of my presidency. My birthday 80…It was a great event for me. No bad effects" (5/12/1937)
 
 Subjects:  American Neurological Association | American Philosophical Society. | Diaries. | Europe. | Franklin Institute (Philadelphia, Pa.) | Medicine. | Mental health. | Neurology. | Physiological Society of Philadelphia | Science. | Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society | Travel. | United States--Politics and government. | Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology | World War I. | World's Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago, Ill.) 
 Collection:  Henry Herbert Donaldson diaries and papers, 1869-1938  (Mss.B.D713, D713m, D713p)  
  Go to the collection
 
12.Title:  Robert Woodruff Journal (1785-1788)
 Dates:  1785 - 1788 
 Extent:  1 volume  
 Locations:  Annapolis | Baltimore | Bath | Boston | Cabin Point | Charleston | Elizabethtown | Exeter | Falmouth | Fredericksburg | Georgetown | Halifax | London | Middleton | Murrells Inlet | New Brunswick | New York | Newbern | Newport | Newtown | Norfolk | Petersburg | Philadelphia | Princeton | Providence | Richmond | Savannah | Tarboro | Trenton | Williamsburg | Wilmington | Wilmington, North Carolina 
 Abstract:  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). 
    
 
    
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).
 
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  Selected Quotations
  • "Went to the State house to see the Election of President, Vice President of the State—this is performed at a joint meeting of the two Branches of the Legislature—and the Mode of Election is by Ballot—At this time the president Dr. Franklin was unanimously re-elected, there being but one dissentient Ballot, which was put in by himself in Favor of a Mr. Biddle, who was candidate for the Office of Vice President, and elected by a small Majority—his competitions was a general Muhlenberg" (11/4/1786)

  • "[T]he College in this Town [Princeton] is a handsome stone Edifice regularly built with a large square in Front…There are about 100 Students in the College—it was Vacation time—the Constitution of the College is different from those of Eton or Westminster, or of the two universities—not being perfectly a school or perfectly a College" (10/27/1786)

  • "The State of Georgia is the most Southern of the United States…Georgia is increasing daily, owing to the prodigious Number of Emigrants since the Peace—I am credibly informed, that in Wilks County at the Commencement of the War there were not twelve Families, but that last year the Returns made to the General Assembly it appeared there were in that County—12537 Whites & 4723 Blacks" (2/6/1788)
 
 Subjects:  American Philosophical Society. | Constitutional conventions--United States. | Diaries. | Diplomacy. | Harvard University. | Indians of North America. | Native America | Travel. | Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790. | Muhlenberg, Henry, 1753-1815. | Loyalist | Philadelphia history | Princeton University. | Seafaring life. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States--Politics and government--1783-1809. | Urban planning and environment | Washington, George, 1732-1799. | Weather. 
 Collection:  Robert Woodruff journal. December 17, 1785 - May 1, 1788  (Mss.917.4.W852)  
  Go to the collection
 
13.Title:  Theodosius Dobzhansky Diaries (1934-1975)
 Dates:  1934 - 1975 
 Extent:  47 volumes  
 Locations:  Adelaide | Auckland | Basel | Bogota | Bombay | Boston | Brisbane | Cairns | Cairo | Caracas | Casablanca | Christchurch | Dublin | Florence | Geneva | Gothenburg | Houston | London | Marseille | Melbourne | New York | Paris | Perugia | Philadelphia | Rennes | Rome | San Salvador | São Paulo | Stockholm | Thessaloniki | Wellington 
 Abstract:  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 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).
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  Selected Quotations
  • Explanation for switching to English: "I am switching to English, in other than my child would find it easier to accompany her father's experiences, is she wants to accompany them. I am going through strong spiritual crisis, and hope that it results to be beneficial. The starting point is, of course, a fear of death, and a fear that death may be close…I feel a terrific desire to live and all my soul rebels against death. But whatever comes has to be accepted, although acceptance is not easy. So, a new spiritual balance has to be found. It can be found only by renunciation of personal vanity, pride, and ambition, and mainly through love—love of the world as it is, and seen as it is. I have to reach this, however difficult it may be for my passionately self-assertive nature. Have decided to write an article on evolution as a basis of a religious world view. But it will not be [polished] but laid to rest. If I live develop it, possibly to a book form. If I die, it must be polished posthumously. Other plans will have to wait for Tuesday when I see the physician specialist on thyroid" (2/16/1952)

  • On his forced retirement: "No use pretending, it is a terribly sad day. It is the last day of my being a regularly employed, active, recognized professor. Tomorrow I shall be emeritus, retired, discarded, pensioner. This after 50 or 51 teaching in institution of higher learning—50 since I became "assistant" in zoology in my faculty of agriculture, 51 since I started teaching at the ["Rablek"] in Kiev University. Tomorrow, I have no official duty, old, at best tolerated in same laboratory, superfluous "senior" member, waiting for death to remove this relic." (6/30/1970)

  • Nixon's resignation: "What a day—the news of Nixon's resignation! And it was less than 2 years go this sinister crook was at [that] time well known to be a crook, was elected by two-thirds of the American electorate. A bad recommendation for democracy which do that. And yet today's event is a high mark for the same democracy—a crook can eventually be kicked out. This cannot happen in a communist dictatorship, where Watergate would never become known, and if it were know[n] would be considered a normal government measure. Anyway, I was fearful that I will not outlive Nixon's presidency. I did outlive him. But for him, sic transit gloria mundi, though he is crook, what a fall from what a height" (8/8/1974)
 
 Subjects:  Australia. | Central America. | Columbia University | Creationism. | Diaries. | Europe. | Evolutionary developmental biology. | Expedition | Genetics. | Higher education & society | Nixon, Richard M. (Richard Milhous), 1913-1994. | Race. | Russians--United States. | Science. | South America. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | University of California, Davis 
 Collection:  Theodosius Dobzhansky Papers  (Mss.B.D65)  
  Go to the collection
 
14.Title:  John Warner Diaries (1862-1872)
 Dates:  1862 - 1872 
 Extent:  55 volumes  
 Locations:  Aberdeen | Agrigento | Airolo | Alexandria | Altdorf | Amsterdam | Angers | Athens | Baden-Baden | Barcelona | Bari | Barletta | Basel | Beirut | Belgrade | Berlin | Bern | Birkenhead | Bologna | Boston | Brienz | Bringen | Bristol | Bruchsal | Bruges | Brussels | Budapest | Cadiz | Cairo | Calais | Cambridge | Campodolcino | Capri | Carnac | Chateaulin | Cherbourg | Civitavecchia | Cologne | Como | Copenhagen | Cordoba | Dresden | Edinburgh | Einsiedeln | Empoli | Fano | Finale Ligure | Florence | Floridia | Fluelen | Frankfurt | Freiburg | Gdansk | Geneva | Genoa | Glasgow | Gloucester | Goschenen | Goslar | Granada | Greenock | Grindelwald | Haarlem | Hamburg | Heidelberg | Helsinki | Interlaken | Istanbul | Jerusalem | Kazan | Kehl | Konstanz | Larnaca | Leipzig | Linz | Liverpool | London | Lubeck | Lucca | Lucerne | Ludwigshafen | Luxembourg City | Lyon | Mainz | Malmo | Manchester | Manheim | Martigny | Międzyrzecz | Milan | Moscow | Mount Carmel | Nablus | Nantes | Nazareth | Neuhaus | Newcastle | Nicolosi | Nottingham | Novara | Nuremberg | Oradea | Palermo | Paris | Patmos | Perth, Scotland | Perugia | Pescara | Philadelphia | Piraeus | Pisa | Plouharnel | Pompeii | Potsdam | Pottstown | Pottsville | Preston | Ravenna | Reichenau | Reichenbach Falls | Rhodes | Rhone Glacier | Rome | Roskilde | Saint Gallen | Saint Petersburg | Saint-etienne | Salzburg | Samos | Sempach | Siena | Sissach | Solothurn | Staffa | Stockholm | Stuttgart | Suez | Sulechow | Swiebodzin | Taormina | Thun | Tiberias | Trieste | Turin | Uppsala | Utrecht | Valencia | Vatican | Veliky Novgorod | Venice | Verona | Versailles | Vienna | Vyborg | Washington D.C. | Wetterhorn | Wiesbaden | Witham | Wittenberg | Worcester, United Kingdom | York | Zurich 
 Abstract:  With 55 volumes spanning 7/8/1862-11/23/1872, the John Warner diaries provide a detailed account of his time abroad (1862-1868) and travels throughout Europe. Although many entries are devoted to talks and lectures (mostly pertaining to zoology), Warner proves also a studious observer of people, cultures, and cultural and religious institutions, which he records through numerous sketches and ephemera. In fact, these volumes present a wealth of research opportunities for scholars of material culture, thanks to Warner's curation of nineteenth-century newspaper clippings, advertisements, programs, and personal illustrations. 
    
Warner's diaries provide an intimate record of his far-flung travels. Alongside visits to zoological and mineralogical collections, Warner patronizes numerous places of worship, for which he often provides sketches of murals and architectural features. (His most impressive color illustrations begin around March 1863). Notably, he visits a Jewish synagogue in the Netherlands (10/13/1862) and a mosque in the Middle East (3/31/1865). He copies verses from a tombstone (9/8/1862), and when he tours the Egyptian pyramids, he records hieroglyphics (4/26/1865). He encloses descriptions of natural scenes—e.g. the Wetterhorn (8/31/1862) and Rhone Glacier (9/4/1862)—and also urban spaces, including a locomotive works in Amsterdam (1/26/1863), a foundry in Greenock (1/30/1863), a prison in York (4/7/1863), a gypsy settlement in Romania (6/13/1865), and even an early account of the Grand Kremlin Palace (8/2/1868).
 
Throughout those travels, Warner recollects his native Pennsylvania to draw evocative geographic and social comparisons. For example, he equates a town outside Belgrade to Burlington on the Delaware (6/9/1865). Upon meeting a foreman at machine shop, he compares the conditions of the poor in America and Germany (8/25/1862). Of particular note, he compares the governor of Nazareth to a "Philadelphia negro" (4/15/1865).
 
At various points in his travels, Warner is compelled to confront U.S. domestic affairs, most especially the Civil War. For example, traveling by rail in Germany in late-1865, he writes, "Met in the [train] car Mr. Joseph Kommer, Lincoln Logan Co., Illinois, a few months back to Germany, now on his way home via Hamburg. He had served in the Northern Army
 
related many things respecting the war and was a good union man" (11/8/1865). Several years later, he visits a castle where he notes a "revolver presented to the King by President Lincoln" (7/9/1868). Although Warner rarely discusses politics directly, he registers his own political activities and sympathies. For example, he attends a "Peace Society" (5/19/1863), a "temperance tea" (9/15/1863), and a lecture on "dwellings for workingmen" (1/6/1866). He records at least one conversation about U.S. nativist movements, particularly the Astor Place Riots, writing, "Met an Irishman who had been in the U.S. some years ago. He doubted whether the Irish, in New York had been incited—as a clan, especially—to take part in the late New York riots, and on account of jealousy of the blacks as competitors for work—he was further opposed to Mr. Lincoln's emancipation edict" (8/18/1863). In another prescient entry, he records an exchange with a Polish miller about poll taxes. "A miller spoke to me, among other subjects, of Poland," Warner writes. "He said Austria and Prussia assist to subjugate Poland, because 'they are all tyrants together.' Of our country, he said there would soon be poll tax" (9/14/1864).
 
When it comes to the topic of slavery, Warner reveals abolitionist sympathies via ephemera. He encloses a newspaper clipping from "Aborigine Protection Society," after which he remarks on the emigration of freed slaves to Liberia (5/20/1863), and encloses another clipping entitled "Negro Emancipation" (6/17/1863).
 
Scholars of nineteenth century material culture will be richly rewarded by the diaries. Alongside hand-drawn maps of buildings, cities, and architectural features, Warner encloses numerous newspaper clippings (e.g. (1/10/1863), engravings (9/27/1864), advertisements (7/9/1865), and theatrical programs (10/6/1865). While the majority of those materials are in English, some ephemera—and Warner's own entries—are in German, French, or Italian.
 
    
With 55 volumes spanning 7/8/1862-11/23/1872, the John Warner diaries provide a detailed account of his time abroad (1862-1868) and travels throughout Europe. Although many entries are devoted to talks and lectures (mostly pertaining to zoology), Warner proves also a studious observer of people, cultures, and cultural and religious institutions, which he records through numerous sketches and ephemera. In fact, these volumes present a wealth of research opportunities for scholars of material culture, thanks to Warner's curation of nineteenth-century newspaper clippings, advertisements, programs, and personal illustrations.
 
Warner's diaries provide an intimate record of his far-flung travels. Alongside visits to zoological and mineralogical collections, Warner patronizes numerous places of worship, for which he often provides sketches of murals and architectural features. (His most impressive color illustrations begin around March 1863). Notably, he visits a Jewish synagogue in the Netherlands (10/13/1862) and a mosque in the Middle East (3/31/1865). He copies verses from a tombstone (9/8/1862), and when he tours the Egyptian pyramids, he records hieroglyphics (4/26/1865). He encloses descriptions of natural scenes—e.g. the Wetterhorn (8/31/1862) and Rhone Glacier (9/4/1862)—and also urban spaces, including a locomotive works in Amsterdam (1/26/1863), a foundry in Greenock (1/30/1863), a prison in York (4/7/1863), a gypsy settlement in Romania (6/13/1865), and even an early account of the Grand Kremlin Palace (8/2/1868).
 
Throughout those travels, Warner recollects his native Pennsylvania to draw evocative geographic and social comparisons. For example, he equates a town outside Belgrade to Burlington on the Delaware (6/9/1865). Upon meeting a foreman at machine shop, he compares the conditions of the poor in America and Germany (8/25/1862). Of particular note, he compares the governor of Nazareth to a "Philadelphia negro" (4/15/1865).
 
At various points in his travels, Warner is compelled to confront U.S. domestic affairs, most especially the Civil War. For example, traveling by rail in Germany in late-1865, he writes, "Met in the [train] car Mr. Joseph Kommer, Lincoln Logan Co., Illinois, a few months back to Germany, now on his way home via Hamburg. He had served in the Northern Army
 
related many things respecting the war and was a good union man" (11/8/1865). Several years later, he visits a castle where he notes a "revolver presented to the King by President Lincoln" (7/9/1868). Although Warner rarely discusses politics directly, he registers his own political activities and sympathies. For example, he attends a "Peace Society" (5/19/1863), a "temperance tea" (9/15/1863), and a lecture on "dwellings for workingmen" (1/6/1866). He records at least one conversation about U.S. nativist movements, particularly the Astor Place Riots, writing, "Met an Irishman who had been in the U.S. some years ago. He doubted whether the Irish, in New York had been incited—as a clan, especially—to take part in the late New York riots, and on account of jealousy of the blacks as competitors for work—he was further opposed to Mr. Lincoln's emancipation edict" (8/18/1863). In another prescient entry, he records an exchange with a Polish miller about poll taxes. "A miller spoke to me, among other subjects, of Poland," Warner writes. "He said Austria and Prussia assist to subjugate Poland, because 'they are all tyrants together.' Of our country, he said there would soon be poll tax" (9/14/1864).
 
When it comes to the topic of slavery, Warner reveals abolitionist sympathies via ephemera. He encloses a newspaper clipping from "Aborigine Protection Society," after which he remarks on the emigration of freed slaves to Liberia (5/20/1863), and encloses another clipping entitled "Negro Emancipation" (6/17/1863).
 
Scholars of nineteenth century material culture will be richly rewarded by the diaries. Alongside hand-drawn maps of buildings, cities, and architectural features, Warner encloses numerous newspaper clippings (e.g. (1/10/1863), engravings (9/27/1864), advertisements (7/9/1865), and theatrical programs (10/6/1865). While the majority of those materials are in English, some ephemera—and Warner's own entries—are in German, French, or Italian.
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  Selected Quotations
  • "Met an Irishman who had been in the U.S. some years ago. He doubted whether the Irish, in New York had been incited—as a clan, especially—to take part in the late New York riots, and on account of jealousy of the blacks as competitors for work—he was further opposed to Mr. Lincoln's emancipation edict" (8/18/1863)

  • "a miller spoke to me, among other subjects, of Poland. He said Austria and Prussia assist to subjugate Poland, because 'they are all tyrants together.' Of our country, he said there would soon be poll tax" (9/14/1864)

  • "In the evening to the Schlon Theater – Play, Leonora. Passably well played—the scenery poor. I think I have seen the same play better performed in the German theater of Philadelphia" (8/17/1865)
 
 Subjects:  American Civil War, 1861-1865 | American Colonization Society. | Catholic Church. | Diaries. | Engineering. | Europe. | Judaism. | Middle East. | Morphology. | Naturalism. | Palestine. | Railroad | Religion. | Science. | Slavery. | Society of Friends. | Temperance. | United States--Politics and government. | Weather. | Zoology. 
 Collection:  John Warner letters and papers, 1850-1864  (Mss.B.W243)  
  Go to the collection
 
15.Title:  Richard Garwin Notebooks (1988-2011)
 Dates:  1988 - 2011 
 Extent:  57 volumes  
 Locations:  Atlanta | Boston | The Hague | Kyoto | London | Los Angeles | Milan | New York | Paris | Philadelphia | Rome | Tokyo | Turin 
 Abstract:  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).
 
    
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).
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  Selected Quotations
  • "Soviets are rational about their own survival" (8/29/1989)

  • "Kuwait not sitting well with people of US" (4/5/1991)

  • "Government hasn't organized to support CTBT" [Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty] (3/18/2010)
 
 Subjects:  Autonomous vehicles. | Cold War. | Computers | DARPA/ITO PAC/C Program | Diaries. | Diplomacy. | Google. | IBM computers. | Internet. | Iraq War, 2003-2011. | National Science Foundation (U.S.) | National Security Council (U.S.) | North Atlantic Treaty Organization. | Nuclear nonproliferation. | Oil industries. | Operation Desert Shield, 1990-1991. | September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. | Travel. | United Nations. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. 
 Collection:  Richard Garwin Papers  (Mss.Ms.Coll.168)  
  
16.Title:  John Louis Haney Diaries (1887-1959)
 Dates:  1887 - 1959 
 Extent:  33 volumes  
 Locations:  Albany | Allenhurst | Allentown | Amsterdam | Andermatt | Antwerp | Ardmore | Asbury Park | Atlantic City | Baltimore | Bangor | Bar Harbor | Basel | Bellagio | Berlin | Bonn | Boston | Boulder | Braunschweig | Bremen | Brienz | Brunswick | Brussels | Bryn Mawr | Buffalo | Burlington | Cambridge | Cape May | Charlotte | Chestertown | Chicago | Cleveland | Cologne | Colorado Springs | Como | Darby | Denver | Detroit | Dieppe | Doylestown | Dresden | Easton | Eisenach | Ephrata | Falmouth | Frankfurt | Geneva | Germantown | Glenwood Springs | Goschenen | Gotha | Gottingen | Grimsel Pass | Grindelwald | Halberstadt | Hannover | Harrisonburg | Hartford | Henley-on-Thames | Hildesheim | Innsbruck | Interlochen | Ithaca | Kassel | Koblenz | Konstanz | Lancaster | Lausanne | Lauterbrunnen | Leipzig | Lindau | London | Lucerne | Lugano | Martigny | Meiringen | Milan | Montreal | Montreux | Mount Gretna | Munich | Nantucket | Natural Bridge | New Haven | New York | Nuremberg | Ottawa | Ouray | Oxford | Paris | Peak's Island | Philadelphia | Pittsburgh | Plymouth | Point Pleasant | Portland, Maine | Princeton | Providence | Regensburg | Rheinsberg | Rockland | Rotterdam | Rouen | Saint Louis | Salisbury | Schaffhausen | Sea Isle City | Seaside Park | Springfield | Strasbourg | Stratford | Stuttgart | Swarthmore | Syracuse | The Hague | Toronto | Trenton | Turka | Utrecht | Valley Forge | Venice | Verona | Vitznau | Washington D.C. | Weimar | Wilmington | Worcester | Zurich 
 Abstract:  John Louis Haney papers contain 33 volumes that Haney maintained from the age of 10 until a year before his death (1887-1959). The first twelve volumes are devoted to his educations (including Sunday School, German School, and the University of Pennsylvania), whereas subsequent volumes trace his career as professor of English (1900-1920) and president of Philadelphia's Central High School (1920-1943), during which Haney published numerous books on Coleridge and Shakespeare. These volumes may interest a host of different scholars—certainly those exploring twentieth-century education and the field of literary criticism—but well as those researching the Great Depression, the 1933 World's Fair, twentieth century U.S. politics (particularly for conservative critique of F.D.R.), the institutional history of the American Philosophical Society (in which Haney was elected a member in 1929), and the history of the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. Researchers may also choose to mine this collection for its rich ephemera, including self-portraits interspersed in diaries (e.g. 1898, 1904-6, 1910-13, 1918-22), as well as an ancillary book of newspaper clippings, a folder of other ephemera, and two volumes of his personal reading lists. 
    
Researchers interested in Haney's biography will find that these volumes meticulously document his education, literary interests, and career. Volumes from the 1890s capture his voracious reading habits. For example, in August 1895, he reads and comments upon Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (8/11) and the Bible (8/18) in the same week. Throughout his journals, Haney provides a useful homespun index at the end of each journal. Beginning in 1898, he adds annual reviews in which he takes stock of his progress. (Those reviews become so exhaustive that, by 1907, he begins adding subcategories of assessment, such as "My Relation to the World At Large," "Literary Work," "Travel," "People Whom I Met," "Drama & Music," "Reading," "Financial," "Family Affairs"). Scholars interested in Philadelphia regional history will note that these early volumes recount Haney frequent visits to book dealer A.S.W. Rosenbach, during which the two discuss books and university affairs (e.g. 6/10/1896, 8/17/1899).
 
Haney's professional career begins in earnest in 1900, when he accepts his position at Central High School. While he acknowledges the significance of the offer at the time (6/29/1900), Haney reflects at greater length in a later entry (9/4/1935). In that year's annual review, he summarizes his progress: "I am inclined to regard 1900 as the most significant year thus far…the development of the bibliography, our experience at Washington and New York
 
the completion of my first novel
 
the work on my thesis
 
my appointment at the High School--truly a diversified array of interests." While Haney's bibliography of Coleridge wouldn't be published for some time (he celebrates receipt of his copy on 9/1/1903), the next twenty years bring significant milestones in his career: Haney becomes department chair (1905 review) and, after a "strenuous campaign," is elected president of Central High School (1920 review).
 
Alongside his literary interests, Haney proves a studious observer of contemporary economics and world affairs. Although he evinces sympathies for laissez-faire capitalism (reference an excerpt from the 1926 annual review), Haney records labor strikes from the 1890s (12/17-18/1895 and 1/3/1896), Black Tuesday (10/29/29, 1929 annual review), and the lived experience of the Great Depression (1930-34 annual reviews). Haney also visits the Chicago World's Fair (1933 review) and discusses the Blizzard of 1899 (2/10/1899), Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight (5/21/1927), the discovery of Pluto (1930 review), Hughes' flight around the world (1938 review), and Russia's launch of a satellite, which he calls a "catastrophe for the West" (1957 review).
 
Haney also demonstrates a sustained interest in domestic (Republican) politics. After the McKinley assassination, he recounts reports of news over almost two weeks (9/7-9/19/1901). He reports considerable excitement concerning President Roosevelt's visit to CHS (11/12/1902), and celebrates the electoral gains of our "virile president" (11/9/1904). (Haney thinks less highly of President Wilson.) He records ratification of women's suffrage (1920 annual review), repeal of 18th Amendment, and passage of the 20th and 21st Amendments (1933 review). A tireless critic of F.D.R., Haney bemoans his election (11/8-9/1932) and reelections (1936 review, 11/6/1940, 11/8/1944), needling his "imprudent Supreme Court Packing idea" (1937 review) and fretting that, "A new American Gestapo set up in Washington is ready to hound any citizen who criticizes the Government" (1944 review). In fact, Haney's critiques of F.D.R. offer a window into conservative backlash against the New Deal, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1935 review). In one of his final journals, he also notes the emergence of new racial coalitions associated with the Civil Rights era, writing, "The Negroes, once grateful to the G.O.P. for bringing about their liberation in the South, have turned their backs on the Republicans and cheerfully vote for politicians who given them untold millions in 'relief' of every sort" (1957 review).
 
Finally, war historians will discover countless accounts of U.S. military activity between the Spanish-American War and World War II. Haney celebrates the destruction of Pascual Cervera y Topete's naval fleet (7/4/1898), and notes with increasing alarm the "gathering war clouds in Europe" (7/30/1914, 1914 annual review). In his next annual review, he mourns Western civilization: "The year 1915 has probably been the most discreditable year since the dawn of civilization-discreditable to civilization and to all that such a state of existence implies. The Great European War, begun about August 1st of the previous year, ran a full twelve-month of slaughter during 1915 with no end in sight…The good name of Germany and of the Teutonic culture has been thrown to the winds. The future of the world's peace demands the defeat of the power that stands for militarism and for brute force" (1915 review). Haney marks Armistice Day as "one of the remarkable days of my life" (11/11/1918), but he soon finds himself profoundly disappointed with reconstruction efforts, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1920 annual review). Haney's 1920s and 1930s entries offer a sobering account of the failures of League of Nations and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. His volumes record milestones of World War II, from the attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941) to the bombing of Hiroshima (8/6-7/1941). "It was epochal," writes Haney. "Papers & radio features the devastating atomic bomb. A new age has begun" (8/7/1941).
 
    
John Louis Haney papers contain 33 volumes that Haney maintained from the age of 10 until a year before his death (1887-1959). The first twelve volumes are devoted to his educations (including Sunday School, German School, and the University of Pennsylvania), whereas subsequent volumes trace his career as professor of English (1900-1920) and president of Philadelphia's Central High School (1920-1943), during which Haney published numerous books on Coleridge and Shakespeare. These volumes may interest a host of different scholars—certainly those exploring twentieth-century education and the field of literary criticism—but well as those researching the Great Depression, the 1933 World's Fair, twentieth century U.S. politics (particularly for conservative critique of F.D.R.), the institutional history of the American Philosophical Society (in which Haney was elected a member in 1929), and the history of the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II. Researchers may also choose to mine this collection for its rich ephemera, including self-portraits interspersed in diaries (e.g. 1898, 1904-6, 1910-13, 1918-22), as well as an ancillary book of newspaper clippings, a folder of other ephemera, and two volumes of his personal reading lists.
 
Researchers interested in Haney's biography will find that these volumes meticulously document his education, literary interests, and career. Volumes from the 1890s capture his voracious reading habits. For example, in August 1895, he reads and comments upon Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (8/11) and the Bible (8/18) in the same week. Throughout his journals, Haney provides a useful homespun index at the end of each journal. Beginning in 1898, he adds annual reviews in which he takes stock of his progress. (Those reviews become so exhaustive that, by 1907, he begins adding subcategories of assessment, such as "My Relation to the World At Large," "Literary Work," "Travel," "People Whom I Met," "Drama & Music," "Reading," "Financial," "Family Affairs"). Scholars interested in Philadelphia regional history will note that these early volumes recount Haney frequent visits to book dealer A.S.W. Rosenbach, during which the two discuss books and university affairs (e.g. 6/10/1896, 8/17/1899).
 
Haney's professional career begins in earnest in 1900, when he accepts his position at Central High School. While he acknowledges the significance of the offer at the time (6/29/1900), Haney reflects at greater length in a later entry (9/4/1935). In that year's annual review, he summarizes his progress: "I am inclined to regard 1900 as the most significant year thus far…the development of the bibliography, our experience at Washington and New York
 
the completion of my first novel
 
the work on my thesis
 
my appointment at the High School--truly a diversified array of interests." While Haney's bibliography of Coleridge wouldn't be published for some time (he celebrates receipt of his copy on 9/1/1903), the next twenty years bring significant milestones in his career: Haney becomes department chair (1905 review) and, after a "strenuous campaign," is elected president of Central High School (1920 review).
 
Alongside his literary interests, Haney proves a studious observer of contemporary economics and world affairs. Although he evinces sympathies for laissez-faire capitalism (reference an excerpt from the 1926 annual review), Haney records labor strikes from the 1890s (12/17-18/1895 and 1/3/1896), Black Tuesday (10/29/29, 1929 annual review), and the lived experience of the Great Depression (1930-34 annual reviews). Haney also visits the Chicago World's Fair (1933 review) and discusses the Blizzard of 1899 (2/10/1899), Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight (5/21/1927), the discovery of Pluto (1930 review), Hughes' flight around the world (1938 review), and Russia's launch of a satellite, which he calls a "catastrophe for the West" (1957 review).
 
Haney also demonstrates a sustained interest in domestic (Republican) politics. After the McKinley assassination, he recounts reports of news over almost two weeks (9/7-9/19/1901). He reports considerable excitement concerning President Roosevelt's visit to CHS (11/12/1902), and celebrates the electoral gains of our "virile president" (11/9/1904). (Haney thinks less highly of President Wilson.) He records ratification of women's suffrage (1920 annual review), repeal of 18th Amendment, and passage of the 20th and 21st Amendments (1933 review). A tireless critic of F.D.R., Haney bemoans his election (11/8-9/1932) and reelections (1936 review, 11/6/1940, 11/8/1944), needling his "imprudent Supreme Court Packing idea" (1937 review) and fretting that, "A new American Gestapo set up in Washington is ready to hound any citizen who criticizes the Government" (1944 review). In fact, Haney's critiques of F.D.R. offer a window into conservative backlash against the New Deal, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1935 review). In one of his final journals, he also notes the emergence of new racial coalitions associated with the Civil Rights era, writing, "The Negroes, once grateful to the G.O.P. for bringing about their liberation in the South, have turned their backs on the Republicans and cheerfully vote for politicians who given them untold millions in 'relief' of every sort" (1957 review).
 
Finally, war historians will discover countless accounts of U.S. military activity between the Spanish-American War and World War II. Haney celebrates the destruction of Pascual Cervera y Topete's naval fleet (7/4/1898), and notes with increasing alarm the "gathering war clouds in Europe" (7/30/1914, 1914 annual review). In his next annual review, he mourns Western civilization: "The year 1915 has probably been the most discreditable year since the dawn of civilization-discreditable to civilization and to all that such a state of existence implies. The Great European War, begun about August 1st of the previous year, ran a full twelve-month of slaughter during 1915 with no end in sight…The good name of Germany and of the Teutonic culture has been thrown to the winds. The future of the world's peace demands the defeat of the power that stands for militarism and for brute force" (1915 review). Haney marks Armistice Day as "one of the remarkable days of my life" (11/11/1918), but he soon finds himself profoundly disappointed with reconstruction efforts, as excerpted in Selected Quotations (1920 annual review). Haney's 1920s and 1930s entries offer a sobering account of the failures of League of Nations and the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. His volumes record milestones of World War II, from the attack on Pearl Harbor (12/7/1941) to the bombing of Hiroshima (8/6-7/1941). "It was epochal," writes Haney. "Papers & radio features the devastating atomic bomb. A new age has begun" (8/7/1941).
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  Selected Quotations
  • "A year ago I recorded that 1919 was a disappointing year. In some respects, 1920 was still more disappointing. We are still in a state of war with Germany, the League of Nations seems to be destined for the scrapheap. Woodrow Wilson is still a very sick man, the Bolsheviks still reign in Moscow, Germany is still whining and trying to evade the terms of the Versailles Treaty, France and England are growing jealous and distrustful of each other, the Irish have had their fill of assassination and contemptable [outlaws], and America has gone through a full twelve-month of declining financial values & business slump…" (1920 review)

  • "It was a year of continued general prosperity and the highest standard of living ever attained by humanity. Such an abundance of wealth and widespread participation in the comforts and luxuries of civilization would have staggered the imagination. The hard-working man of today accepts as his right the conveniences that were the prerogative of the millionaire not so long ago" (1926 review)

  • "Conservatives of both parties noted with rejoicing satisfaction the waning popularity of Pres. Roosevelt, the temperamental playboy of Washington who philandered too long with the fair coquette Miss Socialism" (1935 review)

  • "A year ago I recorded that 1942 was possibly the most destructive year in human history. 1943 was still more so and on an incredible scale of loss for all of the human race and everything that civilization stands for" (1943 review)
 
 Subjects:  Air travel | Atomic history and culture | Blizzards. | Booksellers and bookselling. | Central High School (Philadelphia, Pa.) | Cold War. | Diaries. | Education. | Europe. | Labor--History. | Literature. | Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- ) | Rosenbach Museum & Library | Science. | Space flight. | Spanish-American War, 1898. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | Weather. | World War I. | World War II. 
 Collection:  John Louis Haney papers  (Mss.B.H196)  
  Go to the collection
 
17.Title:  Vaux Family Diaries (1759-1951)
 Dates:  1759 - 1951 
 Extent:  160 volumes  
 Locations:  Adirondack | Albany | Atlanta | Atlantic City | Baltimore | Bar Harbor | Bath, Maine | Bath, United Kingdom | Belfast | Bethlehem | Birmingham, United Kingdom | Boston | Bristol, United Kingdom | Bryn Mawr | Burlington | Calgary | Cambridge | Charleston | Chicago | Cologne | Denver | Detroit | Dublin | Edinburgh | Edmonton | Field | Geneva | Glacier | Glasgow | Grand Canyon | Harrisburg | Hartford | Haverford | Heidelberg | Jersey City | Kansas City | Kennebunkport | Lake Louise | Lake Mohawk | Leeds | Liverpool | London | Los Angeles | Lucerne | Mammoth Springs | Manchester | Marquette | Milan | Milwaukee | Minneapolis | Montclair | Monterey | Montreal | Narragansett | New Brunswick | New Haven | New York | Newport | Niagara Falls | Norfolk | North Bend | Oxford | Paris | Pasadena | Philadelphia | Pittsburg | Plymouth | Port Arthur | Portland, Maine | Portland, Oregon | Portsmouth | Quebec City | Rapid City | Reno | Richmond | Saint Andrews | Saint Gallen | Saint Paul | Salem | Salt Lake City | San Antonio | San Francisco | Santa Barbara | Santa Clara | Santa Fe | Santa Monica | Sheffield | Sioux City | St. Louis | Swarthmore | Tacoma | Tuskegee | Vancouver | Victoria | Washington D.C. | Winnipeg | Wiscasset | Yosemite Valley 
 Abstract:  The sprawling Vaux Family Papers include at least 160 volumes of diaries traversing two centuries of American history (1759-1951). While those journals are maintained predominantly by generations of George, Richard, and William Vaux the collection is bookended by Richard Vaux (1781) and Mary Walsh James Vaux (1906-1951), both of whom supply some of the most surprising records in the collection. (In fact, the Vaux family included some 10 Georges, three Richards, and two Williams.) Reading across these papers, researchers will discover accounts of early American religion during the Second Great Awakening (especially the Society of Friends and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), European towns and cities between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, late-nineteenth century conservation (with accounts of 1880s Yosemite and Theodore Roosevelt), ante and postbellum U.S. politics (including short-lived factions such as the Locofocos), the fields of business, architecture, and photography, and women's history. 
    
The majority Vaux diaries are maintained at least two generations of George Vaux (1800-1927). Those volumes include entries that may interest researchers investigating late-antebellum politics, religion, and Vaux family history (1854-59 diaries), postbellum weather and meteorological observations (1853-1915 daybooks), late-nineteenth century architecture and urban development ("Llsyfran Diary," 1886-1915), and the religious practices of American Friends in the nineteenth century (1825-1927 and 1886-1901 diaries). However, there are also noteworthy volumes from William Vaux, Richard Vaux, Samuel Sansom, and Mary Vaux.
 
William Vaux
 
The diaries of William Vaux (1883-1908) may interest researchers exploring Philadelphia regional history, western expeditions, late-nineteenth century science (especially photography), late-nineteenth century presidential politics, and the 1893 World's Fair, for which Vaux includes a dedicated volume. In addition to accounts of education, marriage, funerals, and the religious practices of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, William Vaux offers at least one account of Brigham Young and the Mormons (1883 diary). Most volumes emphasize his participation in university life (Haverford College and the Drexel Institute), athletics (the American Alpine Club), and postbellum science (the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, the Quaker Asylum and Penitentiary), with occasional notes pertaining to presidential politics, such as the election and assassination of William McKinley.
 
Richard Vaux
 
Two volumes contained in the Richard Vaux papers warrant careful attention. A typed transcript of a 1781 diary (1/1-10/27) furnishes an account of a loyalist during the American Revolution. As detailed in George Vaux's short introduction to the diary, Vaux apprenticed with Samuel Sansom in Philadelphia beginning in 1768. (The original diary, which begins in March 1779 is unavailable.) A loyalist, he spent much of the war in London and returned to Philadelphia shortly after the revolution (c. 1784). Each entry includes paragraph-length account of personal affairs of and socializing with the English upper class, typically beginning with breakfast meetings and running until often quite late at night (usually Vaux notes that he returns home around 11 or midnight, though several entries are much later). Typical social events include breakfasts and dinners (and the individuals involved), pipe smoking, excursions around England, theater showings (e.g. Covent Garden Play House), daily visits to coffee shops (especially Lloyd's Coffee House), painting exhibitions (including the work of Benjamin West), and the Free Mason Lodge. As George Vaux notes in his introduction, Richard is a "man of the world." He also spends a fairly extraordinary amount of time and money on inns and taverns (including Ambrose Lloyd's, Queens Head Tavern, Bull Tavern, March's Tavern, and Falcon Inn). Equally descriptive are his meticulous accounts of expenses: coffee houses and coaches are the most frequent expenses, though Richard Vaux also notes spending on charity, tobacco, tea, newspapers, baths, books, brandy, and milk.
 
Beginning in September 1781, Richard Vaux embarks on a transatlantic voyage, during which he measures daily progress (distance traveled) and coordinates (latitudes). His time on board is marked by ubiquitous illness, particularly sea sickness, injuries, and fevers. The reader also gains a rich sense of the sailors' diets (including pickled tongues) and daily trials (e.g. pests, as Richard records "dismal nights with the bugs" on multiple occasions, including 10/8 and 10/16). Notably, the narrative ends when the ship is boarded by the Hendrik Privateer, a New England ship under the command of Thomas Bensom, which seizes their brig as a "prize to America" and ransacks their stores (10/26).
 
Samuel Sansom
 
Also included in the Richard Vaux papers is the European travel journal of Samuel Sansom (1759-1760), which provides some of the lengthiest, most conversational, and public-facing diary entries researchers will encounter anywhere in the APS collections. The Sansom diary opens with a note from his former apprentice, Richard Vaux, and other front matter suggests that the journal was transcribed at sea from loose pages so that the author could enable his friends to "partake with him in the entertainment he experiences (in the days of his youth)." The volume also features an excerpt from Elizabeth Drinker's journal with a silhouette of Sansom and a note that Sansom left London on 4/1/1760 and returned to Philadelphia on 5/4/1760.
 
Sansom's account begins at the outset of his transatlantic journey, and pays significant attention to travel delays
 
in fact, leaks require his ship to return to Philadelphia just nine days after departure. Upon arriving in London, Sansom travels widely and socializes continuously, particularly with the English upper class. He attends Quaker meetings, frequents coffee houses, and he is preoccupied with various curiosities, from wax figures (11/13/1759) to a dwarf and giant (2/22/1760). Sansom proves a studious observer of the mechanics of production (e.g. grist mills), English towns and cities (especially Birmingham), and Quaker sermons and religious practices. He regularly intersperses prosaic observations with grand musings (reference the 12/20/1759 and 2/1/1760 entries for examples) intended to instruct and delight the friends he imagines will later read his volume with rapt anticipation.
 
Mary Vaux
 
Finally, the Mary Walsh James Vaux maintained a diary in 1906 and for most of the period spanning 1921-1951. Those 40 volumes may interest researchers interested in women's history, Philadelphia regional history, Vaux family history, western expeditions, and the outbreak of WWII. Vaux's diaries include inspirational quotes, notes from religious meetings, lectures, and receptions, shopping lists, addresses, and notes on the weather. Her entries frequently reference the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting (Society of Friends) as well as the League of Women Voters, Female Society for the Relief and Employ of the Poor, and the Salvation Army. Diaries sometimes include ephemera, such as dried leaves and photographs (1927).
 
Although Mary Vaux tends to record cursory notes, sometimes her entries provide insights into her emotional state. Vaux appears to have suffered from depression (reference, for example, 10/29/1927, 11/3/1927, 11/13/1939, and 5/4/1940) and often register significant shifts in mood (compare 9/24/1906 to 11/4/1906). A notebook also appears to include numerous personal letters Mary Vaux collected from her husband, George Vaux, spanning 1932-34. (Each entry begins, "George Vaux is here to speak to Mary"). World War II surfaces in her later diary entries. While Mary Vaux rarely discusses politics or war, her 1940 Pomernatz diary includes draft numbers in place of the 10/27-29 entries. The 12/7/1941 entry in her Excelsior diary and the 12/8/1941 entry in her Pomernatz diary note the outbreak of World War II.
 
    
The sprawling Vaux Family Papers include at least 160 volumes of diaries traversing two centuries of American history (1759-1951). While those journals are maintained predominantly by generations of George, Richard, and William Vaux the collection is bookended by Richard Vaux (1781) and Mary Walsh James Vaux (1906-1951), both of whom supply some of the most surprising records in the collection. (In fact, the Vaux family included some 10 Georges, three Richards, and two Williams.) Reading across these papers, researchers will discover accounts of early American religion during the Second Great Awakening (especially the Society of Friends and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), European towns and cities between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, late-nineteenth century conservation (with accounts of 1880s Yosemite and Theodore Roosevelt), ante and postbellum U.S. politics (including short-lived factions such as the Locofocos), the fields of business, architecture, and photography, and women's history.
 
The majority Vaux diaries are maintained at least two generations of George Vaux (1800-1927). Those volumes include entries that may interest researchers investigating late-antebellum politics, religion, and Vaux family history (1854-59 diaries), postbellum weather and meteorological observations (1853-1915 daybooks), late-nineteenth century architecture and urban development ("Llsyfran Diary," 1886-1915), and the religious practices of American Friends in the nineteenth century (1825-1927 and 1886-1901 diaries). However, there are also noteworthy volumes from William Vaux, Richard Vaux, Samuel Sansom, and Mary Vaux.
 
William Vaux
 
The diaries of William Vaux (1883-1908) may interest researchers exploring Philadelphia regional history, western expeditions, late-nineteenth century science (especially photography), late-nineteenth century presidential politics, and the 1893 World's Fair, for which Vaux includes a dedicated volume. In addition to accounts of education, marriage, funerals, and the religious practices of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, William Vaux offers at least one account of Brigham Young and the Mormons (1883 diary). Most volumes emphasize his participation in university life (Haverford College and the Drexel Institute), athletics (the American Alpine Club), and postbellum science (the Photographic Society of Philadelphia, the Quaker Asylum and Penitentiary), with occasional notes pertaining to presidential politics, such as the election and assassination of William McKinley.
 
Richard Vaux
 
Two volumes contained in the Richard Vaux papers warrant careful attention. A typed transcript of a 1781 diary (1/1-10/27) furnishes an account of a loyalist during the American Revolution. As detailed in George Vaux's short introduction to the diary, Vaux apprenticed with Samuel Sansom in Philadelphia beginning in 1768. (The original diary, which begins in March 1779 is unavailable.) A loyalist, he spent much of the war in London and returned to Philadelphia shortly after the revolution (c. 1784). Each entry includes paragraph-length account of personal affairs of and socializing with the English upper class, typically beginning with breakfast meetings and running until often quite late at night (usually Vaux notes that he returns home around 11 or midnight, though several entries are much later). Typical social events include breakfasts and dinners (and the individuals involved), pipe smoking, excursions around England, theater showings (e.g. Covent Garden Play House), daily visits to coffee shops (especially Lloyd's Coffee House), painting exhibitions (including the work of Benjamin West), and the Free Mason Lodge. As George Vaux notes in his introduction, Richard is a "man of the world." He also spends a fairly extraordinary amount of time and money on inns and taverns (including Ambrose Lloyd's, Queens Head Tavern, Bull Tavern, March's Tavern, and Falcon Inn). Equally descriptive are his meticulous accounts of expenses: coffee houses and coaches are the most frequent expenses, though Richard Vaux also notes spending on charity, tobacco, tea, newspapers, baths, books, brandy, and milk.
 
Beginning in September 1781, Richard Vaux embarks on a transatlantic voyage, during which he measures daily progress (distance traveled) and coordinates (latitudes). His time on board is marked by ubiquitous illness, particularly sea sickness, injuries, and fevers. The reader also gains a rich sense of the sailors' diets (including pickled tongues) and daily trials (e.g. pests, as Richard records "dismal nights with the bugs" on multiple occasions, including 10/8 and 10/16). Notably, the narrative ends when the ship is boarded by the Hendrik Privateer, a New England ship under the command of Thomas Bensom, which seizes their brig as a "prize to America" and ransacks their stores (10/26).
 
Samuel Sansom
 
Also included in the Richard Vaux papers is the European travel journal of Samuel Sansom (1759-1760), which provides some of the lengthiest, most conversational, and public-facing diary entries researchers will encounter anywhere in the APS collections. The Sansom diary opens with a note from his former apprentice, Richard Vaux, and other front matter suggests that the journal was transcribed at sea from loose pages so that the author could enable his friends to "partake with him in the entertainment he experiences (in the days of his youth)." The volume also features an excerpt from Elizabeth Drinker's journal with a silhouette of Sansom and a note that Sansom left London on 4/1/1760 and returned to Philadelphia on 5/4/1760.
 
Sansom's account begins at the outset of his transatlantic journey, and pays significant attention to travel delays
 
in fact, leaks require his ship to return to Philadelphia just nine days after departure. Upon arriving in London, Sansom travels widely and socializes continuously, particularly with the English upper class. He attends Quaker meetings, frequents coffee houses, and he is preoccupied with various curiosities, from wax figures (11/13/1759) to a dwarf and giant (2/22/1760). Sansom proves a studious observer of the mechanics of production (e.g. grist mills), English towns and cities (especially Birmingham), and Quaker sermons and religious practices. He regularly intersperses prosaic observations with grand musings (reference the 12/20/1759 and 2/1/1760 entries for examples) intended to instruct and delight the friends he imagines will later read his volume with rapt anticipation.
 
Mary Vaux
 
Finally, the Mary Walsh James Vaux maintained a diary in 1906 and for most of the period spanning 1921-1951. Those 40 volumes may interest researchers interested in women's history, Philadelphia regional history, Vaux family history, western expeditions, and the outbreak of WWII. Vaux's diaries include inspirational quotes, notes from religious meetings, lectures, and receptions, shopping lists, addresses, and notes on the weather. Her entries frequently reference the Pennsylvania Yearly Meeting (Society of Friends) as well as the League of Women Voters, Female Society for the Relief and Employ of the Poor, and the Salvation Army. Diaries sometimes include ephemera, such as dried leaves and photographs (1927).
 
Although Mary Vaux tends to record cursory notes, sometimes her entries provide insights into her emotional state. Vaux appears to have suffered from depression (reference, for example, 10/29/1927, 11/3/1927, 11/13/1939, and 5/4/1940) and often register significant shifts in mood (compare 9/24/1906 to 11/4/1906). A notebook also appears to include numerous personal letters Mary Vaux collected from her husband, George Vaux, spanning 1932-34. (Each entry begins, "George Vaux is here to speak to Mary"). World War II surfaces in her later diary entries. While Mary Vaux rarely discusses politics or war, her 1940 Pomernatz diary includes draft numbers in place of the 10/27-29 entries. The 12/7/1941 entry in her Excelsior diary and the 12/8/1941 entry in her Pomernatz diary note the outbreak of World War II.
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  Selected Quotations
  • Samuel Sansom: headed to Bath "that famous place of resort for curiosity and pleasure" (10/17/1759)

  • George Vaux: "And so with this entry is closed the year 1898 and a new book is begun. I feel that the year just passed has been full to an unusual extent of trials and temptations hard indeed to bear. O for more resignation, more light, more faith" (12/31/1898)

  • Mary Vaux: "Got my license!" (5/26/1947)
 
 Subjects:  Accounts. | American religious cultures | Architecture. | Athenaeum of Philadelphia. | Blizzards. | British Museum. | Colonial America | Cosmopolitanism. | Diaries. | Europe--Politics and government. | Expedition | Franklin Institute (Philadelphia, Pa.) | Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790. | Loyalist | McKinley, William, 1843-1901. | Medicine. | Mental health. | Meteorology. | Mormon Church. | Photographic Society of Philadelphia | Photography. | Piracy. | Religion. | Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. | Science. | Slavery. | Society of Friends. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States--Civilization--1865-1918. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783. | Urban planning and environment | Weather. | Westminster Abbey. | Women--History. | World War I. | World War II. | World's Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago, Ill.) | Yellowstone National Park. | Young, Brigham, 1801-1877. 
 Collection:  Vaux Family Papers, 1701-1985  (Mss.Ms.Coll.73)  
  Go to the collection
 
18.Title:  Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Diaries (1836-1987)
 Dates:  1836 - 1987 
 Extent:  179 volumes  
 Locations:  Allentown | Antwerp | Atlantic City | Baltimore | Banff | Baton Rouge | Bethlehem | Bonn | Boston | Bridgewater | Brighton | Bryn Mawr | Buffalo | Calgary | Cape May | Charlottesville | Cherbourg | Cheyanne | Chicago | Cincinnati | Cleveland | Cologne | Columbus | Compiegne | Denver | Des Moines | Detroit | Dieppe | Dijon | Dresden | Easton | Edinburgh | Freeport | Geneva | Germantown | Glenn Mills | Gloucester | Harrisburg | Haverford | Interlochen | Jamestown | Jersey City | Kennebunkport | Lansdowne | Lille | Liverpool | London | Luxemburg | Media | Memphis | Merion | Milford | Milwaukee | Narragansett | New Haven | New Orleans | New York | Niagara Falls | Norristown | Oakland | Ogunquit | Omaha | Ostend | Oxford | Paris | Philadelphia | Pittsburg | Portland | Princeton | Providence | Richmond | San Francisco | Santa Barbara | Seattle | Springfield | Saint-Germain-en-Laye | St. Louis | St. Paul | Swarthmore | Varennes-Vauzelles | Verdun | Versailles | Victoria | Vittel | Washington D.C. | West Chester | White Haven | Williamsburg | Williamsport | Wilmington | Winnipeg | Yarmouth | Yorktown | Zurich 
 Abstract:  The sprawling collection of the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers feature at least 179 volumes of diaries that traverse the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The majority of the diaries were maintained by the Smith and Houston families (79 volumes and 94 volumes, respectively); however, members of the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families also kept journals. Reading across these collections, researchers will uncover textured accounts of the Philadelphia centennial exhibition, war, science, religion, nineteenth-century education and conduct, and women's history in antebellum and postbellum America. 
    
The Smith and Houston families comprise the bulk of the diary holdings, though the collection also includes diaries from the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families. Smith Family
 
In the Smith family, journals were maintained by George and Gertrude Smith, Lewis Lawrence Smith, Benjamin H. Smith, A. Lewis Smith, Harry C. Smith, and Margaretta Smith. Contained within them are accounts France and England in the late-nineteenth century (The Lewis Lawrence Smith European travel diary), Niagara Falls and the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s (Smith Western Trip Notebook), reports from the Franco-Prussian War (Benjamin H. Smith's 1870 diary), accounts of antebellum dentistry (A. Lewis Smith diary, dated 3/31/1856), and turn of the century university life (Harry C. Smith diaries). Two sets of papers in this collection deserve special attention, especially for researchers interested in women's history: the George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers and the diaries of Margaretta Mary Wood (later Margaretta Mary Smith).
 
The George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers include five diaries that span 1859-1906, the first of which is signed by a Margaret Smith, wife of Dr. George Smith (1859). That volumes features accounts of religious services and prayer meetings, domestic activities (e.g. chess playing, sewing, and dressmaking, social affairs), recreation (including sleighing, learning to ice skate, and a "royal game of ball" on 3/10), and family affairs, including both a funeral (2/20) and wedding (4/28/1859). Getrude Smith's entries provide glimpses into her interior life, including her reading and her private interpretation of religion and morality. For example, she writes: "Dr. George [Frumar?] preached a long sermon—discoursed on war, oath, &c, the beginning of the Society of Friends, the object in keeping silence—other societies. Stated that present-time would be looked on as a dark period by future Christian worlds" (9/4). Alongside person ruminations, Smith's diary also notes numerous visits to Haverford College, a summer trip into Wyoming Valley (beginning 8/4), two solar eclipses (2/17 and 7/29), and her father's visit to an insane asylum (11/3).
 
Traversing the 54-year period of 1860-1914, Margaretta Smith's diaries provide a thorough and near-continuous account of her adult life, which spanned from the Civil War to the outbreak of the first World War. While Smith's accounts of the lived experience of the Civil War are arguably this collection's greatest treasure, her subsequent diaries provide glimpses at postbellum religion, natural disasters, politics, as well as early-twentieth century domesticity.
 
Smith offers accounts of weather, travel by carriage, train, and ship (especially during an 1875 European trip), records of personal affairs such as family visits, weddings, funerals, and personal health troubles (especially her struggle with "neuralgia," marked by crippling headaches), house chores (e.g. cooking, baking, making preserves, sewing, and making ice cream), and recreational activities (including horseback riding, skating, sledding, sleighing, chess, checkers, walks, and piano-playing). Like many of her peers, she keeps careful track of her reading (including Thackeray, Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and even John Brown) and, thanks to her marriage to Dr. George Smith, she regularly attended lectures, meetings, and commencements at Haverford. She provides firsthand accounts of the Blizzards of 1888 and 1899 (March 1888 and February 1899), and records the election of President Grant (11/4/1868), and assassination of and funeral for President McKinley (9/14-9/19/1901).
 
Most remarkably, however, Smith provides a first-hand account of the outbreak and resolution of the Civil War. She presages the outbreak of war, recording the news that "Fort [Sumter] is besieged" (1/4/1861), the "warlike news" following Mississippi's secession (1/10/1861), and noting fears about "what will become of the Union" (1/12/1861). After the outbreak of the war, Smith thirsts for news, relaying small and large developments. Smith's hopefulness for peace surfaces in early entries. For example, on New Years' Eve 1861, she writes, "A great country in the midst of a civil war! What shall we look for in the New Year. Peace, I trust." However, she nevertheless records attacks as she learns of them, including Fort Sumter (4/15/1861), the Battle of Bull Run (7/22/1861), the surrender of Fort Henry (2/8/1862) and Fort Donelson (2/16/1862), and the Battles of Shiloh (4/9/1862), Antietam (9/10/1862), Fredericksburg (12/15/1862), Gettysburg (7/6/1863), and Chattanooga (11/27/1863). Houston's limited access to information—she often received news via visitors to her home—reveals the slow and uneven pace at which information disseminated during the war. For example, she records the death of Confederate General Johnstone on 4/14/1862, despite the fact that he died a week earlier. Elsewhere, she appears to have access to news print, namely the Atlantic Monthly, which she cites on more than one occasion. In an 8/26/1863 she writes, "Report of English building several iron-clads to send over and assist the Rebels!" By 1864, Smith devotes fewer accounts to military defeats and victories, perhaps because she has grown inured to the bloodshed. Regarding the movements of Confederate soldiers into Chambersburg, she writes, "this does not cause the same alarm that it would two years ago" (7/20/1864). Nevertheless, the war continues to surface in her day-to-day life: she and George board Union soldiers in their home (5/21/1861 and 1/28/1865), see Confederate soldiers in the hospital (8/18/1863), and pass wounded soldiers in train cars (5/23/1864).
 
Civil War historians will find the key events commemorated at length. Those include the Emancipation Proclamation (1/11863)
 
the Battle of Five Forks (4/2-3/1865), which Smith celebrates as something like the end of the war
 
and the assassination of and funeral for Abraham Lincoln, which she records in a series of rich entries spanning 4/15-27/1865. Here, and earlier (e.g. 1/4/1863), Smith takes heart from Lucretia Mott, whom she credits "made a few beautiful remarks on the propriety of silent grief" (4/19/1863).
 
Houston Family
 
The Houston family papers features diaries from "CHS" Houston, Henry Howard Houston II, and Eleanor Houston. The "CHSH Addresses & Notebooks" box includes 20 account books, address books, and notebooks and four diaries spanning 1907-1945. The first diary is perhaps the most unusual: unsigned and undated, with a copyright of 1892, the diarist appears to have contributed entries as early as 1907 and as late as 1931. In some instances, one page features entries from multiple years. For example, November 5 includes a header note from 1931 and a diary entry from 1912 that celebrates the election of Woodrow Wilson. The lengthiest entries relate to a European trip taking in the summer of 1920, during which the diarist notes travel by train and boat, sightseeing, cultural sites, and shopping.
 
The Henry Howard Houston II Papers contain three diaries that span 1913-1917. The first, "Ward's A Line a Day Book," traverses Houston's tenure at Chestnut Hill Academy and the University of Pennsylvania (8/15/1913-3/25/1916). Most entries foreground his recreational activities, including dinners, parties, dances, balls, Greek life, sports (golf, cricket, tennis, swimming, sailing, soccer, and horseback riding), and leisure activities (which Houston variously refers to as "bumming" and "fooling around"). Researchers interested in his studies might also refer to an undated pocket journal that Houston appears to have maintained during a poetry composition class. The second diary, maintained in a French "Agenda" book, picks up less than a year later after Houston volunteered for the American Field Ambulance Service near Verdun, France. These entries (2/1-3/31/1917) reflect a remarkably different young man, who records in unusual detail the horrors of trench warfare. These diary entries present a trove for World War I scholars: Houston describes shell holes along the roadside (3/12/1917), the green light exuded during night shelling (3/14/1917), and the experience of shelling (3/16-3/18/1917). Notably, Houston declares himself a pacifist after a two-day shelling campaign (March 18). He would die on a French airfield a little more than a year later. Entries recorded between 3/11-3/25/1917 are also available in loose, typed pages in a separate box.
 
A prolific diarist, Eleanor Houston Smith maintained some 87 diaries as well various ancillary notebooks spanning 1922-1931 and 1938-1986. These diaries provide glimpses into Eleanor Houston Smith's childhood travels, education, and professional life, especially her conservation work in Maine.
 
As a child, she maintained six diaries related to trips taken in 1920 and 1927. While European scholars may value her accounts of European sites, the 1920 diaries, in particular, may interest World War I historians. The first diary, contained in a black journal entitled "My Trip Abroad" (7/2-9/7/1920) chronicles a trip to Paris that includes occasional allusions to past destruction. For example, Houston notes that Varennes had been "absolutely destroyed," and calls it one of the "saddest and dirtiest" places they visit (8/24/1920). A second diary, a red "My Trip Abroad," picks up where the first left off (9/9-10/5/1920) and includes further references to the war as well as images of the destruction (912-13/1920). Several other diaries furnish accounts of a second trip to Europe six years later.
 
Eleanor Houston Smith maintained diaries throughout her childhood and early adulthood using a variety of different types of notebooks. In some instances, she maintained more than one diary per year (e.g. 1927 and 1931), and others she consolidates multiples years in a single notebook (e.g. 1927-29 and 1924-25). These 10 notebooks include accounts of family travels in the west (summer 1922), her schooling in Paris (1926-27), visits to Yorktown and Jamestown (1931), and San Francisco's Chinatown and Mission districts (1922). Most entries emphasize her early education, secular and religious (including continued attendance of Sunday School) and her studies (e.g. French, music, painting, and golf lessons), though Houston also provides some account of her leisure time, such as play rehearsals, shopping, and socializing with friends. Perhaps most interesting for researchers interested in aviation, Houston notes that she "listened to radio reports of Byrd's flight"—an early nonstop trans-Atlantic flight—in an entry dated 6/30/1927.
 
Houston's subsequent diaries (1928-1986) are maintained in appointment books, engagement books, calendars, and daybooks. These diaries provide accounts of her personal affairs, including French lessons, opera and theater attendance, birthdays, weddings, lunches and dinners, hair and dentist appointments, and various notes about "world affairs." Perhaps most valuable for Houston scholars, her diaries record her conservation work in Maine, as well as the organizations with which she worked at both a national and international (e.g. UNESCO and Conservation Council) and local level (Athenaeum, Franklin Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania).
 
Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner Families
 
Finally, the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers also include diaries maintained by William Morris (an 1865 travel diary), Sarah Ogden (a diary dated August 1836), Thomas and Sarah Clemson (two diaries spanning 1854-1855 and 1863), and Josey and Mary Minor Kenner (two diaries with entries spanning 1849-1897). While each of these volumes warrants examination, the Sarah O. (Meredith) Ogden diary might appeal to researchers studying women's history. In a brief "diary" of eight loose manuscript pages dated August 1836, Ogden purports to offer a "mother's detached thoughts and memories, recorded for her children." In execution, Ogden's entries concerning her daughter Gertrude are anything but detached. Traversing both the concrete (such as a tooth extraction) and the abstract (praise for her daughter's imagination, memory, and childlike "intellect"), Ogden's entries are as much a record of her daughter's childhood as they are a window into Ogden's experience as a parent and spiritual guardian.
 
    
The sprawling collection of the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers feature at least 179 volumes of diaries that traverse the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The majority of the diaries were maintained by the Smith and Houston families (79 volumes and 94 volumes, respectively); however, members of the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families also kept journals. Reading across these collections, researchers will uncover textured accounts of the Philadelphia centennial exhibition, war, science, religion, nineteenth-century education and conduct, and women's history in antebellum and postbellum America.
 
The Smith and Houston families comprise the bulk of the diary holdings, though the collection also includes diaries from the Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner families. Smith Family
 
In the Smith family, journals were maintained by George and Gertrude Smith, Lewis Lawrence Smith, Benjamin H. Smith, A. Lewis Smith, Harry C. Smith, and Margaretta Smith. Contained within them are accounts France and England in the late-nineteenth century (The Lewis Lawrence Smith European travel diary), Niagara Falls and the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s (Smith Western Trip Notebook), reports from the Franco-Prussian War (Benjamin H. Smith's 1870 diary), accounts of antebellum dentistry (A. Lewis Smith diary, dated 3/31/1856), and turn of the century university life (Harry C. Smith diaries). Two sets of papers in this collection deserve special attention, especially for researchers interested in women's history: the George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers and the diaries of Margaretta Mary Wood (later Margaretta Mary Smith).
 
The George Smith and Gertrude Smith Papers include five diaries that span 1859-1906, the first of which is signed by a Margaret Smith, wife of Dr. George Smith (1859). That volumes features accounts of religious services and prayer meetings, domestic activities (e.g. chess playing, sewing, and dressmaking, social affairs), recreation (including sleighing, learning to ice skate, and a "royal game of ball" on 3/10), and family affairs, including both a funeral (2/20) and wedding (4/28/1859). Getrude Smith's entries provide glimpses into her interior life, including her reading and her private interpretation of religion and morality. For example, she writes: "Dr. George [Frumar?] preached a long sermon—discoursed on war, oath, &c, the beginning of the Society of Friends, the object in keeping silence—other societies. Stated that present-time would be looked on as a dark period by future Christian worlds" (9/4). Alongside person ruminations, Smith's diary also notes numerous visits to Haverford College, a summer trip into Wyoming Valley (beginning 8/4), two solar eclipses (2/17 and 7/29), and her father's visit to an insane asylum (11/3).
 
Traversing the 54-year period of 1860-1914, Margaretta Smith's diaries provide a thorough and near-continuous account of her adult life, which spanned from the Civil War to the outbreak of the first World War. While Smith's accounts of the lived experience of the Civil War are arguably this collection's greatest treasure, her subsequent diaries provide glimpses at postbellum religion, natural disasters, politics, as well as early-twentieth century domesticity.
 
Smith offers accounts of weather, travel by carriage, train, and ship (especially during an 1875 European trip), records of personal affairs such as family visits, weddings, funerals, and personal health troubles (especially her struggle with "neuralgia," marked by crippling headaches), house chores (e.g. cooking, baking, making preserves, sewing, and making ice cream), and recreational activities (including horseback riding, skating, sledding, sleighing, chess, checkers, walks, and piano-playing). Like many of her peers, she keeps careful track of her reading (including Thackeray, Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, and even John Brown) and, thanks to her marriage to Dr. George Smith, she regularly attended lectures, meetings, and commencements at Haverford. She provides firsthand accounts of the Blizzards of 1888 and 1899 (March 1888 and February 1899), and records the election of President Grant (11/4/1868), and assassination of and funeral for President McKinley (9/14-9/19/1901).
 
Most remarkably, however, Smith provides a first-hand account of the outbreak and resolution of the Civil War. She presages the outbreak of war, recording the news that "Fort [Sumter] is besieged" (1/4/1861), the "warlike news" following Mississippi's secession (1/10/1861), and noting fears about "what will become of the Union" (1/12/1861). After the outbreak of the war, Smith thirsts for news, relaying small and large developments. Smith's hopefulness for peace surfaces in early entries. For example, on New Years' Eve 1861, she writes, "A great country in the midst of a civil war! What shall we look for in the New Year. Peace, I trust." However, she nevertheless records attacks as she learns of them, including Fort Sumter (4/15/1861), the Battle of Bull Run (7/22/1861), the surrender of Fort Henry (2/8/1862) and Fort Donelson (2/16/1862), and the Battles of Shiloh (4/9/1862), Antietam (9/10/1862), Fredericksburg (12/15/1862), Gettysburg (7/6/1863), and Chattanooga (11/27/1863). Houston's limited access to information—she often received news via visitors to her home—reveals the slow and uneven pace at which information disseminated during the war. For example, she records the death of Confederate General Johnstone on 4/14/1862, despite the fact that he died a week earlier. Elsewhere, she appears to have access to news print, namely the Atlantic Monthly, which she cites on more than one occasion. In an 8/26/1863 she writes, "Report of English building several iron-clads to send over and assist the Rebels!" By 1864, Smith devotes fewer accounts to military defeats and victories, perhaps because she has grown inured to the bloodshed. Regarding the movements of Confederate soldiers into Chambersburg, she writes, "this does not cause the same alarm that it would two years ago" (7/20/1864). Nevertheless, the war continues to surface in her day-to-day life: she and George board Union soldiers in their home (5/21/1861 and 1/28/1865), see Confederate soldiers in the hospital (8/18/1863), and pass wounded soldiers in train cars (5/23/1864).
 
Civil War historians will find the key events commemorated at length. Those include the Emancipation Proclamation (1/11863)
 
the Battle of Five Forks (4/2-3/1865), which Smith celebrates as something like the end of the war
 
and the assassination of and funeral for Abraham Lincoln, which she records in a series of rich entries spanning 4/15-27/1865. Here, and earlier (e.g. 1/4/1863), Smith takes heart from Lucretia Mott, whom she credits "made a few beautiful remarks on the propriety of silent grief" (4/19/1863).
 
Houston Family
 
The Houston family papers features diaries from "CHS" Houston, Henry Howard Houston II, and Eleanor Houston. The "CHSH Addresses & Notebooks" box includes 20 account books, address books, and notebooks and four diaries spanning 1907-1945. The first diary is perhaps the most unusual: unsigned and undated, with a copyright of 1892, the diarist appears to have contributed entries as early as 1907 and as late as 1931. In some instances, one page features entries from multiple years. For example, November 5 includes a header note from 1931 and a diary entry from 1912 that celebrates the election of Woodrow Wilson. The lengthiest entries relate to a European trip taking in the summer of 1920, during which the diarist notes travel by train and boat, sightseeing, cultural sites, and shopping.
 
The Henry Howard Houston II Papers contain three diaries that span 1913-1917. The first, "Ward's A Line a Day Book," traverses Houston's tenure at Chestnut Hill Academy and the University of Pennsylvania (8/15/1913-3/25/1916). Most entries foreground his recreational activities, including dinners, parties, dances, balls, Greek life, sports (golf, cricket, tennis, swimming, sailing, soccer, and horseback riding), and leisure activities (which Houston variously refers to as "bumming" and "fooling around"). Researchers interested in his studies might also refer to an undated pocket journal that Houston appears to have maintained during a poetry composition class. The second diary, maintained in a French "Agenda" book, picks up less than a year later after Houston volunteered for the American Field Ambulance Service near Verdun, France. These entries (2/1-3/31/1917) reflect a remarkably different young man, who records in unusual detail the horrors of trench warfare. These diary entries present a trove for World War I scholars: Houston describes shell holes along the roadside (3/12/1917), the green light exuded during night shelling (3/14/1917), and the experience of shelling (3/16-3/18/1917). Notably, Houston declares himself a pacifist after a two-day shelling campaign (March 18). He would die on a French airfield a little more than a year later. Entries recorded between 3/11-3/25/1917 are also available in loose, typed pages in a separate box.
 
A prolific diarist, Eleanor Houston Smith maintained some 87 diaries as well various ancillary notebooks spanning 1922-1931 and 1938-1986. These diaries provide glimpses into Eleanor Houston Smith's childhood travels, education, and professional life, especially her conservation work in Maine.
 
As a child, she maintained six diaries related to trips taken in 1920 and 1927. While European scholars may value her accounts of European sites, the 1920 diaries, in particular, may interest World War I historians. The first diary, contained in a black journal entitled "My Trip Abroad" (7/2-9/7/1920) chronicles a trip to Paris that includes occasional allusions to past destruction. For example, Houston notes that Varennes had been "absolutely destroyed," and calls it one of the "saddest and dirtiest" places they visit (8/24/1920). A second diary, a red "My Trip Abroad," picks up where the first left off (9/9-10/5/1920) and includes further references to the war as well as images of the destruction (912-13/1920). Several other diaries furnish accounts of a second trip to Europe six years later.
 
Eleanor Houston Smith maintained diaries throughout her childhood and early adulthood using a variety of different types of notebooks. In some instances, she maintained more than one diary per year (e.g. 1927 and 1931), and others she consolidates multiples years in a single notebook (e.g. 1927-29 and 1924-25). These 10 notebooks include accounts of family travels in the west (summer 1922), her schooling in Paris (1926-27), visits to Yorktown and Jamestown (1931), and San Francisco's Chinatown and Mission districts (1922). Most entries emphasize her early education, secular and religious (including continued attendance of Sunday School) and her studies (e.g. French, music, painting, and golf lessons), though Houston also provides some account of her leisure time, such as play rehearsals, shopping, and socializing with friends. Perhaps most interesting for researchers interested in aviation, Houston notes that she "listened to radio reports of Byrd's flight"—an early nonstop trans-Atlantic flight—in an entry dated 6/30/1927.
 
Houston's subsequent diaries (1928-1986) are maintained in appointment books, engagement books, calendars, and daybooks. These diaries provide accounts of her personal affairs, including French lessons, opera and theater attendance, birthdays, weddings, lunches and dinners, hair and dentist appointments, and various notes about "world affairs." Perhaps most valuable for Houston scholars, her diaries record her conservation work in Maine, as well as the organizations with which she worked at both a national and international (e.g. UNESCO and Conservation Council) and local level (Athenaeum, Franklin Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania).
 
Morris, Ogden, Clemson, and Kenner Families
 
Finally, the Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family Papers also include diaries maintained by William Morris (an 1865 travel diary), Sarah Ogden (a diary dated August 1836), Thomas and Sarah Clemson (two diaries spanning 1854-1855 and 1863), and Josey and Mary Minor Kenner (two diaries with entries spanning 1849-1897). While each of these volumes warrants examination, the Sarah O. (Meredith) Ogden diary might appeal to researchers studying women's history. In a brief "diary" of eight loose manuscript pages dated August 1836, Ogden purports to offer a "mother's detached thoughts and memories, recorded for her children." In execution, Ogden's entries concerning her daughter Gertrude are anything but detached. Traversing both the concrete (such as a tooth extraction) and the abstract (praise for her daughter's imagination, memory, and childlike "intellect"), Ogden's entries are as much a record of her daughter's childhood as they are a window into Ogden's experience as a parent and spiritual guardian.
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  Selected Quotations
  • Margaretta Smith on Lincoln's funeral: "Town streets draped with mourning from beginning to end" (4/18/1865)

  • Henry Howard Houston II on World War I trench warfare: "What mud. Permeates everything…It is impossible to imagine such utter desolation. The houses are all smashed. Shell holes line the road, the ones in the road are repaired at night. At one place, a dead horse sticks his head out of a pile rubbish. At another there is a French ambulance at the bottom of a bank. The driver was killed by rifle ride. The road passes within half a mile of the trenches and one can see them plainly. "No man's land" cannot be described. It is like coke-oven district around Pittsburg, only more so. It is the deadest strip of ground I have ever seen and the most depressing and desolate…The grave yard in back of the post de secours is fire at so often that a man is lucky to stay buried two days" (3/12/1917)

  • Sarah Ogden on heart and intellect: "It is a false idea that 'Intellect' may make us independent of our fellow mortals—that proudly wrapping ourselves in our own high aspirations and bright imaginings we may feel that the world is nothing to us—that we superior to its love or its hate! Sooner or later we shall learn the bitter lessons—that it is not so. While we are in this world, the heart needs an earthly resting place—and the wider the chasm which separates us in mind from those around us—the more [fervently] should we seek to build their hearts to us, in deep and enduring love…Let her guard with tenfold vigilance the chain of affection which links her with her fellow mortals. Then indeed may 'Intellect' be to her, one of life's most precious blessings! precious as regards her own happiness—but far more precious —if in the influence it give her over others it enables her to consecrate her spirit's highest energies to Him 'from whom commeth every good and perfect gift' and in whose rights mind highest wisdom is but folly!—the very faintest shadowing forth of that glory—which we may finally trust shall be revealed in us…" (8/18/1836)
 
 Subjects:  American Civil War, 1861-1865 | Athenaeum of Philadelphia. | Air travel | Asylums | Blizzards. | Business. | Centennial celebrations, etc. | Centennial Exhibition (1876 : Philadelphia, Pa.) | Conduct of life--Anecdotes. | Conservation and cultural heritage | Diaries. | Dentistry. | Education. | Entomology. | Episcopalian | Europe--Politics and government. | Europe. | Franco-Prussian War, 1870-1871. | Higher education & society | Medicine. | Motherhood. | Native America | Pacifism. | Presbyterianism. | Railroad | Religion. | Science. | Shorthand. | Society of Friends. | Sports. | Travel. | Unesco. | United States--Civilization--1783-1865. | United States--Civilization--1865-1918. | United States--Politics and government. | University of Pennsylvania. | Weather. | Weather. | World War I. 
 Collection:  Smith-Houston-Morris-Ogden Family papers, 1659-1985  (Mss.Ms.Coll.76)  
  Go to the collection
 
19.Title:  Baruch Samuel Blumberg Diaries (1942-2011)
 Dates:  1942 - 2011 
 Extent:  127 volumes  
 Locations:  A Coruna | Agra | Albergo | Albuquerque | Alcazar de San Juan | Amersfoort | Amsterdam | Anchorage | Annandale-On-Hudson | Ano Nuevo Island State Park | Arecibo | Aspen | Athens | Auckland | Bangalore | Bangkok | Barcelona | Bari | Be'er Sheva | Belgrade | Bellagio | Belzano | Berkeley | Bethesda | Birmingham | Bloomington | Bombay | Bordeaux | Boston | Boulogne | Bozeman | Bretton Woods | Bridgetown | Brighton | Brisbane | Brussels | Budapest | Buffalo | Calais | Cambridge | Camden | Campbell | Canterbury | Cape Canaveral | Cape May | Capri | Captiva Island | Carlisle | Carville | Cascais | Cebu City | Chandigarh | Chapel Hill | Charleston | Charlottesville | Chateau-Thierry | Chevy Chase | Chicago | Chipping Norton | Christiansted | Collegeville | Cologne | Copenhagen | Corbin | Cordoba | Coronado | Courmayeur | Crete | Cyprus | Dakar | Davenport | Davis | Daytona | Death Valley National Park | Delhi | Delray Beach | Denver | Detroit | Dieppe | Dijon | Doylestown | Dublin | Dubrovnik | Dunedin | Durham | Edinburgh | Eton | Florence | Fort Lauderdale | Frankfurt | Frederiksted | Fremont | Freiberg | Fukuoka | Gallup | Galveston | Geneva | Glasgow | Great Smoky Mountain National Park | Gualala | Guam | Guerrero Negro | Haifa | Halifax | Hamilton Island | Hangzhou | Hanover | Harrisburg | Haverford | Helsinki | Hilton Head | Hollywood | Honolulu | Horsham | Houston | Hyderabad | Ibadan | Inside Passage, Alaska | Iqaluit | Iron Mountain | Jazreel Valley | Jerusalem | Johnston | Kaduna | Kano City | Kaoh Ker | Karapura | Kathmandu | Kauai | Kiryat Tiv'on | Kochi | Kofu | Kurume | Kyoto | Kyushu | Labrador City | Lafayette Hill | Lancaster | Lassen Volcanic National Park | Lawrenceville | Leeds | Leuven | Lincoln | Lindau | London | Los Alamos | Los Angeles | Lucca | Lucknow | Lyon | Madrid | Majuro | Mammoth Lakes | Martigny | Martinez | Maui | Melbourne | Melbourne, Florida | Memphis | Mesa | Messina | Mexico City | Middlebury | Migdal | Milan | Missoula | Moengo | Montecatini Terme | Montreal | Moscow | Mostova | Mount Nebo | Mount Rainier National Park | Mountain View | Munich | Nairobi | Naples | New Brunswick | New Haven | New Orleans | New York | Newark | Newfoundland | Nice | Norfolk | Northumberland | Oahu | Orkney | Orlando | Osaka | Oslo | Ottawa | Oxford | Palo Alto | Pankshin | Paris | Perth | Perugia | Pescadero | Petra | Philadelphia | Phoenix | Pisa | Plymouth | Port of Spain | Portland | Portofino | Poughkeepsie | Provincetown | Puerto Cabello | Quebec City | Rainbow Lodge | Rangeley | Reno | Reykjavik | Rimini | Rio de Janeiro | Rixensart | Rockville | Rome | Rotterdam | Safed | Samabor | San Diego | San Francisco | San Juan | San Sebastian | Sanibel Island | Santa Barbara | Santa Fe | Santa Margherita | Santiago | Santo Domingo | Sarajevo | Schefferville | Sea of Galilee | Seoul | Shanghai | Sharpsburg | Sharpsburg | Shenzhen | Shrewsbury | Siena | Singapore | Soissons | Southampton | St. Croix | St. Helena | St. Louis | St. Simeon's Island | Stanford | Stockholm | Surat | Sydney | Taipei | Tampa | Tarrytown | Tel Aviv | Tempe | Terme | The Hague | Thessaloniki | Thrippunithura | Tokyo | Toulouse | Trieste | Tripoli | Trogir | Turin | Turku | Ulm | Uppsala | Urim | Valencia, Venezuela | Vancouver | Versailles | Vezelay | Vicksburg | Victoria, Australia | Vienna | Vigo | Warsaw | Washington D.C. | Welwyn Garden City | Williamsburg | Wilmington | Woodside | Xi'an | Yanagawa | Yarmouth | Yellowstone National Park | York | Yosemite Valley | Yunnan | Zagreb | Zaria | Zhuhai | Zoregoza | Zurich 
 Abstract:  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 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.
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  Selected Quotations
  • "Spoke last night with PHYLIS FITZGERALD, a girl we met the past day out. She is a Boston girl who works in the 7th [Ave] garment district as a clothes model. She has a beautiful face and figure and one of these GIACONDA faces that makes on contemplate Oscar Wilde's definition of a woman as "a sphinx without a secret." She is an extremely beautiful girl however but, I am sure, with problems. Many of the men in her work are homosexuals. She states that she knows only six men in N.Y.C who are not. There are several [interesting] by words and phrases from this world that I'd never heard before. 1. "Screaming meemies" - a pervert, i.e. and then a few of these screaming meemies blew into the bar" 2. Gay bar – a bar where homosexuals frequent 3. Gay boy – a homosexual 4. AC-DC – bisexual individual She states that most designers and dress buyers are such people. It seems like a natural place for them to gravitate. We discussed her 'problem' at some length. She is a person I by no means 'understand.'" (7/8/1953)

  • "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)

  • "[F]eeling 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)
 
 Subjects:  AIDS & society | Americans Abroad | Anti-Semitism. | American Philosophical Society. | Atomic history and culture | Balliol College (University of Oxford) | Cold War. | Columbia University | Computers--History. | Diaries. | Fox Chase Cancer Center | Gene mapping. | Genetics. | Globalization. | Higher education & society | Medicine. | Native America | Sexuality & culture | Kibbutzim. | Nobel Prize winners. | Jewish scientists. | Judaism. | Society of Friends. | NASA Astrobiology Institute | Travel. | Africa. | Asia. | Europe. | South America. | Central America. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Civilization--1945- | United States--Politics and government. | Weather. | World War II. | Zionism. 
 Collection:  Baruch S. Blumberg Papers  (Mss.Ms.Coll.144)  
  Go to the collection
 
20.Title:  Charles Benedict Davenport Diaries (1878-1944)
 Dates:  1878 - 1944 
 Extent:  95 volumes  
 Locations:  Amsterdam | Boston | Chicago | London | New York | Paris | Philadelphia | Rome | Vienna | Washington D.C. | Arlington | Atlantic City | Bolzano | Bergen | Bermuda | Biloxi | Bloomington | Brunn | Brussels | Cambridge | Carlisle | Charlottesville | Cheyenne | Cincinnati | Cold Spring Harbor | Columbus | Copenhagen | Dallas | Drobak | Durham | Fairfax | Grand Canyon | Halifax | Huntington | Indianapolis | Ithaca | Jacksonville | Kansas City | Koblenz | Lewes | Lexington | Liverpool | Louisville | Lucania | Mesa Verde | Mexico City | Miami | Minneapolis | Minneola | Montreal | Munich | Naples | Newark | New Haven | New Rochelle | Newport | New Canaan | Oslo | Oyster Bay | Pittsburg | Quebec | Raleigh | Rapid City | Rheims | Richmond | Rochester | San Juan | Santiago de Cuba | Savannah | Southampton | Stamford | Strasbourg | Stuttgart | St. Louis | St. Paul | Stockholm | Sydney | Syosset | Trondheim | Uppsala | Utrecht | White Yellowstone National Park | Yucata | Zion National Park | Zurich 
 Abstract:  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).
 
    
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).
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  Selected Quotations
  • Notes encounter with Andrew Carnegie, who "disappointed the department by not adding to the endowment" (1/3/1910)

  • Compares colleague ("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" (6/3/1930)
 
 Subjects:  American Agriculture Movement. | American Eugenics Society | American Museum of Natural History. | American religious cultures | American West in the twentieth century | Americans Abroad | Biology. | Brooklyn Museum | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory | Congregationalists. | Diaries. | Expedition | Eugenics. | Europe. | Harvard University. | Meteorology. | Mineralogy. | Mormon Church. | National Institute of Social Sciences (U.S.) | Ornithology. | Princeton University. | Race. | Science. | Topology. | Travel. | United States--Politics and government. | Weather. | Whaling Museum (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) | Women--History. | World War I. | World War II. | Yale Club of New York City | Zoology. 
 Collection:  Charles Benedict Davenport Papers  (Mss.B.D27)  
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