Botanist Frederick Pursh maintained a journal that illuminates his travels from Philadelphia through northeastern Pennsylvania and New York in the early national period (3/23-10/8/1807). Notably, this volume was found among the papers of his Pursh's patron, Benjamin Smith Barton, for whom the APS also possesses holdings (Mss.B.B284d). Although the excursion was for botanical research, Pursh's diary entries record other details, including comments on the state of roads, the people he met, the towns he visited, and the natural environment. He records multiple bouts of sickness (6/20 and 8/14), notes his correspondence with Barton (7/15), and includes two sketches (6/3 and 6/17).
 

John Rosseter was a ship captain whose log (1804-1805) offers a glimpse into Asia and seafaring life in nineteenth century. Rosseter's journal documents the voyage of the China Packet from Philadelphia to Macao (5/23-9/11/1804) as well as the return voyage (12/16/1804-4/25/1805). Although much of the volume is devoted to seafaring--with regular notes on winds, locational coordinates, weather, and other meteorological data--there is at least one entry that records his extended stay in China. After his final entry, Rosseter writes the following concluding statement: "One hundred & thirty days from Maccoa out of which time we had 30 Calm days, the longest passage I Ever had from China. With this Journal I have done and glad Am I." (4/25/1805).
 

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

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

Although the Loammi Baldwin Diary traverses just three months (9/9-11/29/1823), this volume provides a valuable record for researchers interested in antebellum travel, early-nineteenth century Europe, and urban architecture and mechanics, particularly the construction of canals and bridges. In fact, the highlight of this diary is less Baldwin's narratives of prominent European cities, including Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris, than his remarkable illustrations of their architecture and mechanical structures. Reference his illustration of the floating bridge on Helder Canal in Amsterdam for a model of Baldwin's keen draftsmanship (11/1/1823).
 

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

The 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.

The Cassin diaries are contained in six volumes. The first, spanning 1865-66, documents his travel by steamer. Cassin records crossing the equator (7/30/1865), visiting a volcano at Cape Verde (7/25/1865), and arriving in Brazil. Enterprising researchers might research his course using the longitudes and latitudes he records throughout this volume.
 
The second volume picks up more than a year later and commits significant attention to the medical profession. The first entry voices concern about the medical department at the University of Pennsylvania (12/10/1868), and subsequent pages enclose copies of letters from 1869, including his committee appointments, especially Assistant Surgeon in the Navy (4/2/1869). Sequential entries begin in earnest on 5/6/1869, when Cassin recounts his travels aboard the brig Ohieflaua from the Chicago Harbor to Lake St. Clair.
 
Cassin's third and fourth volumes are less descriptive but remarkable for the extent of his travels. In his 1870 "New York" diary, Cassin notes another journey to Brazil in June, South China Sea in August, and Hong Kong and Shanghai in September. His 1870-71 diary dovetails with the latter, recording a trip to Rio de Janeiro (6/6/1870) and undated notes pertaining to a voyage to South Africa. Once again, Cassin captures many longitudes and latitudes.
 
The "Clayton's Octovo Diary 1872" is perhaps the richest from an ethnographic perspective. Cassin provides detailed accounts of visits to Key West (2/10/1872), Havana and Matanzas (between February and April 1872), and even a brief reflection on the act of journaling. "A diary is something like a resolve to call professionally on a dentist
 
you may keep it, but the chances are much in the favor of your putting it off," Cassin observes on 4/26/7182. "Diary writing is almost the stupidest thing that I know of, unless one can make a writing task in no other way." Between May and June 1872, he travels throughout the Caribbean, furnishing descriptions of the peoples and villages he encounters. Interested researchers will find a particularly evocative entry of Key West society women in a 6/21/1872 quotation below.
 
A Pocket Diary dated 1875, finds Cassin landlocked, maintaining a more traditional journal of meetings, calls, letters, and weather conditions. The volume opens in St. Louis where he has apparently purchased a home, and it is not until September that he begins to travel again. That fall he returns to Brazil (11/6) and visits Uruguay (12/1).

Serving as a U.S. Navy physician, Charles Luke Cassin traveled extensively, recording firsthand accounts of Brazil, Canada, South Africa, the South China Sea, and the Caribbean during the postbellum period. His six-volume journal, which spans 1865-1875, offers glimpses at those far flung locations and the various peoples who inhabited them. Cassin's journals ought to appeal to a wide range of researchers, including those interested in the history of seafaring, the West Indies, ethnography, and late-eighteenth-century medical practices.
 
The Cassin diaries are contained in six volumes. The first, spanning 1865-66, documents his travel by steamer. Cassin records crossing the equator (7/30/1865), visiting a volcano at Cape Verde (7/25/1865), and arriving in Brazil. Enterprising researchers might research his course using the longitudes and latitudes he records throughout this volume.
 
The second volume picks up more than a year later and commits significant attention to the medical profession. The first entry voices concern about the medical department at the University of Pennsylvania (12/10/1868), and subsequent pages enclose copies of letters from 1869, including his committee appointments, especially Assistant Surgeon in the Navy (4/2/1869). Sequential entries begin in earnest on 5/6/1869, when Cassin recounts his travels aboard the brig Ohieflaua from the Chicago Harbor to Lake St. Clair.
 
Cassin's third and fourth volumes are less descriptive but remarkable for the extent of his travels. In his 1870 "New York" diary, Cassin notes another journey to Brazil in June, South China Sea in August, and Hong Kong and Shanghai in September. His 1870-71 diary dovetails with the latter, recording a trip to Rio de Janeiro (6/6/1870) and undated notes pertaining to a voyage to South Africa. Once again, Cassin captures many longitudes and latitudes.
 
The "Clayton's Octovo Diary 1872" is perhaps the richest from an ethnographic perspective. Cassin provides detailed accounts of visits to Key West (2/10/1872), Havana and Matanzas (between February and April 1872), and even a brief reflection on the act of journaling. "A diary is something like a resolve to call professionally on a dentist
 
you may keep it, but the chances are much in the favor of your putting it off," Cassin observes on 4/26/7182. "Diary writing is almost the stupidest thing that I know of, unless one can make a writing task in no other way." Between May and June 1872, he travels throughout the Caribbean, furnishing descriptions of the peoples and villages he encounters. Interested researchers will find a particularly evocative entry of Key West society women in a 6/21/1872 quotation below.
 
A Pocket Diary dated 1875, finds Cassin landlocked, maintaining a more traditional journal of meetings, calls, letters, and weather conditions. The volume opens in St. Louis where he has apparently purchased a home, and it is not until September that he begins to travel again. That fall he returns to Brazil (11/6) and visits Uruguay (12/1).

David Rittenhouse maintained meteorological observations in two volumes that span the first twenty years of the early national period (5/6/1784-9/30/1805). Alongside weather conditions, Rittenhouse regularly documents temperatures, the conditions of roads, expenses, and accounts. These volumes may interest researchers studying meteorological conditions as well as other regional phenomena such as eclipses and the Yellow Fever epidemic.

Meteorological observations, 1784-1805
 
David Rittenhouse maintained meteorological observations in two volumes that span the first twenty years of the early national period (5/6/1784-9/30/1805). Alongside weather conditions, Rittenhouse regularly documents temperatures, the conditions of roads, expenses, and accounts. These volumes may interest researchers studying meteorological conditions as well as other regional phenomena such as eclipses and the Yellow Fever epidemic.

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

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

The Harlan journals recount two of three overseas voyages he took in his career. The first documents a trip to India that he made as a medical student in 1816-1817. This volume offers detailed accounts of the sea voyage (with some locational coordinates and accounts of weather) and accounts of Indian towns and cities, including Calcutta (3/9/1817). Alongside descriptions of Indian hospitals (e.g. 3/21/1817) and botanical gardens (3/23/1817), Harlan also writes at length about the indigenous peoples, including their shrines (4/10/1817), burial rights (6/17/1817), and what he considers their "lamentable" need for Christianity influence (4/11/1817). Harlan's accounts often feature an uncommon sense of voice, inflected with a deep colonialist bias. For example, in one of his later entries, he describes India as a place of fanaticism, war, and declension: "But India, once the seat of Literature and Science, hath at length dwindled into the most inordinate fanaticism, which binds the inhabitants in the grossest ignorance…since the year 1000, India has presented nothing but war and bloodshed. Her cities reduced to ashes, her fields laid waste by hosts of conquering armies, having been successfully overrun by the Mahomedan Princes" (6/17/1817).
 
Harlan's second journal finds him at the apogee of his career as a physician and scientist. Seeking to advance his scientific reputation among his peers, Harlan took a tour of Europe in 1833, extending his professional network of naturalists and medical researchers in the continent's cultural and economic capitals. In addition to visits to the northern European metropolises of Liverpool, London, Cambridge, Dublin, and Paris, he travels south to Bologna and even ascends Mount Vesuvius (9/26/1833). Notably, before he returns to New York, Harlan attends at least one meeting of the Phrenological Society in London (10/29/1833) and participates in a debate about U.S. slavery (6/21/1833), excerpted in Selected Quotations.

A pair of travel journals maintained by Richard Harlan, a prominent Philadelphia-based scientist and doctor, offer insights into India in the early-nineteenth century and European medicine in the antebellum period. The first journal (1816-17) recounts Harlan's went to India as ship's surgeon of the East India Company. Entries include Harlan's extensive reflections upon—and judgements of—indigenous peoples' customs, burial rights, and religious practices. The second volume (1833) documents a trip Harlan takes to Europe at the apex of his career. That journal offers a window in antebellum medical practices in Europe, including the field of phrenology and Harlan's justification for U.S. slavery. Both volumes are remarkable for their detail and sense of voice, and they will certainly interest scholars researching British colonialism in India, European medical science, and slavery in the antebellum United States.
 
The Harlan journals recount two of three overseas voyages he took in his career. The first documents a trip to India that he made as a medical student in 1816-1817. This volume offers detailed accounts of the sea voyage (with some locational coordinates and accounts of weather) and accounts of Indian towns and cities, including Calcutta (3/9/1817). Alongside descriptions of Indian hospitals (e.g. 3/21/1817) and botanical gardens (3/23/1817), Harlan also writes at length about the indigenous peoples, including their shrines (4/10/1817), burial rights (6/17/1817), and what he considers their "lamentable" need for Christianity influence (4/11/1817). Harlan's accounts often feature an uncommon sense of voice, inflected with a deep colonialist bias. For example, in one of his later entries, he describes India as a place of fanaticism, war, and declension: "But India, once the seat of Literature and Science, hath at length dwindled into the most inordinate fanaticism, which binds the inhabitants in the grossest ignorance…since the year 1000, India has presented nothing but war and bloodshed. Her cities reduced to ashes, her fields laid waste by hosts of conquering armies, having been successfully overrun by the Mahomedan Princes" (6/17/1817).
 
Harlan's second journal finds him at the apogee of his career as a physician and scientist. Seeking to advance his scientific reputation among his peers, Harlan took a tour of Europe in 1833, extending his professional network of naturalists and medical researchers in the continent's cultural and economic capitals. In addition to visits to the northern European metropolises of Liverpool, London, Cambridge, Dublin, and Paris, he travels south to Bologna and even ascends Mount Vesuvius (9/26/1833). Notably, before he returns to New York, Harlan attends at least one meeting of the Phrenological Society in London (10/29/1833) and participates in a debate about U.S. slavery (6/21/1833), excerpted in Selected Quotations.

David Shinn Collection of Mary Christiana Sellers contains at least 14 diaries spanning nearly a century (1834-1923) and three generations of the Sellers family: Samuel W. Sellers, Jennie P. Sellers and Jennie Haines. Samuel Sellers, who served as justice of the peace in Chester County, furnishes the earliest and longest range of diaries (1834-1881). He maintained journals (most of which are unbound) between 3/1/1834-6/21/1851, 6/15/1851-8/17/1855 (as well as a separate volume for 8/18-11/14/1855), January 1857-October 1858, 11/12/1855-1/31/1875, and 1/3/1878-3/2/1881. Overall, his entries are short, though they record weather, births, deaths, local affairs, some transactions and accounts, and some national news. For example, he commemorates the death of President Polk (6/22/1849) and notes, with some disapproval, an anti-slavery meeting in West Chester staged shortly after the passage of the Compromise of 1850, excerpted in Selected Quotations (10/23/1850). His daughter, Jennie Sellers furnishes two of the most animated journals, particularly for scholars interested in Confederate sympathy in the U.S. North. In her diary from 1860, Jennie, then 16 years old, expresses some disgust with the recently elected president, Abraham Lincoln (March 1860). In her second diary, which traverses the end of the war (1/1/1864-3/20/1866), she records the surrender of General Lee (4/10/1865) assassination of Lincoln (4/15/1865), and funerial procession in Philadelphia (4/16/1865). Perhaps most remarkably, she includes an extended screed against Abraham Lincoln and in defense of John Wilkes Booth, which she may have copied from a local newspaper. That passage is excerpted at length in Selected Quotations. Finally, Jennie Seller's daughter, Jennie Haines furnishes six daybooks from 1887, 1898, 1901, 1904, 1908, and 1923. Maintained in Centennial, Standard, and Daily Reminder diaries, these bound volumes detail the weather, household chores (such as churning butter), visits to the market (often with grocery prices), and miscellaneous accounts. Some of the volumes include various ephemera in the back pockets. Although Jennie Haines rarely discusses national news, she does include at least one oblique reference to the Spanish-American War when she discusses the loss of the Battleship Maine (2/19/1898).
 

The Bache diary begins with accounts of his education in Switzerland, during which he witnesses an execution by firing squad, and several curiosities, such as a seven-foot-tall giant. Later, he travels to Passy (outside of Paris) to stay with his grandfather, Benjamin Franklin. Bache furnishes numerous anecdotes from those months. For example, he recounts with interest the launching a hot air balloon in Versailles (6/23, 7/15, and 7/20/1784). Upon his grandfather's arrival in October 1784, Bache registers Franklin's printing activities, including time with Didot, considered one of the finest printers in France (4/5/1785). In addition to visits to Paris, Bache travels with his grandfather to England, where he records a brief encounter with William Franklin—possibly the last time the two would meet (7/24/1785). In the final months of the journal, Bache departs England for Philadelphia, where he arrives on the penultimate entry (9/13/1785).

The Benjamin Franklin Bache diary offers a record of his early education in Switzerland with an account of his time in Passy with grandfather, Benjamin Franklin, then envoy to France. A translation of a (French) journal maintained in Europe during the American Revolution (8/1/1782-9/14/1785), this diary provides a clear account of Bache's time in Europe in the late-eighteenth century. Notably, the volume also provides some insights into Benjamin Franklin's time in Paris and a brief trip to England, during which Bache records a brief encounter with his uncle, William Franklin. This volume will interest Franklin scholars, though it may also appeal to researchers studying Switzerland, France, or England during the American Revolution.
 
The Bache diary begins with accounts of his education in Switzerland, during which he witnesses an execution by firing squad, and several curiosities, such as a seven-foot-tall giant. Later, he travels to Passy (outside of Paris) to stay with his grandfather, Benjamin Franklin. Bache furnishes numerous anecdotes from those months. For example, he recounts with interest the launching a hot air balloon in Versailles (6/23, 7/15, and 7/20/1784). Upon his grandfather's arrival in October 1784, Bache registers Franklin's printing activities, including time with Didot, considered one of the finest printers in France (4/5/1785). In addition to visits to Paris, Bache travels with his grandfather to England, where he records a brief encounter with William Franklin—possibly the last time the two would meet (7/24/1785). In the final months of the journal, Bache departs England for Philadelphia, where he arrives on the penultimate entry (9/13/1785).

As a surgeon, Thomas Hewson Bache provides an on-the-ground view of the Civil War in a diary, maintained throughout 1862 (1/1-11/28), that traverses the American North and South. The first half of the journal documents his life at camps in the South, including Baton Rouge, Cape Hatteras, New Orleans, and Vicksburg, and, starting in late-September, he returns to the northeast, first to New York and then to Philadelphia. In addition to providing a glimpse at soldier camps—especially in Baton Rouge (8/8)—Bache records at least one instance of Yellow Fever. Read together with the Alexander Dallas Bache diary, also from 1862, this volume furnishes researchers with new insights into the Civil War as it was experienced by those on its battlefields.
 

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

The "Contents" section of journal highlights key events in Sullivan's service and travels. Extracts from the journal were printed in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1910. The complete journal, edited by Joseph Lee Boyle, was published by Heritage Books in 1997.

In a fragile, single-volume journal (split in two), a non-commissioned British soldier named Thomas Sullivan records his experience fighting in the American Revolution (1775-1778). Sullivan offers a first-hand account of the earlier years of the war, including the evacuation of Boston, New Jersey campaign, and occupation of Philadelphia. He studiously documents significant early battles, including Bunker Hill (p.12) and Brandywine (229), as well as reports of events he did not personally witness. Notably, before Sullivan deserts the British Army and joins the Continental Army—serving under Nathanael Greene—he describes in a lengthy entry his shifting loyalties and common cause with the colonists as an Irish citizen (404-6). Interspersed between accounts of battles, Sullivan offers descriptions of indigenous peoples in Nova Scotia (52), American loyalists in New York (71), and a peculiar lightning strike en route to Philadelphia (229-230). Sullivan maintains his journal in an ornate script, suggested that he may have intended it for publication, and stops writing abruptly after he joins the Continental Army (422). This fascinating volume ought to particularly interest scholars researching turncoats and loyalists during the American Revolution.
 
The "Contents" section of journal highlights key events in Sullivan's service and travels. Extracts from the journal were printed in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1910. The complete journal, edited by Joseph Lee Boyle, was published by Heritage Books in 1997.

Interested researchers would do well to consult the detailed description of Hunter's four volumes available in the Early American History Note. For the purposes of diary researchers, the first volume (1796) warrants attention for its descriptions of indigenous peoples and early settlements. For example, Hunter offers an extended account of St. Louis (9/4/1796). He also describes an Indian woman whose nose was cut off by her husband for infidelity, a passage excerpted in Selected Quotations (9/9/1796). The 1802 journal documents Hunter's trip across Pennsylvania (Berlin, Carlisle, and Shippensburg), visit to a cave in Kentucky, and discussion of salt production at Blue Lick. Finally, the last two journals (1804, 1809) include various travels in the South, including a description of expedition to the Hot Springs of Arkansas (1804-1805) as well as longitudes and latitudes that researchers might use to trace Hunter's journey. Notably, Hunter discovers Mammoth bones, which he compares to those of Charles Wilson Peale, writing, "I cannot for bear mentioning a great natural curiosity I have just seen here [sic] about 2 ½ Tons of Bones of one or two Mammoths twice as large as Peals" (5/27/1804).

George Hunter maintained four journals during expeditions into Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi, and Louisiana between 1796-1809. Hunter records his daily affairs, observations of territories, visits to trading centers, and commentary on international rivalries and relations with various indigenous peoples, including the Delaware, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Osage. With rich, narrative accounts of western travel in the early national period—including exploration of Louisiana shortly after the Louisiana Purchase—the Hunter diaries ought to interest scholars researching the American west, Native America, and U.S. empire.
 
Interested researchers would do well to consult the detailed description of Hunter's four volumes available in the Early American History Note. For the purposes of diary researchers, the first volume (1796) warrants attention for its descriptions of indigenous peoples and early settlements. For example, Hunter offers an extended account of St. Louis (9/4/1796). He also describes an Indian woman whose nose was cut off by her husband for infidelity, a passage excerpted in Selected Quotations (9/9/1796). The 1802 journal documents Hunter's trip across Pennsylvania (Berlin, Carlisle, and Shippensburg), visit to a cave in Kentucky, and discussion of salt production at Blue Lick. Finally, the last two journals (1804, 1809) include various travels in the South, including a description of expedition to the Hot Springs of Arkansas (1804-1805) as well as longitudes and latitudes that researchers might use to trace Hunter's journey. Notably, Hunter discovers Mammoth bones, which he compares to those of Charles Wilson Peale, writing, "I cannot for bear mentioning a great natural curiosity I have just seen here [sic] about 2 ½ Tons of Bones of one or two Mammoths twice as large as Peals" (5/27/1804).

In his detailed journal of a trip to America in the late-nineteenth century (1880), English Quaker Richard Beck offers comments on Philadelphia society and its institutions, as well as a record of his travels around America, particularly by rail. Along the way, he crosses paths with naturalist Titian Peale and artist Henry Ulke. This volume is noteworthy in two regards. First, it contains a wealth of memorabilia, including advertisements, photographs, playbills, menus, as well as Beck's own original pencil and watercolor sketches. Second, it features thoughtful and often comparative assessments of the people and places he visits. In fact, no detail can escape Beck's attentive eye. Alongside descriptions of Colorado rock formations (4/30/1880), Yosemite redwoods (6/2/1880) and the development of Salt Lake City (5/15/1880), Beck intersperses comments on American hairstyles (2/27/1880), eyeglasses (3/2/1880), libraries (4/20/1880), and that great American pastime, baseball (7/8/1880). This volume may interest scholars of postbellum material culture, late-nineteenth century Philadelphia, and the American West.
 

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

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

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.

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/