Special Collections Research Center

Scope and Contents

The daily diary of teenager Florence Adams from 1927-1930. She discusses her social and family life throughout. Some sample entries can be found in the folder description below.

Diary has a slight smell of perfume.

Scope and Contents

Diary, 1957, of Carol Lee Nimon (b. 1945) of Burbank, California. She was a sixth grader at the time she kept this diary and her daily entries cover school, activities with family and friends, like shopping and dance parties, having a boy friend, getting an autograph of Debbie Reynolds, etc. Lists names and addresses of her friends in the back.

Also included are a few loose items, like letter drafts and miscellaneous notes.

Scope and Contents

Diary of Dodie Bailey of Bailey's Cross Roads, Virginia, near Falls Church. She began the diary when she was 14 years old and ended it in 1933 when she was 21 years old.

She talks of her social life which includes dates, dances, swimming, movies, drives, church, family events and school - but mostly about boys.

Diary is bound with a clasp, but the pages are loose. Pages appear to be from different diaries. Key to diary is included.

Scope and Contents The diaries were kept in three separate appointment books. Each book had the year displayed on its cover, and the pages inside were set up to show the day’s appointments. Nancy made her entries in the 1951 appointment book and in the following two years, she made her entries in the books for 1952 and 1953. Because the space assigned for the days’ appointments in each book was fixed, she generally limited her daily entries to the space available, but she frequently wrote in the margin to note...

Scope and Contents Diary of Macy Flinn (b. ca. 1896) of Maine for the years 1909-1910. Macy Flinn, who lived near the towns of Waterville and Sidney, Maine, was starting high school at the time she began her diary. In brief daily entries she records weather, helping her parents with the business, social activities like playing games with friends, taking trips to town, books she read, horseback riding, etc. There are also two poems following the last  entries.  From time to time Macy uses Greek characters for...

Scope and Contents Diary of Phyllis Gabowitz of Highland Park, Middlesex County, New Jersey. She was a 6th grade student at the time she wrote her diary in 1958. The "Ponytail" diary measures 4" x 5 1/2", and has 123 handwritten entries. Included with the diary is a 5" x 7" photograph of the author and her classmates, and on the back of the photograph she gives the names of her those shown in the picture. The following description was provided by the seller: "Phyllis writes of watching TV shows...

Scope and Contents

Diary of Lydia Miller, a high school girl or young college or vocational school student from Prospect, Illinois for the years 1936-1939. Daily entries describe events at school, life at home with her parents, and social activities like visiting with friends, going to shows and attending dances. Also included are 5 loose leaves detailing some of the dances, what clothes she wore, who she danced with, who her favorite boyfriend was, etc.

Scope and Contents Diary, 1914, of Pearl A. Warner, a sixteen-year-old teenage girl from Moravia, Cayuga County, New York (State), where she lived with her parents, older sister and younger brother. In daily entries of varying length, Pearl talks about daily activities, events in school and in town, family, neighbors and friends. At the time the diary was written, Pearl's father owned a meat market in town. The bound volume entries end in mid-July and entries for the rest of the year are inserted...

Scope and Contents Two diaries, 1907-1908 kept by Claire Lilian Wight (b. 1894) of  Kalamazoo, Michigan. Claire Wight was 13 years old when she began her first diary in 1907. Claire records daily activities such as school visits, reading, attending concerts, social and family activities, vacations, taking music lessons and playing tennis and going to the YWCA. Also included are two calling cards, one of Claire's and one of her uncle as well as a newspaper clipping for the "Tennessee Colored Jubilee Singers,"...

Scope and Contents Diaries, 1930-1931 of Dorothy Lee Willmering (b. circa 1915) of Columbus City, Louisa County, Iowa. Dorothy, who was about 15 when she started her diaries, lived with her mother and older sister. Dorothy mentions visiting her father (her parents were divorced) and receiving letters from him. She also mentions her group of friends, boy friends, social activities and not doing well in school. For a more detailed description and excerpts, both provided by the seller, see...