In August of 1851, Mr. Dean Walker, a Massachusetts man, visited Liverpool, England for the very first time. His initial impression of the city could be described as underwhelmed:

Saturday [August 2] – I have spent the day in travelling about the town. Find the people looking better than I expected. I do not think there are more dirty shabby looking people here than in New York, or more of the low classes here than there. They do not appear to be employed here, they only come from Ireland to ship to New York and other places. I went to see the “Great Western” start for New York. Those who were going I think were the most dirty-looking people I ever saw. A few ragged people are begging in the streets but not as many as I expected to see.

Liverpool was the first of many stops Walker made in a multiple-month-long “European trip,” during which he visited parts of England, Ireland, Scotland France, and Italy. During his travels, he recorded his initial impressions and quick observations on European life, landscape, and people in a journal.

Crystal Palace (engraving), Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (London, 1852).

Walker’s journal is one of several travel journals within the Diary Collection. Travel journals are personal, narrative accounts of an author’s travels – broadly defined here as experiences that involve long or short-distance movement across a geographic space. The four travel journals contained within this collection were all written by Americans traveling through Europe during the late nineteenth century.

Walker, whose age is unknown, lived during a time when travel between the United States and Europe was accelerating – literally. He left Boston bound for Liverpool, England on July 15, 1851 in what was likely the packet ship (or “clipper ship”) Daniel Webster, built and run by the Boston-based Enoch Train & Company line.[1] He arrived in Liverpool after sixteen days of travel on August 1, a “fast passage” according to the Webster’s captain. Clipper ships, the iconic speedy cargo ships of the nineteenth century, are one of several signs of the nineteenth century transportation revolution, alongside railroads and steamships, evident in Walker’s journal.

Though we know little about Walker, we do know that he was likely a man of means, as he was able to afford passage as a “cabin” (or “first class”) passenger during his journey to Liverpool, on a shipping line popularly perceived as “expensive.” [2] As historian Daniel Kilbride notes in his book Being American in Europe (1750 – 1860), even though the cost of trans-Atlantic travel was declining by mid-nineteenth century and many Americans counted themselves amongst the ranks of the “comfortable” middle class, European travel was still a luxury enjoyed only by the wealthiest citizens.[3]

We also know that Walker was not alone in his travels. In fact, I was first drawn to Mr. Walker’s journal because of its suggested co-authorship. The inside cover of its first page reads, “Journal of European trip made by Mr. Dean Walker + Addison P. Thayer (July 1851).” At early points in the journal, when Walker describes his passage to Europe, he occasionally uses the pronoun “we,” suggesting the presence of a companion; however, he describes most of his experiences using the singular first person pronoun “I.” It isn’t until Walker reaches France, several weeks into his journey, that he mentions: “Mr. Thayer was with me.” Their relationship remains unclear.

Perhaps this is because Walker is largely concerned with using his journal to discuss other matters. He focuses on describing his new experiences and his impressions of things that seem particularly “curious” to him. He notes seeing “black fish” porpoises and whales during the voyage to Liverpool, seeing his first Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens, and taking a meal at the Mechanics Eating House in London – significant to him because he could enjoy a book from their large library with his meal. His interest in using his journal to describe the extraordinary material things he sees is evident from an entry he writes about his visit to the Crystal Palace in London to see the “Great Exhibition of 1851,” a “World’s Fair” housing display of technology:

Tues. [September] 26^th: I went today for the third time to the Glass Palace…I thought I would today begin and go through and [write] down the prices and try to give a description of the most curious things I saw, but I directly became discouraged and gave it up as a bad job. The best way I can give one an idea of the things is to describe some of the most extravagant things and some of the most simple, and then have any one form an idea from the size of the building how much was to be seen.

He goes on to describe several extraordinary and expensive objects he sees at the exhibition– a large diamond, expensive furniture. His interest in wealth is telling, as his the suggestion that he may be describing these objects “for someone else.” Unlike Ann Winchester, it seems as if Walker may have had an audience in mind for his diary – perhaps family and friends back home, who would read his journal upon his return.

Walker’s journal is filled with comparisons, as well as descriptions. As evident in the above-quoted passage about the Irish immigrants passing through Liverpool on their way to the United States, Walker frequently compares European people, as well as landscape, architecture, food, and habits to American ones. In a few instances, he also compares his experiences in each European nation he visits to his experiences in other places in Europe. Consider the following excerpt from his journal, in which he describes a train ride he takes on his way from Hull, England to London:

[August, around the 16^th]: The land on the rail-road for the most part is well cultivated, but not as neatly as in Ireland. The hedges looked much more uneven – a considerable woodland – the trees not large, and when we were within 10 miles of London it looked more like Massachusetts than it had at any time, on account of the wood.

Some of the comparisons Walker makes are purely descriptive, such as his recognition of the British landscape as very similar to that of Massachusetts. But there are many more that are qualitative in nature, including his comment included above about the “neatness” of British “cultivation.” Walker’s journal is therefore a place where he evaluates the quality of European culture, food, and conditions, by comparing them to the quality of American goods. As a person clearly cognizant of status and quality, this seems consistent with Walker’s character; as an American in Europe for the first time, it may have been Walker’s self-conscious attempt to understand America’s place in the world.

Rebecca D’Angelo is a senior undergraduate student in History and Anthropology. In her blog series For Private Eyes Only she studies diaries available in Archives and Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center to explore the history of journal writing and reasons why we write journals.

Ann T. Winchester was not looking forward to returning to school on September 28, 1943. She has written “Doom Day!” next to that date. Her entry continues:

Fooled around all morning getting ready for the great trek back to Storrs. We started at 2:00. [T]ook Jane and Mrs. Schafer – she gave me a beautiful blue cardigan and a white wool kerchief. We found my room in Wood – small but a single.

“Wood” in this case refers to UConn’s very own Wood Hall, which currently houses the History Department. Ann, a resident of Windsor and student at the University of Connecticut from 1941 to 1945, had lived in Holcomb Hall on East Campus during the Spring of 1943, but moved into Wood Hall for the 1943 – 1944 school year.

Ann was a student at the University of Connecticut during World War II when the ratio of male to female students on campus was at its lowest (nearly 1:1) since the University’s inception, due in part to the significant numbers of young men fighting in Europe and the Pacific. Notably, she was also one of the first students to graduate from the University of Connecticut’s School of Nursing, which accepted its first class in September of 1942. She was a member of the Nursing Club, worked in the infirmary, and participated in an in-residence nursing training program at Backus Hospital in Norwich during the summer of 1943.

I once heard a writing professor define a diary as “a place to record the highs and lows of the day.” Ann’s diary, a series of short entries written daily from January 1, 1943 through December 31, provides consistent insight into the highs and lows of each of her days. A typical entry reads as follows:

May 7, 1943: After physics this a.m. – I went out on the roof for a couple hours of sunbathing. Hot and muggy today. Looked like Coney Island out there. Fooled around the rest of the day except for going to nursing class. Tonite we painted quite a bit. Then we took a walk up to the restaurant up the road and had coffee and doughnuts and smoked. Was fun – the nite is swell – warm and smells good. The peepers were singing for all they were worth.

In this way, each daily entry can read as a stand-alone record of one day’s events. But when read in its entirety, we start to see that Ann’s journal became a place where she recorded continuity and changes in her life over days, weeks, years, and semesters. Take, for example, the following excerpts from entries Ann writes over the course of three days in the Spring of 1943 about “an escapade,” which seems to have involved co-authoring a controversial note about one of her fellow house-mates (Flavia) with her roommate, Jane (May 4). This got her into particular trouble with a “Mrs. Davis,” presumably the house mother in Holcomb Hall, where she was living at the time:

April 28: Tonight Jane and I went to the House Council Meeting not expecting too much bad. Mrs. Davis gave us hell and threatened us with suspension. Not only the note was brought up – but working on shreds of truth, she told wholesale lies about us – “we’re vulgar.” Forbade Flavia to associate with us. Mrs. Davis is absolutely low and treacherous. In short she nauseates me!!!!

April 29 – I wrote mother about last nite – hope she’ll stand up for me! This place is stifling me – the petty minds and the cats that abound…Now Davis says [Flavia] can eat with us, but not come into the room. We’d corrupt her. I’ll get even with Davis some day!

And finally:

May 1: Both [Jane and I] went down to see Mrs. Davis this aft – she was too sweet to us. Well, maybe she thinks a little better of us. But you never can tell. To bed early.

These successive entries indicate that this issue remained a feature of Ann’s life over the course of several days. By reading each of these entries, then, we see that Ann used her journal to record her changing thoughts on the consistent features in her life, and perhaps gain insight into the relative importance of each of these concerns to her. Certain topics, including her relationships, class work, habits, and career goals, seem to be of greatest concern to Ann because she writes about them at length. Some aspects of her life – such as her ongoing battle with her physics and chemistry classes – are easy to recognize as important to her because she writes about them explicitly and frequently.

But there are other continuities, such as her on-going friendship with her roommate Jane, which we know are important to her, even if she doesn’t say so explicitly. Ann never writes, “Jane is an important part of my life.” We simply know this, because she mentions her nearly every day. Their friendship is so pervasive that as I read her journal, any time Ann used the pronoun “we,” I automatically began to assume it meant “Jane and me” – even if this wasn’t always the case. More ambiguous is the relative importance of the War to Ann’s life, which we recognize only through passing references to rationing, war-time movies, blackouts, and a visit by Mrs. Roosevelt to campus in March of 1943.

Long-term change, as well as short term change, is also a feature of Ann’s diary. During her summer (June – August 1943) spent as an in-residence nursing student at Backus Hospital, Ann befriends a “Miss Classé,” an instructor at Backus. Taken with her, Ann writes, “She looks like the perfect nurse. I’ll have to pattern myself after her” (July 16). Later, in October, when she attends a Nursing Club lecture given by an ex-Navy nurse, she confides to her journal that, “I rather think I would like to be a navy nurse” (October 25). In this way, Ann uses her diary to anticipate and project her present life into her future, particularly as it relates to her career – unsurprising for a young person in school.

Rebecca D’Angelo is a senior undergraduate student in History and Anthropology. In her blog series For Private Eyes Only she will study various diaries available in Archives and Special Collections at the Dodd Research Center to explore the history of journal writing and reasons why we write journals.

Rebecca D’Angelo is a senior undergraduate student in History and Anthropology. In her blog series For Private Eyes Only she will study various diaries available in the Dodd Research Center’s collections to explore the history of journal writing and reasons why we write journals.

I have a confession to make: I’ve been reading other people’s diaries.

I didn’t feel guilty about it at first. The diaries I’ve been reading are part of the Dodd Center’s Diaries Collection. Most were written over one hundred years ago. Unlike other collections which tend to be organized by donor, the Diaries Collection houses an eclectic mix of personal diaries, daybooks, copybooks, and ledgers, many written by New Englanders. The collection spans one hundred years of journal writing, the earliest diary in the collection dating to 1851. Two diaries, which both date to 1943, are the latest in the collection; both were written by Connecticut women, one, a painter with the surname Whitlock living along the Connecticut shoreline, and the other, a University of Connecticut student named Ann T. Winchester who was studying to be a nurse during her time at UConn.

At first I viewed the diaries in the Dodd Center’s collection purely as sources. I was interested in the stories they could tell me about the past and about the people who occupied it. I was also interested in the quite literal range of forms and colors present in this collection. Some, like Ann Winchester’s are handwritten in a book printed with “Diary” on the front. Hers is bright red. Others are written in tiny notebooks, and others in leather-bound volumes. Some only include personal entries. In others, notes on the writer’s day are included alongside general musings and business records.

Then I saw this message, inscribed on the inside cover of one diary written by S.E Warren, a young Massachusetts man training to become a school teacher in the 1850s. It read:

“All of my journals[,] To be read by no one but my parents in case of my death as a single man or widower. Others may see the index only, and may have such portions read to them as are not marked Private. Or else my relict or heirs only shall see them as above directed.”

 Suddenly I felt like one of those TV sitcom dads who gets caught snooping through his daughter’s diary. The person who wrote this diary didn’t intend for me to read it. As a historian, I tend to forget that sources are generally not written for me. It’s true that some historical accounts or objects are created “for future posterity.” But generally, artifacts are the surviving residue of a past life, lived day-to-day, with little concern for what a history student writing about them in a blog would think about them one hundred years down the line. After all what is a diary, if not something extremely personal, a continuous letter to self? I’m guessing that S. E. Warren didn’t intend for future historians to read his journal. Then again, he clearly anticipated that someone other than himself, his parents, or his heirs might pick it up. Why else would he have included such a preface?

As I continued browsing through these journals, I started thinking about my own journal-writing. I keep several irregular journals to explore my thoughts. I imagined S.E. Warren, Whitlock, and Ann T. Winchester each had their own similar motivation for writing in their respective journals. I thought back to other historical journals I had read. Growing up, I valued Anne Frank’s diary for the story it told and for the perspective it offered me into the lives of Jewish German nationals forced to flee Germany during World War II. Now I began to wonder: Why did Anne value her diary? Realizing that I read other people’s journals even though I barely go back and read my own, I started wondering why I kept mine. Why does anyone write in a diary or journal?

Today, psychologists and writers extol the benefits of journal-writing. A quick internet search on “why we write diaries” reveals a laundry list of blog articles encouraging me to keep a journal for various reasons – to reflect, to project, or simply to practice writing. In 2007, the New Yorker published a fabulous review piece that pondered this very question. “Diaries,” the author suggests, “are exercises in self-justification.” He ultimately concludes, “We write to appease the father. People abandon their diaries when they realize that the task is hopeless.”

I am no psychologist and will not pretend to be one, but I am a historian and I’m interested in these questions – why did we write diaries in the past? Why do we continue writing them today? I intend to use this blog series to help me answer these questions. By reading, researching, and analyzing the range of diaries available through the Dodd Center’s Diaries Collection I hope to explore the different forms diaries take on, the stories and details we entrust them with, and the function they serve in our lives.