MSS 0097. Diaries, Journals, & Ships' Logs

This late nineteenth-century French manuscript, handwritten and illustrated by Charles Maton, is entitled Cours de Tissage de Saint-Quentin and contains technical instructions and diagrams for weaving a variety of textiles on different types of looms.

This manuscript volume contains the meeting minutes for the New Castle Common Trustees’ education committee from 1851-1853 and 1868-1875. The minutes focus on the establishment and maintenance of the New Castle Institute.

This volume of weaving techniques was created circa 1893 by J. Mercier, who was possibly a student at the École Municipal de Tissage et de Broderie in Lyon, France, where he learned industrial textile design.

This daily journal of Milford High School in Milford, Massachusetts, contains autograph entries chronicling the daily thoughts and activities of its students in 1852.

This diary was kept by bookseller Robert Miller of Montréal, Québec, between 1850 and 1851.

This journal, belonging to missionary Colby C. Mitchell, chronicles his 1841 journey from Boston, Massachusetts, to Smyrna, Turkey. It describes life aboard the ship and some sightseeing in Turkey and Rhodes.

Prominent Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Quaker James Moon recorded his travels in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia between 1742 and 1792 in this brief, handwritten account. He includes dates, names of persons encountered, destinations, and routes, as well as lists of Quaker meeting places, particularly the Shrewsbury Yearly Meeting in New Jersey.

The journal of Massachusetts resident James Madison Morton contains accounts of two trips to South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama taken in 1859 and 1861. It also contains brief notes and memoranda dated from 1859-1870.

This manuscript book of textile dye recipes and colorful sample swatches was created by John Motion at the Coats Thread Co. in 1891.

This single volume is a specimen of a case construction binding created by John Franklin ("Frank") Mowery, a bookbinder and former head conservator at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

This volume contains notes taken by Issac F. R. Mulock of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during lectures given by Dr. Henry McMurtrie on physics and anatomy and by John S. Hart on the history of public schools in Philadelphia. McMurtrie's lectures were given in 1845 and Hart's were given at Central High School (Philadelphia) in 1847.

This five-volume private diary documents the life of New York City resident George G. Needham, who began the diary at age thirteen and kept it until he was twenty-two, giving a description of the everyday life and physical geography of New York in the mid-nineteenth century.

These two volumes are the diaries of John Reed Nicholson of Dover, Delaware, for the years 1882 and 1889.

This collection consists of one volume of lecture notes taken by an unidentified student who attended a series of lectures on anatomy, blood, and midwifery, given by Dr. William Shippen, Jr. in Philadelphia, possibly in 1762.

This manuscript is a calligraphic devotional book containing Latin prayers and hymns corresponding to the Roman Catholic liturgical year. It was created by an unknown person in 1827, perhaps a Cistercian nun at the Doornzele Abbey near Ghent, Belgium.

This notebook belonged to an English papermaking apprentice in the 1890s and contains instructions and recipes for making paper as well as poetry.

John A. (John Andrew) Parke, likely a student in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, kept this penmanship exercise book between 1845 and 1846. Parke used the book to practice his handwriting in German Text.

These nine volumes are a journal and scrapbook kept by Jessie Southard Parker of Belmont, Massachusetts, from 1899 to 1916. Parker wrote extensively about her social and family life, thoughts on current events, and belief in Christian Science, supplementing her entries with theatrical programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, and other pieces of ephemera.

This college notebook belonged to Virginia congressman and jurist Richard Parker, judge in the trial of abolitionist John Brown. The book contains lecture notes taken from 1832 to 1833 during a University of Virginia class on law.

Nobel Prize-winning chemist Charles J. Pedersen’s “Food Book No. 1” contains thirty-eight pages of gastronomical entries, including lists of food items on hand, comments on recipes, and items in the refrigerator or freezer, all arranged by date.

Amy Harriet Pepys' diary dates betweenn 1886 and 1893 with descriptions of interactions with friends and family, weather, and social functions.

The journal of Englishman Walter Courtenay Pepys chronicles trips to Italy, France, Monaco, and Algeria in 1867. Entries describe travel conditions, landmarks visited, hotels, meals, and social engagements.

This volume contains the constitution, bylaws, amendments, membership roster, and presidential oath for the Pestalozzi Literary Society of Delaware College (later the University of Delaware), an early student group for women at the previously all-male institution.