Excerpts from the Introduction to Diaries of Girls and Women: a Midwestern American Sampler (University of Wisconsin Press, 2001).

--Nineteenth-century sampler

What kind of sampler is this collection?  My study of diaries kept by girls and women living in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota since the mid-nineteenth century has resulted in this anthology of selections from forty-six diaries. My purpose is twofold: to explore the ways in which diaries can document the diverse experiences of individuals and families, and to understand the ways in which diaries have functioned as forms of life writing. I draw on the metaphor of the sampler, which is appropriate for several reasons. First, the term sampler can refer to a decorative piece of needlework that usually has letters or verses embroidered on it in various stitches as an example of the stitcher’s skill. The word comes from the Latin word exemplum, meaning something that serves as a pattern for imitation or record. The word found its way into English via the French word exemplaire, meaning model, pattern, copy, specimen. Girls and women in many cultural settings have created samplers, and the sampler found its way into early American life as a demonstration of various stitches, designs, and motifs that girls and women could study and then imitate in future sewing tasks. It is no coincidence that women and girls created most samplers because they traditionally have done the sewing and fine stitchery in their families. As a form of material culture, girls and women typically designed and preserved samplers as evidence of their skill..

Today the word sampler has additional connotations. One can buy a Whitman’s Chocolates Sampler or send a Wisconsin Cheese House Sampler as a holiday gift. Sampler is also used to represent part or a single item from a larger whole or group. The term can refer to the person doing the collecting, as in one who collects or examines samples, and it can be used to refer to that which has been collected, that is, the sample. All these definitions apply to the selections from diaries that appear in this anthology. The act of keeping a diary involves the sampling of one’s experiences, followed by the selection of particular details and the shaping of each diary entry. The act of editing a diary, whether it be one’s own diary or another person’s, involves sampling diary entries, then selecting particular entries, often for an edition or a collection such as this.

Over the years several questions have guided my study of diaries: Why do diaries have such staying power? What makes them appealing to writers young and old? What can diaries help us appreciate about the lives and experiences of those individuals who kept them? What can diaries tell us, not only about why individuals write in diaries but also about why they (and others) preserve those diaries and make them available for others to read and appreciate? Although I do not claim that this collection will provide definitive answers to these questions, I hope that it will open the door for further study of the issues they raise.

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What is a diary? When I began my research, I made a distinction between the diary as a form for recording events and the journal as a form for introspection, reflection, and the expression of feelings. Like many others, I have found this to be an artificial distinction, both as the result of my research and as the result of my own diary keeping. I found as many kinds of diaries as diarists: a diary might be kept in a cloth-bound book with lock and key, but it might just as easily be kept in a spiral notebook, looseleaf paper, or on the back sides of envelopes. A diary entry might be a brief one-line report of events, such as those entries found in diaries kept by Maranda J. Cline or Ruby Butler Ahrens. A diary entry might contain a five-page analysis of one’s beliefs, attitudes, and desires, such as those entries found in diaries kept by Sarah Jane Kimball, Emily Quiner, or Ada James. A diarist might write daily entries, as Lillian Carpenter did; a diarist might write periodic entries, as Martha Furgerson Nash did; or a diarist might write sporadic entries, as Maria Morton Merrill did.

Diaries also reflect different kinds of authorship. Some diaries, like those of Mary Griffith and Elspeth Close, have individual authors and appear to have been written for the diarist alone. Some diaries, like those of Sarah Gillespie and Ada James, also tell us that the diarist permitted certain family members (Sarah’s mother, Ada’s cousin) to read entries in the diaries. The Hamilton and Holton family diaries illustrate multiple authorship of diary entries over years and generations. The Chronicle of the School Sisters of Notre Dame as well as the Annals of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis illustrate the communal, or group, diary--written as a community record and preserved in community archives. It bears repeating: we find as many kinds of diaries as we do diarists.

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What makes the diary so intriguing to readers? I believe that the diary’s appeal can be traced to its expansiveness and flexibility. The diary can incorporate a variety of writing styles; it can range from being formal and stylized to conversational and idiomatic. The diary can envelop a variety of themes; for example, the need for self-affirmation, the conflict between duty and desire, the quest for knowledge, the wish to make one’s mark on the world, the coming to terms with change and loss. Because it is expansive and flexible, the diary can be studied simultaneously as a historical document, a therapeutic tool, and a form of literature. The diary can provide valuable insights into individuals’ self-images, the dynamics of families and communities, and the kinds of contributions that individuals have made, past and present. The form and content of a diary are inevitably shaped not only by its writer’s personality but also by her experience of race, ethnicity, class, age, sexual orientation, and geographical setting. Circumstances influence both what a diarist writes and when and why she writes–and what she does not write.

Whose diaries are included in this collection? I found that the girl or woman most likely to have kept a diary in the years since 1850 was a third-, fourth-, fifth-, or sixth-generation Euro-American with adequate economic resources and some access to education. Several diaries in this collection were written by girls and women who had the time and resources accorded by family wealth and white privilege (e.g., Etta Call, Gertrude Cairns, Margaret Vedder Holdredge). At the same time, a number of the diaries were written by white working-class girls and women (e.g., Jennie Andrews, Abbie Griffin, Lillian Carpenter); one diary was written by a Euro-American immigrant (Isabella McKinnon) and another by the daughter (Pauline Petersen) of two immigrants. Two diaries (those by Gwendolyn Wilson Fowler and Martha Furgerson Nash) were written by middle-class African American women. Poor and wealthy farm girls and women (Sarah Gillespie Huftalen, Jane F. Grout, Antoinette Porter King, Jennie Andrews, Ruby Butler Ahrens), a group that has traditionally defied categorization by class, wrote several of the diaries.

What kinds of diaries have I included in this collection? Quite a variety. Some were kept by girls and women who have died and whose families kept their diaries or donated them to historical society archives. A number of modern diaries remain in the possession of the diarists. Several of these contemporary diaries are kept by diarists who know me and who, as the result of our acquaintance, have developed a trust in my ability to present their diary excerpts accurately and empathetically. My intent in compiling this collection has been to create a sampler, not to complete a scientific study. Subjectivity and empathy have been and continue to be cornerstones of my work. As I have noted elsewhere, "My work on women’s ‘private’ diaries and journals does not take place in a vacuum. It occurs within the context of my own daily journal keeping, my own letter writing. It occurs within the context of enduring and not-so-enduring relationships, changes in daily responsibilities, alterations in mind-set and habit" (1993, 219).

Since 1985, when I began to collect diaries for this book, I have made several modifications and refinements in my initial research plan. During the early stages, I planned to limit the scope of this book to diaries written from approximately 1840 to1900 and already donated to historical society archives. As my study continued, however, I recognized the arbitrary nature of that plan. Twentieth-century diaries by midwestern American girls and women are equally as compelling and revealing as those by nineteenth-century diarists. For this reason I expanded the collection to include a number of recent, even contemporary, diaries. Moreover, many girls and women who began their diaries during the late nineteenth century continued writing in their diaries into the twentieth century (e.g., Maranda J. Cline and Ada L. James). Some diaries were begun in one geographical setting and completed in a different setting (e.g., the diaries of Sarah Pratt, Isabella McKinnon, and Gwendolyn Wilson Fowler). Several diaries were begun by girls and became lifelong autobiographical enterprises (e.g., the diaries of Sarah Jane Kimball, Sarah Gillespie, and Gertrude Cairns). All these realizations required that I expand my initial plan. The result is, I believe, a larger and richer collection than I had first anticipated.