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This collection contains four diaries written by Danny Williams, a gay African American man and theater student from Robbins, Illinois, and Chicago. The diaries are bound volumes, the smallest measuring about 6 inches and the largest measuring 11 inches, including a total of 637 manuscript pages, with entries written in pencil and various colored inks. Williams kept the diaries from 1975 to 1979, while a student at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, and his time immediately after graduating. The diaries provide a look at the experience and struggles of being a Black and gay man in late twentieth-century Chicago. Williams' diaries chronicle his struggles with his multiple identities, racial, sexual, and personal, as he made his way in theater school and life. Williams sought a way to accept and love himself for who he was, but struggled with shame and guilt because of his sexual orientation. He was only out in the African American gay community, not in school, and not with his mother and siblings. These struggles resulted in bouts of depression, panic attacks, and substance abuse. Williams describes his efforts to overcome these issues, improve his craft as an actor, and find roles in the Chicago theater world.

This collection contains letters, diaries, sketches, publications and other material created and collected by Dennis Loy, a gay artist who exhibited works in the Chicago area and New York City. Most of the letters were written to Loy by his cousin, American writer and journalist P.J. O'Rourke, and cover such topics as poetry, politics, drugs, art, and gay culture in the 1980s.

This collection documents the Dotson family of Greenwood, West Virginia in Doddridge County. It contains Nancy Clark Dotson's diaries from 1904-1946 (including photocopies, indices, and supplementary information), other Dotson family diaries and books, the marriage certificate of Franklin and Nancy Clark Dotson, a Dotson family history, a cabinet card and carte de visite album, a tintype album, a collection of glass plate negatives, and other assorted photographs.

21 diaries, chronicling the daily life of Esther E. Zak (1914-2007) of Valparaiso, Porter County, Indiana, for the years 1973-1994. Author recorded daily chores, weather, health, activities such as letter writing, phone calls made and received, as well as outings like church visits, social visits, or shopping trips. There are also occasional comments on political events.

Diaries and scrapbooks, 1934-1997, of Eva L. Webb (1911-2007) of Corry, Pennsylvania. Diary entries vary in length and regularity and some years are skipped altogether. There are two scrapbooks consisting mainly of greeting cards and a few clippings, one for her wedding in May 1940 and the other for her hospitalization for appendicitis in 1941.

This collection contains a diary kept by Frances Forrester-Brown while living and working in Guatemala in 1910. It details her life in Guatemala, including her interactions with public officials, her domestic and managerial duties, her work as a local lay-doctor, financial matters, and her struggles with her husband's illnesses. Alos included are 'asorted code transcription papers' and a 2024 book titled: "Fearless and Free: The Adventures of Frances Forrester-Brown.":

The Heinz and Gertrud Siegel Elber papers consist of a scrapbook and a guestbook documenting their social life and Heinz Elber's professional career as a Kapellmeister (bandmaster) in Dresden, Germany. Heinz Elber (30 April 1882-5 December 1969) and Gertrude Siegel in 1951.