Collections : [University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.]

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 an anonymous hunting diary with entries dating from 1932 to 1938. The book, "Gee's Hunting Diary, to Record the Sport of the Season Arranged for the Followers of Foxhounds and Harriers" was printed by Ernest R. Gee at his book and print shop. The book has detailed fields to record elements of the users' hunts including ruled diary for recording details of hunts such as date, hounds, huntsman, the meet, horses, fox, hare, covers drawn, found, wind, weather, scent, accounted forobservations. The book has no mark of ownership and includes thirty-one leaves, of which twenty-five contain entries and six are blank. On the last page: "Printed by Eugene V. Connett at The Derrydale Press." The last entry has a small hand-drawn map of the hunting area being described. Possible hunting locations noted in the book include the Elkridge-Hartford Hunt Club in Maryland. A clipping, pinned to one page, contains an account of the United Hunt in Ireland. Entries in August 1936 include notes on cubbing, which was the practice of hunting young foxes, especially for training hounds.

The collection contains eleven diaries written by Isabel Myers Brinckerhoff between 1916 and 1935, accompanied by four folders of loose ephemera, letters, clippings, and manuscripts. The materials document approximately twenty years of Brinckerhoff's life from her time as a student at Christian College through early marriage, her relocation to California, motherhood, divorce, and later relationships. The first four diaries document Isabel's college years from 1916 to 1919; the final seven diaries document her life in the Los Angeles area. However, Isabel spent 1931 in Reno, Nevada, and 1932 and 1933 in Oakland, California, before returning to L.A. later in 1933, where she remained through 1935.

This collection contains the diary of Jennie M. Bromley Butler (1860-1948) who lived in Rockville, Connecticut. The diary documents her life after returning from her honeymoon with her husband, Edward Butler, and their first decade of marriage. The entries are dated from 1887 to 1898. She records her traveling experiences, including their honeymoon trip to Montreal, other trips to New York and Philadelphia, and summer and weekend trips. She also records her day-to-day life, which includes her relationship and visits with her mother, notes about health and headaches, observations of fashion and objects, and her experiences as a mother. She also reports on the community around her, noting stillbirths and deaths, and writes of her grief after her mother died. Also interspersed in the diary are quotations and prayers. The diary measures roughly 8 x 6.5 inches with marbled boards. Sixty-five pages contain entries, and the remaining leaves are blank. There is also some tipped-in material including a handwritten biography of Ernest Butler, a page of reflections, and a letter from 1862 regarding a William Butler.

This collection consists of the personal papers of Jethro Meriwether Hurt, a former UVA School of Medicine student, related to his medical practice in Blacktone, Virginia in the 1800s. There are two items in this collection: a handwritten medical casebook dating from the 1840s in Jethro Meriwether Hurt's medical practice in Blackstone, Virginia; and a handwritten diary from the 1860s documenting patient visits, medical charges, and other expenses related to Jethro Meriwether Hurt's medical practice and personal affairs.

This collection contains a small leather-bound pocket diary kept by Mary P. Cook (1838–1862) of Upper Pittsgrove, New Jersey, documenting the year 1860. There are 365 pages of daily entries and twelve additional handwritten pages of household accounts at the rear. The ownership signature of Mary Cook, recording her date of birth, appears on the front endpaper. Cook maintained daily entries throughout the year, opening nearly each one with a weather observation before recording visits, sermons, social calls, and the management of family finances. The accounts section documents cashflow, interest collected from tenants, and other transactions; the names recorded there recur throughout the diary proper, grounding the financial records within a broader social network. Cook also marks an "X" on days associated with the onset of her menstrual cycle, occasionally noting the time or heaviness of flow. She records spitting blood on at least one occasion (July 27) and notes multiple episodes of illness among those around her and her own illness. It is unclear if Mary's chronic illness was related to her reproductive health or to a wider blood disease, as she also reports on July 27 "spit up a few mouthfuls of blood, did not get up very early." Whatever the specific diagnosis, it is clear that Mary was dealing with serious discomfort and pain. She traveled to Cape May and Atlantic City for therapeutic seaside visits and records a visit to the American Tract House, from which she returned with reading materials. Cook died suddenly in Philadelphia in February 1862 at the age of 23, approximately two years after the close of this diary, and was returned to Pittsgrove for burial. Her obituary in the Bridgeton Pioneer described her physical nature as "delicate" and her mental state as "strong."