Garrison Family Papers, Series 2: Diaries, 1854-1995

The Diaries series contains narrative and line-a-day diaries and date books for ten Garrisons: Agnes (1879_1945), David Lloyd (1950_95), Edith Stephenson (1907_63), Ellen Wright (1854_1915), Frank Wright and Mildred Yarnall (1886_1961), Robert Hale (1913_14, 1959), Wendell Phillips (1860_68), WLG 1838 (1856_1909), and William Lloyd Garrison (1874; hereafter WLG 1874) (1896_97). It is arranged alphabetically. Agnes' diaries are of particular interest because they span from 1879, when she was 13, to 1945. The nineteenth century diaries are more complete and help to reveal the social and cultural world of a nineteenth-century girl. Some of the diaries contain entries in shorthand. David was also an avid diarist, but the diaries included here consist of notes and an index rather than narratives. Ellen Wright Garrison's diaries are most complete for her girlhood and are a valuable record of the education and maturation of a young woman, daughter of abolitionists and women's rights advocates, just prior to and during the Civil War. The diaries of Frank and Mildred Yarnall Garrison are combined because both contributed to the writing. In addition there is an early typed copy of a diary of Mildred from 1886. There is a long run of WLG 1838's diaries. Although they are brief-entry diaries, they are a good source for information about his activities and contacts. The diary for 1901 contains a necrology of abolitionists.