Skip to Main Content

Diaries and Letters in the Library Stacks: 1900-2015

Diaries and Letters 1900-2015

The Duty of Delight: the diaries of Dorothy Day by Dorothy Day; Robert Ellsberg
Call Number: 261.83092 D33d
ISBN: 0874620236
Publication Date: 2008-04-01
From the Diary of a Counterrevolutionary by Pavel Kohout
Call Number: 320.9437 K827f
Intervention in Czechoslovakia (1968)
The Courage to Stand Alone: letters from prison and other writings by Jingsheng Wei
Call Number: 323.0951 W424
Publication Date: 1998-08-01
Ambassador Dodd's diary, 1933-1938
Call Number: 327.73 D661a
The Kennan Diaries by George F. Kennan; Frank Costigliola (Editor)
Call Number: 327.73 K361k
Publication Date: 2014-02-16
The annotated diaries of the influential American diplomat and foreign policy strategist spans ninety years of U.S. history while sharing his insights into Depression-era capitalism, the Cold War, and his literary achievements.
Thank You, Madagascar: the conservation diaries of Alison Jolly by Alison Jolly; Hilary Bradt (Foreword by)
Call Number: 333.72092 J68t
Publication Date: 2016-03-15
The Family Letters of Victor and Meta Berger, 1894-1929 by Michael E. Stevens (Editor); Ellen D. Goldlust-Gingrich (Editor)
Call Number: 335.092 B453A1
Publication Date: 1995-12-15
War Letters: extraordinary correspondence from American wars by Andrew Carroll; Douglas Brinkley (Foreword by)
Call Number: 355.009 W195
Publication Date: 2002-05-01
Diary of a Harlem schoolteacher. by James Haskins
Call Number: 379.2 H273d
Publication Date: 1969
Dear Professor Dyson: twenty years of correspondence between Freeman Dyson and undergraduate students on science, technology, society and life by Freeman J. Dyson; Dwight E. Neuenschwander
Call Number: 530.092 D99n
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
Keith Haring Journals by Robert F. Thompson (Introduction by); Julia Gruen (Afterword by, Foreword by); Keith Haring; David Hockney (Preface by)
Call Number: 709.2 H224
Publication Date: 1996-07-01
Daybook: the journey of an artist by Anne Truitt
Call Number: 709.2 T769
Publication Date: 1984-03-06
Charles Burchfield's Journals by Charles Ephraim Burchfield; J. Benjamin Townsend
Call Number: 759.12 B893c
Publication Date: 1993-01-01
The Andy Warhol diaries by Andy Warhol, Pat. Hackett
Call Number: 759.12 W232 H
Daybooks of Edward Weston by Edward Weston
Call Number: 770 W528d
Publication Date: 1973-01-01
volume I. Mexico -- volume II. California.
The Nantucket Diary, 1973 to 1985 by Ned Rorem
Call Number: 780.92 R692A1
Publication Date: 1987-10-01
Dearest Bubushkin: the correspondence of Vera and Igor Stravinsky, 1921-1954, with excerpts from Vera Stravinsky's diaries, 1922-1971
Call Number: 780.92 St82d
Publication Date: 1985-10-01
The Olympics of 1972: a Munich diary by Richard D. Mandell
Call Number: 796.48 M312o
Publication Date: 1991-08-01
Journals: early fifties, early sixties by Allen Ginsberg
Call Number: 811 G435X1
Publication Date: 1977-01-01
Dreiser's Russian Diary by Thomas P. Riggio (Editor); James L. W. West (Editor); Theodore Dreiser
Call Number: 813 D814X2
Publication Date: 1996-09-01
Past Tense: diaries by Jean Cocteau; Richard Howard (Translator); Ned Rorem (Introduction by)
Call Number: 848 C647p
Publication Date: 1987-02-01
1920 Diary by Isaak Bábel; Carol J. Avins (Editor, Introduction by, Notes by); H. T. Willetts (Translator)
Call Number: 891.73 B115n
Publication Date: 1995-04-26
The 1920 Diary is the most significant contemporary account of the tragedy of Eastern European Jewry during this period.
A Warsaw Diary: 1978-1981 by Kazimierz Brandys; Richard Lourie (Translator)
Call Number: 891.85 B734w
Publication Date: 1984-10-01
The complete Bolivian diaries of Ché Guevara, and other captured documents. by Che Guevara
Call Number: 920 G939
Publication Date: 1968
A long row of candles; memoirs and diaries, 1934-1954 by Sulzberger, C. L.
Call Number: 920 Su59
Publication Date: 1969
The author's experiences as a correspondent for the New York Times based in Europe during World War II and its immediate aftermath.
Good-Bye to Old Peking: the wartime letters of U.S. Marine Captain John Seymour Letcher, 1937-1939 by John Seymour Letcher; Roger B. Jeans (Contribution by); Katie Letcher Lyle (Contribution by)
Call Number: 940.5425 L568g
Publication Date: 1998-04-01
Token of a covenant; diary of an East Prussian surgeon, 1945-47.
Call Number: 940.5475 L528t

Diaries and Letters 1900-2015

Nella Last's Peace by Nella Last
Call Number: 941.085 L33ne
Publication Date: 2009
Picking up where 'Nella Last's War' left off, this moving and often comic diary tells the story of her post-war struggles and describes what ordinary people felt during those years of privation, hope and rebuilding.
Spandau : the secret diaries by Albert Speer
Call Number: 943.086 Sp32s
These prison diaries of Hitler's chief architect and Minister of Armament and War Production couple a record of his 20 year incarceration in Spandau Prison along with Hess, Shirach, Doenitz, et al. with his recollections of the Third Reich.
Letters from Prison by Milan Simecka; Gerald Turner (Translator); Václav Havel (Foreword by); Jirina Siklova (Introduction by); Vilem Precan (Afterword by)
Call Number: 943.7 Si4l
Publication Date: 2002-03-01
Madrid 1937: letters of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the Spanish Civil War by Cary Nelson (Editor); Jefferson Hendricks (Editor)
Call Number: 946.081 M26
Publication Date: 1996-03-28
Letters from Americans who took up arms and confronted Hitler's Condor Legion, Mussolini's Black Shirts, and Franco's fascist cavalry on the battlefields of Spain.
Sarajevo: a war journal by Zlatko Dizdarevic; Anselm Hollo (Translator); Robert J. Lifton (Foreword by)
Call Number: 949.7 D648s
Publication Date: 1993-11-01
Nanking Letters 1949 by Knight Biggerstaff
Call Number: 951.042 B483n
Publication Date: 1999-07-01
The Good Man of Nanking: the diaries of John Rabe by John Rabe
Call Number: 951.042 R11g
Publication Date: 2000
A Young Palestinian's Diary, 1941-1945 by Kimberly Katz (Edited and Translated by); Salim Tamari (Foreword by)
Call Number: 956.94 Am76y
Publication Date: 2010-05-01
Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation by Cate Malek (Editor); Mateo Hoke (Editor)
Call Number: 956.94 P17
Publication Date: 2014-11-11
Voices from Vietnam by Michael E. Stevens (Editor); Ellen D. Goldlust-Gingrich (Editor); A. Kristen Foster (Editor); Regan Rhea (Editor)
Call Number: 959.704 V87
Publication Date: 1996-12-15
Journal, 1955-1962: reflections on the French-Algerian War by Mouloud Feraoun; Mary Ellen Wolf (Translator); Claude Fouillade (Translator); James D. Le Sueur (Editor, Introduction by)
Call Number: 965 F37j
Publication Date: 2000-06-01
Account of everyday life in Algeria during decolonization.
Ignacio: the diary of a Maya Indian of Guatemala by James D. Sexton (Edited and Translated by)
Call Number: 970.72 B551i
Publication Date: 1992-02-01
Montana 1911: a professor and his wife among the Blackfeet : Wilhelmina Maria Uhlenbeck-Melchior's diary and C.C. Uhlenbeck's original Blackfoot texts and a new series of Blackfoot texts by Alice Kehoe (Contribution by); Inge Genee (Contribution by); Klaas Van Berkel (Contribution by)
Call Number: 970.765 M76
Publication Date: 2005-09-07
Diary of the Cuban Revolution by Carlos Franqui; Elaine Kerrigan (Translator)
Call Number: 972.91 F856d
Cuba, 1933 - 1959
Wounded Knee 1973 by Stanley David Lyman; Floyd A. O'Neil (Editor); June K. Lyman; Susan McKay (Editor); Alvin M. Josephy (Foreword by)
Call Number: 973.8 L989w
Publication Date: 1993-09-01
American Indian Movement (AIM) activists' occupation of the village of Wounded Knee.
My Dear Mr. Stalin: the complete correspondence between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph V. Stalin by Arthur M. Schlesinger (Foreword by); Susan Butler (Editor); Franklin D. Roosevelt
Call Number: 973.917 R677m
Publication Date: 2006-01-10
The Haldeman Diaries: inside the Nixon White House by H. R. Haldeman; Stephen E. Ambrose (Afterword by, Introduction by)
Call Number: 973.924 H12h
Publication Date: 1994
The China Diary of George H.W. Bush by Jeffrey A. Engel (Editor); George H. W. Bush (Preface by)
Call Number: 973.928 B963A2
Publication Date: 2008-05-04
As head of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing from 1974 to 1975, Bush witnessed high-level policy deliberations and daily social interactions between the two Cold War superpowers.
Letters from the Front, 1898-1945 by Michael E. Stevens
Call Number: 977.5 L569
Publication Date: 1992-12-15
Shares the stories of men and women from Wisconsin who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.
I Do Not Apologize for the Length of This Letter: the Mari Sandoz letters on Native American rights, 1940-1965 by Kimberli A. Lee (Editor)
Call Number: 978 Sa57i
Publication Date: 2009
Documents Sandoz's role as a non-Native chronicler and advocate for Plains Indian cultures.
Dust Bowl Diary by Ann Marie Low; Ann Low
Call Number: 978.4 L95d
The author recounts her experiences growing up in North Dakota from 1928 to 1937 the years of the Dust bowl and Depression.

Working with Primary Sources

Research Strategies for Working with Primary Sources
A primary source document or collection is the “raw stuff” of history. Diaries, letters, newspapers, recordings and films provide an upfront, often revealing, glimpse at a particular person, event or historical time period. When using primary source material, it is important to devise a sound research strategy. Follow the link above for more details.