Howard University student diary

Content Description

This collection contains a diary from an unknown female student attending Howard University in 1915. It measures 9 X 6 inches, and the pages are hole-punched and tied with a ribbon. The diary includes one tipped-in item and twenty-eight leaves with thirty-three of the pages written on. Most of the diary documents the last few days of May 1915, covering the writer's final days at Howard and reminiscing about her time at the university. She discusses her and her friends attending the annual play by Howard's dramatic club, a version of "The Merchant of Venice," attending a tennis tournament, dancing, and going to nightclubs where her friends would sing and play music. She also discusses her classes and preparing for exams. The diary mentions "Mary Terrell" more than once, but her interactions were not with Mary Church Terrell, the civil rights activist and journalist, but with a niece who shared the same first and last name. The diarist mentions her friendship and admiration of Jesse S. Heslip, sometimes called " Jess Hess" in the diary. The writer describes letters and times they shared, such as going to Capitol Hill to hear Congressman Martin Madden speak. Laid into the diary is ephemera announcing "Why Some Are Voting For Heslip." Heslip, who, after graduating from Howard in 1917, would serve on the national legal committee of the NAACP, become president of the National Black Bar Association and petition Congress to establish training camps for black soldiers at the onset of the Second World War. Later entries in the diary (June-August 1915) place the writer in Brooklyn, New York.

Acquisition Type

Purchase

Provenance

Purchased from Langdon Manor, 23 February 2024.

Language of Description

English

Restrictions Apply

No