{"value"=>"<p>Hansberry's most intimate thoughts about her life and work in this collection can be found in the Autobiographical Notes. These files contain journals, bound and loose-leaf pages of diary-like entries dated 1958, 1960, and 1962-1963 (some bound journals are missing pages). Entries are episodic and are largely concerned with the day's events, writing projects, and health concerns. One of the files is comprised of several hand and typewritten notes, covering a variety of subjects, before and after Hansberry's success with A Raisin in the Sun. Among the reoccurring subjects are her writing habits, illness, depression, thoughts about herself and her role as a writer and activist. Other topics include her childhood, her family's trip to Mexico in 1949, communism, loneliness, success, and the craft of writing. In \"Myself in Notes\", she lists her likes and dislikes and commemorates her birthday from age 23 to 33, albeit infrequently. Of particular interest is Hansberry's struggle with depression documented primarily in the bound diaries. In \"Notes to Self\", a series of diary-like entries and five letters, 1954, 1955, 1962, undated, the writer reveals her struggle with lesbianism, privately and publicly.</p> <p>Two stories Hansberry penned about herself can also be found in this subseries, \"Notes of a Young Communist\" (1951), and an untitled narrative about the day a brick crashed through her family's window, thus inspiring her best-known play, A Raisin in the Sun. The files also contain birth, death and marriage certificates, and the Nemiroffs' wedding book.</p> <p>Diary, 1963-1964. This may be the last diary Hansberry kept after she was diagnosed with cancer. There are extensive notes about The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, her lesbian lovers (specifically Dorothy Secalus), civil rights, currents events (President Kennedy's assassination), work habits, new works in progress (e. g., Les Blancs), and her illness. There are pages missing from this diary.</p> <p>Within a month of her passing, according to most media reports, it was revealed that Hansberry and Nemiroff had filed for divorce in March 1964; there is one folder of clippings from New York papers covering this story.</p>"}