Julia Richardson diaries

1901-1938

The Julia Richardson diaries, dating from 1901 to 1938, chronicle her personal observations of everyday life, and consist of diaries, an account book, a railway map and schedule, pencils, a bank stub, and a music program. The diaries chronicle Richardson's personal observations of everyday life, as well as her reflections on events and periods of major social and political importance, including the women's suffrage movement, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and World War I. Twenty-five diaries, dating from 1901 to 1938, hold daily or weekly entries that disclose Richardson's observations about her life, family, friends, and acquaintances in Dracut, Massachusetts; her trips to the family cabin in Bustin's Island, Maine; and her involvement in church and women's social clubs and committees. There are items interleaved in each of the diaries, including a letter written by Richardson's granddaughter Ruth, a music concert program, two postcards, a Pullman passenger's check, and newspaper clippings. Among other events, her diaries record the first time Richardson could, and did, vote in state and national elections; soldiers training for World War I bringing the 1918 influenza pandemic to Dracut; and the closure of local schools, churches, and theaters during the 1918 influenza pandemic. The diaries also contain newspaper clippings that detail changes in the local climate. Richardson's diaries connect local reports on the weather with her recollections of losing crops to blizzards.

The other three diaries, dating from 1905 to 1927, focus on Richardson's travels by rail. One of the travel diaries recounts Richardson's 1927 trip from Boston, Massachusetts to Vancouver, Canada and features fifteen inserted pages of travel expenses and an attached pencil. Another travel diary, written into a farmer's memorandum book, recalls her 1925 trip with a person named Dr. Rollins from Boston, Massachusetts to San Francisco and Los Angeles, California, through written observations, travel expenses, and railway station stops. The 1905 travel diary, written in an animal fertilizers book, details Richardson's trip from Boston, Massachusetts to Princeville, Illinois to visit her sister Esther Cutter. The diary features some recipes scribbled in the book's margins.

There is one accounting book, dating from 1905 to 1913, with an attached pencil and ephemera, including a Santa Fe Transcontinental Lines map with Chicago and Kansas City schedules on the back, a bank reconciliation stub, and a 1920 Middlesex Women's Club music program.