Memorable Days: The
Emilie Davis Diaries commemorates the 150th anniversary of the
Civil War by sharing the remarkable diaries kept by an African American woman
in Philadelphia from 1863 to 1865.
Through this Web site, which includes annotated transcriptions of the
diaries and scans of the original pages, readers can experience the events in
Emilie Davis’s life in real time. Going
back 150 years to October-November 1863, for example, readers learn that Davis’s
brother, Alfred, enlisted
in the U.S. Navy just days before his wife, Mary, died of consumption. Readers can navigate the Web site by date or
by keyword. Topics include the Emancipation
Proclamation, the Battle of Gettysburg
and the Gettysburg
Address, and the assassination of
President Abraham Lincoln.
The Web site
is a project of Villanova University and its Falvey Memorial Library, with
support from the History Department, the Communication Department, and the
Villanova Institute for Teaching and Learning.
The diaries are in the collection of the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania and are accessible in its Digital Library. They were scanned as part of The People’s Contest: A Civil War Era
Digital Archiving Project, a project of Pennsylvania State University Libraries
and the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center.
