Special Collections Research Center

Painting showing the arms and hands of a Black woman writing in a journal with historical imagery above
Black Women's Diaries Project

Black Women's Diaries Project

Black women writing their own lives, one day at a time

Duration
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Florence Barber's diary page for July 4, 1902
Like many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century diarists, Barber’s preprinted diary entries are short and matter-of-fact—a record of daily events rather than her intimate thoughts. On July 4, 1902, she briefly noted the weather, her husband’s activities, and a visitor in the space provided. Overwhelmed by the heat, she added a second note about it in the margin—a space she frequently used to conclude entries or add extra thoughts. (Florence Barber Diary, SC 00834)

The Black Women’s Diaries Project (BWDP) recovers diaries written by African American women between 1854 and 1903, and makes them accessible to a wide audience. Preserved in libraries and museums, these manuscripts provide new perspectives on nineteenth-century Black life that place the struggle for Black civil rights alongside the rhythms of family life and domestic routines. 

Taken as a whole, the diaries document Black women’s many roles in the everyday labor of imagining a future in the post-emancipation United States. These diaries also represent Black women’s engagement with a genre that is generally only studied via white women’s manuscripts. The first diary in the BWDP archive is the 1902 diary of Norfolk, Virginia, resident Florence Stanton Barber (1858-1941).

 

Learn more about BWDP and view Barber's diary on their project website. 

Exhibit team:

Jennifer Putzi, Rachel N. Hogan, Sapphire George '27, Marlow Gilkey '29, Annie Eason '29, and Jennie Davy

 

Selected images within the exhibit are courtesy of Sargeant Memorial Collection, Norfolk Public Library