LibGuides: History: Letters & Diaries

Letters & Diaries as Primary Sources

Letters, diaries, and memoirs are personal writings about events or daily life. Letters may be published in collections and biographies. Diaries and memoirs are often produced as books.

Unpublished diaries and correspondence may appear in manuscript repositories. See the Primary Sources library research guide for more information.

Primary Sources - Manuscripts

Letters & Diaries of Historical Figures

Abraham Lincoln Papers
Correspondence and other papers
Adams Family Papers
Includes correspondence of John Adams and John Quincy Adam's diary
Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers
Correspondence and other papers of the inventor
Darwin Correspondence Project
Letters to and from Charles Darwin
Frederick Douglass Papers
Correspondence and other material
George Washington Papers
Correspondence and other papers
James Madison Papers
Correspondence and other papers
Journals of Lewis & Clark
Journals from the 1803-1806 expedition
Linnaean Correspondence
Carl Linnaeus' correspondence dating from 1735 to 1772
Papers of Sir Joseph Banks
Journals from the Pacific voyages and other material
Samuel F.B. Morse Papers
Letters and other material of the inventor
Thomas Jefferson Papers
Correspondence and other papers
Wilbur & Orville Wright Papers
Correspondence and other papers of the aviation pioneers

Finding Published Diaries & Letters

To find published letters and diaries search the WSU Libraries' catalog, and use the terms diaries, letters, memoirs, or correspondence with your topic keywords. For example:

emigrants correspondence
cicero letters
memoirs slavery

Examples of published letters and diaries from the WSU collection:

Yours in Filial Regards by Kassia Waggoner; Adam Nemmers
Call Number: Holland & Terrell E467 .L682 2015
Publication Date: 2015
This volume collects, transcribes, and annotates 78 letters by eight authors spanning the entire Civil War.
The War Diaries by Alan Taylor & Irene Taylor (eds.)
Call Number: Holland & Terrell D214 .W37 2005
Publication Date: 2005
From Che Guevara, Virginia Woolf, and Davy Crockett to anonymous soldiers in the trenches, these poignant and intense missives capture the immediacy, horror, and pathos of wars.

Letters, Diaries, Memoirs--Digital Collections

Clara Breed Collection
Online collection of letters sent by children and young adults in WWII internment camps for Japanese-Americans.
Canadian Letters & Images Project
Letters from Canadian soldiers with an emphasis on WWI and WWII.
Prairie Settlement: Nebraska Photographs and Family Letters
Solomon D. Butcher photographs and the letters of the Uriah W. Oblinger family, illustrating the story of settlement on the Great Plains.
Pacific Northwest Historical Documents Database
Collection of original, diaries, letters, reminiscences and political documents of early settlers in the PNW
The American West
Includes letters and diaries on Westward Expansion.
Veterans History Project
Personal accounts of American war veterans, 1914-present. Library of Congress