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Sarah D. Wilt diary
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Held at: Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections [Contact Us]370 Lancaster Ave, Haverford, PA 19041
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Sarah D. Wilt was born on November 14, 1853, to Benjamin Wilt and Susannah Dobbs Wilt in Kittanning, Pennsylvania. Benjamin Wilt was a commercial broker. In 1864, Sarah Wilt moved with her family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1868, she started a diary, and began it with memories of her family's move to Philadelphia. In 1869, the family moved to Allegheny City, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1871, the family moved again, this time to Petersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1884, Sarah D. Wilt married Clement Dale, a lawyer from Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. They had three children, Mary Edith Dale (b. 1886), Arthur Clement Dale (b. 1889), and Marion Ethel Dale (b. 1891). Sarah D. Wilt Dale died on September 16, 1930.
(Information from U.S. Census data and "Clement Dale Commemorative Biographical Record").
Sarah D. Wilt's diary starts with her family's 1864 move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, the entries concerning the years 1864 to early 1868 were written in 1868, when she began writing in the diary regularly. In her diary, Wilt wrote about her daily life helping her mother, attending school, and caring for her siblings. Wilt and her family visited multiple philanthropic and educational institutions in Pennsylvania, and Wilt described these visits in detail in her diary. She visited the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, the Burd Orphan Asylum, the Blind Asylum, the Franklin Institute, Girard College, and the Pittsburgh Female College. Other interesting occurences in her diary include her summer visit to New York City to see her grandparents, her description of her family getting scarlet fever, and her descriptions of sermons at the many local churches she attended.
The Sarah D. Wilt diary was purchased by Special Collections, Haverford College in 2016 from Michael Brown Rare Books.
Processed by Abigail Corcoran; completed June, 2016.
- Publisher
- Haverford College Quaker & Special Collections
- Finding Aid Author
- Abigail Corcoran
- Finding Aid Date
- June, 2016
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research use.
- Use Restrictions
-
Standard Federal Copyright Laws Apply (U.S. Title 17).
Collection Inventory
1 volumes