Famous diary-keepers like Anne Frank, Samuel Pepys, James Boswell, Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau and Sir Ernest Shackleton used their own journals as compelling source material for popular published works. By sampling both well-known and lesser-known local examples (Joseph Colby, Job Seamans, Oren Crockett and Josie Goodhue), this course explores the use and misuse of primary sources in the research, understanding and retelling of historical events.

Jim Perkins, New London’s town archivist, will be joined by colleagues invited to bring their own examples. Guests include Brian Burford (State of New Hampshire, retired), Mary Meagher (Keene State College), Morgan Swan (Dartmouth College) and Morgan Wilson (Colby-Sawyer College).