Reading an antique diary is probably the truest way to understand what life was like in a different era. You can still get your hands on a 19th century diary for a reasonable price depending upon the author. Without bells and whistles and movie stars added, all you read is the thoughts, feelings and daily activities of a person who lived long before you were ever even imagined. Antique diaries and journals tell tales first hand that modern movies can only aspire to recreate with any level of authenticity.
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 Antique 1883 Dr Pierces Memorandum Account Book Farmers Almanac Personal Diary  US $5.00 |  Antique Hand Written Diary Ledger from 1874 from New York State Take a LOOK US $5.99 |
 1892 1893 Handwritten Diaries Journals Minnie Sanborn Salisbury New Hampshire US $9.99 |  1881 1882 Greens Greens Census and Diary Almanac Woodbury NJ US $9.99 |
 Excelsior Diary 1883 Interest Rates To US PresidentsCalendarNotes of 1883 US $10.50 |  Year 1874 and 1879 full Hand Written Diary Books US $11.50 |
| Vintage Ephemera |
Some of the most compelling writing you will ever read can be found within the pages of antique diaries. These old collections are where the true experience of every day life was captured and recorded without any editing or cleaning up for the sake of making things more palatable to modern readers. I have never found a diary dating back past the turn of the last century myself. I have however purchased some antique diaries from the period between 1910 and 1920 and I can tell you that they described what sounds, at times, like a completely different world. What is interesting to me though is the fact that even though things were much different as far as every day events and news were concerned, the day to day happenings sound remarkably similar to what one might focus on and write about today. The minutia of the day is now very interesting to us because we long to learn what life was really like that long ago. It can make us wonder how different things will be one hundred years from now. Will people look back at us in the year 2110 and wonder how we dealt with the "primitive" conditions of today? It makes for an interesting thought and it gives a new perspective to reading those old 19th century diaries and other vintage ephemera.
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