Harriet S. Crothers travel diary

Biographical and Historical Notes

Harriet S. Crothers was possibly a native of Philadelphia; in the fall of 1846, she and her husband Willy traveled to continental Europe for their honeymoon.

Sources

Biographical information derived from the collection.

Scope and Content Note

The Harriet S. Crothers travel diary documents the honeymoon tour of continental Europe taken by American Harriet S. Crothers and her husband in the fall of 1846. Entries describe tourist activities the couple undertook while visiting major cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

Crothers wrote lengthy entries describing tourist activities such as visiting churches, galleries, and museums. The diary offers rich detail concerning local attractions, including music, paintings, and flora, as well as clothing styles and modes of transportation. She regularly quoted dates, dimensions, populations, and distances, as if she were consulting the details of a travel guide such as Baedeker.

Locations mentioned include the following: Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Cologne, Bonn, Collentz [Koblenz], Frankfurt-on-the-Hayne, Baden-Baden, Strasburg, Neuchatel, Geneva, Shannessy, Berne, Interlachen, Thume, Lucerne, Munich, Augsburg, Nunemburg, Constance, Potzdam, Wittenburg, Dresden, Prague, Cilli, Venice, Florence, Leipsic, and Neurenburg.

This leather-bound volume is completely filled with autograph notes in ink.

Publication Note

University of Delaware. Library. Self works : diaries, scrapbooks, and other autobiographical efforts : catalog of an exhibition, August 19, 1997-December 18, 1997 : guide to selected sources. Newark, Del. : Special Collections, Hugh M. Morris Library, University of Delaware Library, 1997.