Letters home, December 1918

The twenty first folder in the Natalie Gookin papers contains letters written every day in correspondence between Bryn Mawr College junior Natalie Gookin and her family in Chicago during December 1918. These letters have been arranged chronologically according to the date that they were written. The intimate relationships between Natalie and her parents is evident throughout her letters, as she writes about every detail of her life and thoughts to them. In her letters, she writes mostly about her courses and homework as well as her time with her friends and events in the Bryn Mawr community. Much of November is spent in studying and working hard, as she becomes more stressed with her workload and feels that she has less free time. One interesting detail is her perfectly serious request to her mother to have a celebrity, “preferably English”, come to a party during her Christmas vacation. These letters would be of interest to anyone studying women’s colleges, student life, and home relationships.