Anne J. Perkins Diaries

This collection consists of 16 diaries, written by Anne J. Perkins over the span of most of her life, from 1935 to 2009. She wrote over a hundred in her lifetime, of which this representative selection was retained by the Archives. Each diary was read and annotated by several members of her family. Annotations range from remarking about factual details to insults of Anne’s character. The journals are mostly personal in nature, but there are a smattering of details about the borough of Swarthmore, and Swarthmore College, which may be of interest to local historians studying those topics.

Anne J. Perkins was born May 10th, 1925, and her first diary was a Christmas gift from her aunt, Christmas of 1935. Anne attended Swarthmore High School, and her early diaries from high school depict a young woman with aspirations to become a writer, often including snippets of short stories, poems, drawings of characters, and descriptions of books, plays, movies, and operas she consumed. Otherwise, her high school diaries are records of 1940s teenage drama and heartache. Anne attended Guilford College, although left before completing her bachelor’s degree. Anne’s 1948 journal from her college years documents a tumultuous relationship with a fellow student named Joe Woods, who she would think about for the rest of her life, particularly in her later years. Anne lived with her mother, Mary, and sister, Leonore (“Nore”), for the rest of her life, moving to 340 Haverford Place (Swarthmore, PA) in 1961 with her mother and sister. Anne never married or had a formal romantic relationship, though most of her journals up until the 1950s detail her crushes and relationships with men, including lengthy discussions of sex, sensuality, and erotic dreams. After leaving Guilford, Anne worked as a librarian at McCabe Library in Swarthmore, and many of her journals detail her feelings about her bosses and coworkers, whom she held in poor regard. The exception was Howard Williams, a coworker and superior at McCabe with whom she had a tumultuous flirtation (these flirtations never resulted in a relationship; annotations made by relatives indicate Howard was gay). Anne struggled with a host of mental and physical illnesses throughout her life, and often wrote about being incapacitated by these illnesses. After retiring from the library in 1988, her already strained relationship with Nore became more tense, and much of her writing after 1955 is focused on domestic conflict between Anne, Nore, and their elderly mother, for whom Nore was a primary caretaker. Although Anne becomes more politically opinionated in later years, often writing about social issues and presidencies (including many racist and homophobic remarks), Anne’s journals become increasingly lengthy and internal as her contact with the “outside world” becomes less frequent. She spends a great deal of time berating her family, who she relies on for socialization but does not appear to like.

In addition to the diaries, this collection contains a few photographs of Anne, her sister Nore, and their home; some short stories written by Anne; and a copy of the 1945 Guilford College yearbook with inscriptions to Anne written by various classmates.