Call Number:

Ms. Codex 1882

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

1 volume

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Ethelwyn Dithridge Hotaling diary, 1912, Ms. Codex 1882, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1912 (inclusive)

Creator:

Hotaling, Ethelwyn Dithridge

Form:

Manuscripts, American -- 20th century, Poetry, Diaries, and Codices (bound manuscripts)

Abstract:

This volume contains the diary of Ethelwyn Dithridge's 1912 summer travels throughout the United States from the East Coast to California. The diary spans three months from June to August. Dithridge described travleing with teaching colleague Amy Halfpenny and later with her mother Harriet Dithridge.

Ethelwyn Dithridge Hotaling was the youngest of seven children born to George Washington and Harriet Martha Lewis Dithridge in Forest County, Pennsylvania. Dithridge began her teaching career after she graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1908. She taught English and history at the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, Boys' School in Overbrook from 1909 to 1912. Dithridge resigned in 1913 to work at Bushwick High School in Brooklyn and later was a teacher at other New York schools. In the summers of 1915 and 1917 she volunteered at Grenfell Mission in Labrador, Newfoundland. Dithridge was also a poet. A volume of her poetry entitled As thou wilt, and other poems was published in 1918. Her works were also printed in several other publications. In 1918 Dithridge married Daniel Benjamin Hotaling, a horse trainer who worked at the Belmont and Aqueduct racetracks. The couple had one daughter Rachel Ellen, who was born in 1920.

This cloth-covered, ruled volume with decorative stamped covers and numbered pages is the diary of Ethelwyn Dithridge's 1912 summer travels. The diary spans three months from June to August. On the first twenty-two pages from mid- to late-June Dithridge recorded her trip to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh with colleagues Amy Halfpenny and Claudia. She toured the state house in Harrisburg and attended a convention and toured steel mills in Pittsburgh. In the remainder of the diary, from June 29 to August 31, Dithridge described her train trip with her mother to California. Chicago was the first city Dithridge wrote about on the Fourth of July. They visited several cities on their journey including Albuquerque, Berkeley, Colorado Springs, Denver, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Santa Monica, Venice Beach, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. In California Dithridge and her mother visited her brother Edward, a poultry farmer and her sister Alice. Detailed descriptions of her journey include sights from the train, colleges, historic sights, museums, and nature expeditions. Dithridge included her thoughts on American Indians, visited a Hopi house, and experienced American Indian dances. Some of the sights included an ostrich farm, an orange grove, state houses, and personal libraries. She provided long and detailed passages regarding the landscapes seen from the train and her tours of national park sites. Dithridge noted she and her mother attended church services and visited other family and friends on their journey. She also mentioned books she was reading. Four of Dithridge's poems are written on pages 137-142. There are autographs on pages forty-six to forty-seven. Three souvenir labels are pasted in the volume. Pages 143-175 are blank.