Alcesta Huntington Diaries

In this collection, there are diaries from Alcesta Huntington (1837–1919). Susan Huntington-Hooker's sister, spanning almost her entire life, from her early adolescence until she was elderly. These diaries provide a glimpse into nearly all stages of her life, which allows many viewers of the exhibit to relate to her life experiences. 

In her 1849 diary, which is the earliest in the collection, Alcesta is away at boarding school in Rome, New York. She describes a cold winter filled with homesickness and a longing to receive more letters from her family. Even while lonely and sad, her resilience and self-determination shines through in her writing. 

Diaries from her early twenties recount visits with friends and family, and lazy days described as “loafing generally.” Entries from this period also show an interest in gaining economic independence in the oil industry. She describes going with a male friend to search for an oil well, but “coming up short.” She continues to describe her efforts to map oil fields and how she “strongly thought of making endeavors in that way myself, as I think I could make good wages at the business.” It doesn’t appear that she ever found success in the oil industry, but these passages reveal a longing for independence during a time when women had very little autonomy over their lives and careers.

A diary entry from her 71st birthday reads: “It was my birthday—I suppose no one else will remember it.” I found this quite sad, reflecting how aging can cause a loss of confidence or sense of self-importance, and how, especially as women age, they may begin to feel more invisible and undervalued.

A constant throughout her life was reading and spending time with her family, who were most often the subjects of her diary entries. Without these diaries, we would not have such deep insights into her experiences.

The fact that dozens of her diaries were preserved for well over a century, shows a high level of care and love by her family members. Without the work of these family historians and memory keepers, expansive documentation of the past wouth otherwise be lost.