Abstract
A remarkable historical source came to light in 1999, when the Historical Society of Pennsylvania acquired pocket diaries for 1863, 1864, and 1865, kept by a young African American woman in Philadelphia. These are small, preprinted books, three dates to a page, that Emilie Davis flled with notes about herself, friends and family, the preachers, teachers, and doctors in her community, the lectures and concerts she attended, and the Civil War. Although it is rare for someone to be such a faithful diarist for just three years, and despite evidence in the diary that Davis also wrote countless letters to friends and family, so far the three wartime diaries are all that we have of Davis. Their survival is highly unusual; that they open a new door into Philadelphia’s midcentury African American community makes them invaluable; and that they give voice to a young, literate woman who, in many respects, owns the city streets makes them extraordinary.