Women's diaries have been a rich source of information for historians and other scholars because they contain details of everyday life in different times and places that may otherwise have gone unrecorded. This article addresses the common archival description of diaries and discusses the richer portrayals frequently provided by academics in other disciplines. Aspects of a diary's provenance that non-archival writers often address but that are rarely mentioned in archival descriptions are the diarist's motivation for writing, the intended audience, and the implications of the diary's custodial history and representation. The article concludes with suggestions for improving archival description of diaries and other personal records.
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