Details

Abstract / Summary

Jane Briggs Smith Fiske (1834-1925), daughter of Captain Joshua Smith and Saba (Drew) Smith, was born in Hanson, Massachusetts. During, and for a period after, the U.S. Civil War she taught former slaves at freedmen's schools in Hilton Head, Port Royal, and Sumter, South Carolina, and in Washington, D.C. While in the South, she met Friend Fuller ("Fuller") Fiske (1828-1906), who was working as a volunteer civilian nurse during the Civil War. They married on October 8, 1872, settled in Fuller's home town of Webster, New Hampshire, and had two children. The first was born on June 29, 1873, but died soon afterwards; the second was William Fuller Fiske (1876- ).

The bulk of this collection consists of diaries written after Jane's marriage. The entries are extensive at first, but become brief and barely legible towards the later years. They contain information regarding the daily activities of a farm wife, including chores (e.g., cooking, baking, mending, darning, sewing, churning, washing, drying, ironing, cleaning, scrubbing); visits made and received; letters written and received; and mentions of births, birthdays, marriages, illnesses, and deaths. There are also references to helping her husband with bills and school reports; selling meat, butter, and eggs; and killing turkeys, chickens, pigs, and cows. Early entries typically begin with a description of the weather, while later ones simply chronicle morning and afternoon temperatures).

The forty-five letters from Jane to Fuller for the period June 25, 1865 to January 23, 1871, written during her tenure in the South, contain comments regarding her students, abolition, the enfranchisement of freedmen, and academic and pedagogical discussions. Her letters chronicle her ever-changing moods (". . .my temperament is decidedly mercurial," she writes on January 22, 1868), and express her philosophical views on a variety of subjects, including politics, religion, mortality, morality and human nature.

Field of Interest

Letters and Diaries

Content Type

Diary/Memoir/Autobiography

Duration

0 sec

Format

Text

Page Count

14995

Publication Year

2011

Publisher

Alexander Street

Place Published / Released

Alexandria, VA

Subject

Letters and Diaries, History, Daily Life, Domestic life