The Diary of Josephine Knight

The diary of a teenage girl, Josephine Knight, who kept this journal from January 1885 to August 1888 in Searsmont, Maine. She attended school in nearby Camden and when not in school herself, she taught and gave music lessons. She shares her impressions of journies many nearby towns including Belfast, Thomaston, Boothbay, Rockland, Hope, Liberty, Appleton and Northport.Josephine was a keen observer and provides us with extraordinary and often humorous accounts, of teaching and growing up in Maine, of Native Americans and gypsies passing through town, and deaths at sea. She also provides us with insights into the mundane and often repetitive work of the times. “Mother washed. I ironed.”She also paints a complex picture of her relationship with her father and the behavior of others. Josephine’s diary will be of special interest to those in the fields of Women’s Studies and Maine History as well as anyone who is curious about life in the late 1800’s. It gives us a clear and often surprising view of life before cars, radio, TV, and the internet.