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From childhood, Doris Holmes Blake (1892-1978) was a prolific diarist and letter writer. This diary, written when Doris Holmes was 21 years old, details her life and activities while a student at Boston University's College of Liberal Arts, where she studied business and the classics, earning her A.B. in 1913. Some entries employ "mirror writing," backwards writing that must be read with the aid of a mirror.

Joseph Hirshhorn mingled and corresponded with numerous artists and dealers while amassing his art collection. Included in the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Papers are letters and images documenting his relationship with Georgia O'Keeffe. Other frequent correspondents are Hirshhorn's wife, Olga, and O'Keeffe's longtime assistant/curator/dealer, Doris Bry. The correspondence documents a mostly friendly (but sometimes contentious) relationship between O'Keeffe and Hirshhorn. 

What did future Smithsonian benefactor James Smithson have at the ready? The receipts (or recipes, as it turns out). Acquired by the Smithsonian in 1914, Smithson's "Receipt Book" contains recipes for everything from incense and ink dyes, to cordials and mulgatawny [sic], to tooth powder and bug poison. This nineteenth-century resource will lift your spirits, calm your ague, and polish your furniture. Hopefully, the ingredients are still available. 

Despite his meticulous field work, professional success in France at such an early age, and further studies in Europe and the United States, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783-1840) was largely regarded as eccentric. His often unconventional ideas were hard for his professional peers to embrace. However, contemporary scientists have come to recognize Rafinesque for his field work and avant-garde thinking.