I'd like to thank all the Something Awful forum members who turned Willie's 1904 Diary into a truly multi-media experience, from looking up the books Willie mentions reading , the songs he was listening to, the clothes he was wearing, photographs of 1904 Boston and even tracking Willie down on the census and finding out what became of him after 1904. Thank you, goons!
1904 Diary: Holy cats! Why for did I go?
Larry also ate a lot of hot dogs. A LOT of hotdogs. He ate them almost every night for dinner. Sometimes that came back to haunt him:
Translation: Arose 8 AM. Brought a book down the library and had a new crystal put in my watch. Then I rode out to Malden Sq. on my bike. Home at 1 PM. IN to work at 3 PM. Worked til 1235 PM. Came home and retired 115 AM. Remarks: Fine autumn weather but getting along to winter again. A "typical Hot Dog"--a heterogeneous conglomeration of unknown undigestable ingredients. I had one tonight, so I KNOW.
"Holy Cats!"
Translation: Arose 5 AM In to work 6 AM. Worked til 3 PM. Tom called 4 PM. We walked up to SOmerville Park and back again. He called after supper and we went down to the beach. Holy cats!! Why for did I go. Rode around on flying horses about twenty times grinning at every girl we didn't know. Finally rode home with two Chelsea girls to library St Chelsea. Walked over Bunker Hill and retired 1130.
1904 Diary: Boston, 1904...
I collect old diaries, journals, letters and photographs from the early 1800s-1920s. A few months ago, I purchased a 1904 diary written by a young man who lived in Boston. I recently began scanning pages in from his diary and posting them over on the Something Awful forums. I've gotten a tremendous positive response and have had more than one person encourage me to blog this diary, which is what I hope to do here.
In the few days since I started posting diary pages on SA, forum members have looked up information on the census and found Willie and his family, found photographs of places he describes and even online transcriptions of the books he was reading.
It's an amazing read and it's like looking into a time capsule of the year 1904. There's an entire year's worth of entries and I've just started posting a few of them. I plan to eventually scan the entire thing.
Underneath each photo is a translation of Willie's handwriting. I have no trouble reading it but it's shocking how many people younger than me cannot read cursive writing (I'm 33).
Read on to take a quick trip back to 1904, where autos were new-fangled contraptions and there was no tv, internet or cell phones...
