The Great Diary Project at the Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green, London: 17 May – 12 October 2014
Using documents from The Great Diary Project archive at Bishopsgate Institute, this exhibition offers insights into the lives of children and teenagers at particular moments in history. The diaries on display date from 1813 to 1996, showing changes in attitudes over time and demonstrating how an individual’s unique voice can be captured in this very private kind of writing.
On public display for the first time, they include tales of flogging and bed bugs at boarding school during the Napoleonic Wars, early twentieth century American Scout diaries, as well as coded accounts of wild teenage behavior during the Blitz.