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Personal narratives come in all forms—art, memoir, fiction, and other creative pursuits—but perhaps none is more intimate than the diary. Diaries can contain private thoughts, a view of daily routines or public events, mundane inventories, or human idiosyncrasies. Autobiographies shape memories for public view.
Personal accounts can capture a sense of a place and time as well as private thoughts. In time, these personal records become a way to explain and explore the past. These objects reveal the personal side of history. They record the conscious choices made of what to preserve and what to omit.