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Exhibition Collecting Memories: Treasures from the Library of Congress

Personal Narrative

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.