As described on the project homepage: “These volumes are the recorded copy of official trademarks and union labels of goods sold or distributed in Georgia and represent their registration with the State of Georgia, 1894-1959.”
Each volume contains labels that are taped to the page along with a brief description and date of registration written in pencil.
The collection is important as a record of long since passed businesses. It is also a fascinating aggregation of graphic design and advertising copy.
This collection particularly rewards browsing: “Dwarfies” anyone? Mmmmm… (Clicking on the “Dwarfies” image takes you to an opposite page in the volume, scroll right to see the label.)
Beginning on Monday, December 30, 1861, the diary presents a cloudy view of Anna’s life. It often makes oblique references, in one case mentioning only “the surprise.”
It is also, underneath the cloudiness, attentive and funny. On January 12, 1862, Anna went to a prayer meeting at the Methodist church: “Col. Mobley got up to make some remarks and Lucy Gibbs got up and left.”
Another entry describes an argument involving gunfire, ending in the arrest of a “Mr. McinTyer.” She says, “Bud locked him up in his office a while and then brought him home with him to dinner.”
Anna was smitten with her sister’s step-son, Wes Murphey, who “told me he loved me better than any one else, that he had a perfect fancy for a small lady, he did not like these overgrown girls.” After a two-year courtship, Anna became disillusioned with Capt. Murphey, recording that she sent him “a note to wound his feelings if possible. He is not the man I thought he was. he (sic) drinks very hard.”
Four days later the diary ends abruptly: “This morning the Dr. called (came) again.”
Was Anna overtaken by illness? Did she die of a broken heart? Or was the remainder of her diary simply lost in the hardship of the coming years?
Anna’s mysterious diary is included in the Digital Library of Georgia. Perhaps an historian, or maybe just some inquisitive person, may stumble across her diary one day and wish to find answers to the questions it raises.