The Accidental Diarist: A History of the Daily Planner in America by Molly McCarthy (review)

In this meticulously researched and engagingly written cultural history of the daily planner, Molly McCarthy traces how everyday Americans used their diaries both in expected ways (tracking the passage of time and monetary expenditures) and unexpected ways (tracking spiritual progress, interacting with the burgeoning commodity culture). In doing so, McCarthy ably joins the ranks of scholars such as Michael O’Malley, Patricia Cline Cohen, and Charles McGovern, who contributed to our understanding of Americans’ standardization of time, acquisition of numeracy skills, and engagement with consumption and citizenship, respectively.

McCarthy asserts that “the daily planner was more than just an unassuming stationery product” (3); instead, she argues, it transformed ordinary Americans into “accidental diarists” as customers customized the various products beyond their intended use (8). McCarthy’s “Introduction” emphasizes her desire to dispel certain “myths” about diaries: Americans kept diaries only when “they had something meaningful to say”; “diary writing was a private … enterprise”; “only women kept diaries”; and that “diary habits did not change over time” (9).

McCarthy begins with the eighteenth-century precursor of the daily planner, the almanac, “America’s first best-seller” (13). She points out that almanacs targeted primarily a local audience: providing information about the time of sunrises and sunsets; roads and railroad departure times for a specific city; the location of inns; lists of local officials; and currency conversions specific to particular financial institutions (14). For almanac users, the focus remained on calendar time rather than clock time, and on the seasons of the year suitable for planting and harvesting (28). While notable Americans appear in this chapter (George Washington, Benjamin Franklin), the focus here, as elsewhere, remains on almanacs maintained and preserved by ordinary Americans.

Even while the almanac remained popular, newer formats began replacing it, including the commercial registers, or “pocket books” of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Designed for portability, these small but durable account books were constructed of heavier paper stock and stiffer bindings, and included a day-by-day calendar, although with space only for a line or two. McCarthy points out that few purchasers actually used the calendar to record past and upcoming events. But one wishes McCarthy would speculate about whether this was simply a matter of the limited examples she examined, or whether her observations can be generalized to include diaries that failed to find their way into the hands of preservationists.

In Chapter 3, McCarthy traces the democratization of the daily planner beyond elite east coast male purchasers to “women, mill workers, clerks, chambermaids, school-children” and beyond, crediting the Civil War for spreading diary use to rural America. She argues that the pocket diary became “the tool of an aspiring middle class, eager to achieve the financial riches of commercial capitalism” (105). In this era, manufacturers increased the size of daily entries to 2–3 days per page, and finally to the “page-a-day” variety that permitted more space for personal reflection.

Chapter 5 traces what happens when “The Daily Planner Meets the Adman”—in the diaries offered by Philadelphia department store owner John Wannamaker. Produced from 1900–early 1970s, the Wannamaker Diary offered purchasers a 5 x 7–inch hardbound book juxtaposing a page of advertisements for Wannamaker’s goods with blank pages for recording daily thoughts and events. Too large to be portable, the book nevertheless proved more valuable to Wannamaker than a catalogue, because in encouraging users to adopt the habit of daily record-keeping, the diary kept Wannamaker’s goods before consumers’ eyes (202–03).

McCarthy begins each chapter with an overview of the products and producers from a particular era, then follows with example diary entries culled from specific purchasers. She traces how users both complied with certain conventions of the format in question, but also customized usage to fit individual needs. In her “Epilogue,” McCarthy carries the comparisons forward to the twenty-first century, pointing out that technology changed so rapidly that even...