“You can be blown away,” a diary hunter tells the Guardian. Bundles of old diaries are often picked up at garage sales and rummage sales.
People throw out very private things, usually without realizing it. When I was volunteering for my college’s used bookstore years ago, a piece of writing fell out of a book my neighbor had donated. I wish I hadn’t seen it. It was a very sad poem about a son that cried for his father after a divorce. It wasn’t for my eyes.
Amelia Tait writes at the Guardian book feature the Observer about things like that — diaries that people write for themselves but that may end up years later in the hands of a stranger. According to the article, very few people consciously give their diaries away.
“Sally MacNamara,” Tait reports, “has long told her four children that if there’s a fire in her Seattle home, they should rescue Olga first. … The ‘Olga’ that is so precious to the 63-year-old online seller is a 118-year-old diary written by a woman of the same name. Beginning in 1902, the diary chronicles the experiences of a young immigrant who was raised in a strict religious environment in America. [MacNamara] purchased the diary online in 2005 – it is now one of her most prized possessions.
“Over the past 35 years, MacNamara has read more than 8,000 strangers’ diaries. As a child, her mother would take her ‘dump diving’ to salvage objects – when she discovered an old, handwritten piece of paper in the trash one day, she was immediately intrigued. …
“At first, MacNamara bought diaries in antique shops, but when a friend introduced her to eBay in 1998, she began using the auction site to buy and sell. …
“While MacNamara has more than two decades’ experience trading strangers’ secrets, her hobby has recently become more widespread. On YouTube, videos entitled ‘I bought a stranger’s diary’ are incredibly popular – an October 2019 video racked up 300,000 views, while the video that started the trend in December 2017 has been watched by over 6.4 million people.
“Clearly the mystery and intrigue of reading someone’s personal history can be compelling. But should we be troubled by the inherent voyeurism? Or – as Observer literary critic Kate Kellaway once said on the subject – ‘do people who keep diaries secretly hope someone will read them?’
“Joanna Borns, 35, is a writer from New York with 10,000 YouTube subscribers. Borns first started the YouTube trend for reading strangers’ diaries three years ago – since then, she’s purchased five diaries, which cost between [$26 and $52] each. ‘It’s interesting to see how you’re similar to a totally random stranger,’ Borns says. …
“Borns thinks ‘a lot’ about the ‘moral aspects’ of her videos. … ‘I certainly don’t want to broadcast anyone’s personal information – I do change the names,’ she says; she also avoids sharing ‘dark’ thoughts that diarists recorded. …
“Victoria is a 58-year-old from Cheltenham who has been selling love letters and diaries online since 2004 (she has asked to be identified by her first name only). She procures diaries in flea markets and car boot sales for up to [$26]. … ‘You go to one of these car boot sales and you find a box and it’s scruffy and insignificant and it’s wet, and you open it up and it’s a bundle of wonderful yellowing letters tied up with a ribbon,’ she says, ‘You’re just blown away.’ …
“Although the trend is undeniably voyeuristic, many collectors have a grander purpose. Polly North is the 41-year-old director of the Great Diary Project. …
“She believes historians can learn about marginalised people via journals. Yet North also receives a huge number of donations from modern diarists, who can opt to make their journals immediately available or can seal them for decades (amazingly, most people are happy to have their diaries read and shared straight away).
“North’s favourite is from a ‘virtually illiterate’ woman who was brought up in a trailer park in California and is still alive. ‘There’s no capital letters, there’s no punctuation… It’s stripped down, it’s raw, it doesn’t tick any conventional literary boxes, but it still achieves something that’s magical.’ ”
More at the Observer, here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Very interesting article. It would makes a great case for my kids’ Ethics Bowl team. I tend to side with preserving the diaries. It teaches readers about history and in some ways extends the author’s life, maybe even gives further meaning to it.
Phew! Sad to think about all those diaries slipping out of the various families. Somehow, I was so moved by the woman from California who was virtually illiterate but still had the urge to keep a diary.
Everyone needs someone to really hear them. Sometimes having a listener is the reason for a diary.
Yes, yes.
Interesting, I once lost a whole storage container full of personal diaries, art, and photo albums, I always wondered if anyone read them and what they would think!
Better check eBay!