Montgomery History’s presentation of ‘I Commence My Journal . . .: What Carrie Miller Farquhar Told her Diary . . . and What She Left Out’ will be available starting at 10 a.m. on Monday, March 14. Ms. Farquhar (1842-1904) kept a diary for much of her life that offers details on her young adulthood in
Alexandria and Sandy Spring and her married life on a farm in Norbeck.
Information on how to view the presentation will be available at https://www.montgomeryhistory.org/
Like many women of her generation, Ms. Farquhar kept a diary. The 12 volumes are now in the Montgomery History collections. Her words offer present-day historians a wealth of detail about mid-late 19th century education, faith, politics, war, agriculture, child-rearing and social activities in Montgomery County.
Other documents from that era also have revealed that there are many stories and events that she did not choose to write down, including her somewhat tumultuous courtship with Roger Brooke Farquhar, Sr., whom she married in 1867. The presentation will reap the benefits of this wonderful primary source—sharing Carrie’s story, using moments described in her diary from the exciting to the mundane—and will examine the limitations of relying on a single voice, even a seemingly candid one, to study the past.
