History books record plenty of men’s names because of the traditions of our society, but of course there have been many women who made distinctive contributions to our city. This year we’ll take a look at a few of Naperville’s notable women.
In addition to being a typical daughter and housewife of the time, Hannah also served as a teacher at the Naper Academy and as a librarian at Nichols Library, but her main contribution to Naperville is her extensive diary.
Throughout the years, Hannah took notes on the goings-on in her community. She talked about the weddings and the funerals she attended. She wrote down juicy little gossip tidbits and personal family stories. She also included newspaper clippings, sketches, and fabric swatches from clothes she made.
It was Hannah who encouraged her sister Libbie to record her arduous wagon train journey to California as a new bride in 1854.
Hannah’s scrapbooks and diaries are part of the Naper Settlement collection and serve as an indispensable touchpoint for our history during the nineteenth century.
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ReplyDeleteThere's much more to Hannah Ditzler that few people are aware of.
ReplyDeleteShe was well travelled, keeping track on a U.S. map. Among other travels, she visited Libbie in California shortly after the transcontinental train was complete. While there, she wrote articles about the flora and fauna and the people out west that were published in several newspapers including Naperville's paper.
She was a journalist employed in Chicago on a paper "The Alliance" in 1874 and later wrote many of the obituaries in the Naperville paper.
In 1877 she took Art Classes at Northwestern College (now North Central College) and she also taught painting in Paw Paw Seminary.
She studied her family history while traveling through Pennsylvania visiting Gettysburg and journaled the entire trip and even kept track of all of her expenses and where everyone in the train car rode.
She wrote to distant relatives and collected enough family history to fill over 1,000 hand written pages with her research and letters.
So, Hannah Ditzler is a much more complex and remarkable woman than many know.
And, there are many diaries by Hannah in private collections.
Thank you for adding to what is known about Hannah Ditzler. Hopefully, more of those private diaries and stories will become available for others to learn more about her!
ReplyDeleteHannah's documenting of her many trips to the 1893 Columbian Exposition inspired me and my staff to research her experiences. Artist Joyce Byers developed a figurine based on Hannah's diary - "Victorian Woman going to the Fair". She is dressed as closely as possible to the sketch of Hannah's dress in fabric resembling the swatches kept in her diary. A limited number of these were made, some still available.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder! I added an image of the caroler to the original article.
ReplyDeleteI did know about the Byers figure - I remember Peg Yonker telling me about it. I believe she was among those instrumental in making that happen. What was the project that your staff was working on?