Biography & Autobiography
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Biography & Autobiography Books
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CHAPTER I. — THE OLD HOMESTEAD IN IOWA. A PLEASANT, roomy farm-house, set in the sunlight against a background of cool, green wood and mottled meadow—this is the picture that my earliest memories frame for me. To this home my parents, Isaac and Mary Cody, had moved soon after their marriage. The place was known as the Scott farm, and was situated in Scott County, Iowa, near the historic little town...
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[HW: Dist 5Ex-Slave #63] Whitley,1-22-36Driskell EX SLAVEJENNIE KENDRICKS[Date Stamp: MAY 8 1937] Jennie Kendricks, the oldest of 7 children, was born in Sheram, Georgia in 1855. Her parents were Martha and Henry Bell. She says that the first thing she remembers is being whipped by her mother. Jennie Kendricks' grandmother and her ten children lived on this plantation. The grandmother had been...
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Mynors Bright
Although the Diary of Samuel Pepys has been in the hands of the public for nearly seventy years, it has not hitherto appeared in its entirety. In the original edition of 1825 scarcely half of the manuscript was printed. Lord Braybrooke added some passages as the various editions were published, but in the preface to his last edition he wrote: "there appeared indeed no necessity to amplify or in any...
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I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life: according to my application of it, I trust that it will prove not merely an interesting record, but in a considerable degree useful and instructive. In that hope it is that I have drawn it up; and that must be my apology for breaking through that delicate and honourable reserve which, for the most part, restrains...
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Mary Prince
THE HISTORY OF MARY PRINCE, A WEST INDIAN SLAVE. (Related by herself.) I was born at Brackish-Pond, in Bermuda, on a farm belonging to Mr. Charles Myners. My mother was a household slave; and my father, whose name was Prince, was a sawyer belonging to Mr. Trimmingham, a ship-builder at Crow-Lane. When I was an infant, old Mr. Myners died, and there was a division of the slaves and other property among...
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P. T. Ross
FOREWORD. "More khaki," sniffed a bored but charming lady, as she glanced at a picture of the poor Yeomanry at Lindley, and then hastily turned away to something of greater interest. I overheard the foregoing at the Royal Academy, soon after my return from South Africa, last May, and thanked the Fates that I was in mufti. It was to a certain extent indicative of the jaded interest with which...
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May Bowley
WHEN I was very, very little, I hated history more than all my other lessons put together, because I had to learn it out of a horrid little book, called somebody's "Outlines of English History"; and it seemed to be all the names of the kings and the dates of battles, and, believing it to be nothing else, I hated it accordingly.I hope you do not think anything so foolish, because, really,...
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CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. No sooner was the stout Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts firmly planted than it began rapidly to throw out branches in all directions. With every succeeding year the long, thin, sinuous line of settlements stretched farther and farther away to the northeast, fringing the wild shores of the Atlantic with houses and farms gathered together at the mouths or on the...
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Isabella Graham
CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE — RESIDENCE IN CANADA. MANKIND take an interest in the history of those who, like themselves, have encountered the trials and discharged the duties of life. Too often, however, publicity is given to the lives of men splendid in acts of mighty mischief, in whom the secret exercises of the heart would not bear a scrutiny. The memoirs are comparatively few of those engaged in the...
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Mary Antin
INTRODUCTION I was born, I have lived, and I have been made over. Is it not time to write my life's story? I am just as much out of the way as if I were dead, for I am absolutely other than the person whose story I have to tell. Physical continuity with my earlier self is no disadvantage. I could speak in the third person and not feel that I was masquerading. I can analyze my subject, I can reveal...
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