Series I: Diaries

The materials in Series I cover the years 1873-1952, all but the earliest years of Elizabeth Robins's long life. Most of Robins's diaries record daily life at home, but she also wrote several volumes while traveling. Notable among these are her 1880 ""Summit, Rocky Mountains"" diary, kept while visiting her father at the Little Annie Gold Mining Company, Summit, Colorado; her 1900 diary from her journey to the Klondyke to find her brother Raymond Robins, who had gone in search of gold; and her 1905-1906 Chinsegut diary, written during a visit to Raymond Robins and Margaret Dreier Robins in Florida.

These diaries are also important for tracing Robins's involvement in the women's suffrage movement. They record her involvement with the movement, especially with the Pankhursts and the WSPU. Of particular interest is a lengthy entry in which Robins describes October 10, 1912 meeting which would cause the Pethick-Lawrences to split away from the Pankhursts.

Robins often used her diaries as sources for her literary works, as evidenced by some of the annotations in the volumes. She also wrote about the books she was working on, so the diaries show some of the questions she was grappling with concerning the characters and plots of her works.