Welcome to the Manifest Destiny project, created by Sophie Goldman and Hope Perry for HUM 331 / HIS 336 at Princeton University!

This project explores the 1853-54 journal of Thomas Adams, a civil engineer, alongside the 1906 journal of Nellie Martin Wade, a homemaker and educator. In the theme of Manifest Destiny, each of these authors journeyed west and captured their observations in writing, which are now housed in the Western Americana Collection at Firestone Library. Set across the United States in the territories west of the Mississippi River and the mountains of Alaska, these journals reveal the mindset and motivations of their authors. We invite you to explore!

Learn about Thomas Adams and Nellie Martin Wade in posts detailing their backgrounds.

Listen to excerpts from the journals in Writing Out West, a podcast exploring the impact of gender on the journals and their authors’ experiences.

Read about the content, creation, and purposes of the journals:

Header Image: Denali, Alaska
Credit: Philip Kuntz, Lonely Planet