The University of Iowa Libraries

Charlotte Faxon was a teacher who traveled widely during the Civil War period, and kept an extensive travel diary. She left Vermont in 1864 at age eighteen and traveled by land and sea to California, by way of New York and Panama. Charlotte Faxon lived in San Francisco for three years, teaching mathematics at Napa College. In 1867 she traveled back to New York by way of Nicaragua. Later Charlotte Faxon settled in Iowa, where she taught school, married Jeremiah Everett and raised a family on a farm. After her husband's death in 1909, Charlotte Faxon returned to California.

The travel diary dates from 1864 to 1867, and contains vivid descriptions of the traveling conditions and social customs a young woman experienced during the Victorian era, including accounts of foot-travel in the Central American jungle. Many of Charlotte Faxon's accounts of Central America portray white travelers' attitudes toward the indigenous populations. Charlotte Faxon's original travel diary was transcribed into its present form by her daughter, Edith Everett. The travel diary is sixty-seven pages long, and contains an introduction and epilogue by Edith Everett, as well as a foreword by Isabella Van Osdall Churchill, a friend of Charlotte Faxon's from California.

Arrangement: One folder, shelved in SCVF.

Access: The travel diary is open for research.

Use: Copyright has not been transferred to the University of Iowa.

Acquisition: The travel diary (donor no. 143) was donated by Esther Everett, Faxon's granddaughter, in 1993.

Preferred Citation: Charlotte Faxon diary, Iowa Women's Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.

Repository:	Iowa Women's Archives
Address:	100 Main Library University of Iowa Libraries Iowa City, IA 52242
Phone:	319-335-5068
Curator:	Kären Mason
Email:	lib-women@uiowa.edu
Website:	http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/iwa

This collection is indexed under the following subject terms.

Personal Names:
Faxon, Charlotte, 19th cent.
Everett, Edith
Churchill, Isabella Van Osdall

Dates:
1860-1869

Topics:
Voyages and travels
Jungles
Ethnic attitudes
Imperialism
Teenage girls

Occupations:
Teachers
Travelers

Geographic Names:
Central America
Panama
Nicaragua

Browse:
Autobiographical Resources: Diaries, Memoirs and Oral Histories
Nineteenth Century Women
Rural and Farm Women
Teachers and Teaching