Summary And Analysis Of A Real Companion And Friend: The Diaries Of William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, hence referred to as King, was born December 17th 1874 and died on July 22nd 1950. Fifty-seven of those seventy-six years were documented in a diary. King’s diary takes us through his undergrad at the University of Toronto all the way to becoming Prime minister of Canada. King’s diary has rare qualities due to its intimate and immediate style which grant the reader access into 19th century Canada; it’s politics, affairs and how King’s opinions were shaped and shifted through his experiences. The Library and Archives Canada website (LAC), A Real Companion and Friend: The Diaries of William Lyon Mackenzie King is highly useful and contains quality research. It takes the reader beneath the scribbles exploring a chronology of King’s life, his residences, political events and audio records. The website shows the essential role the diary played in his life. As a historian the online diary enables readers to search the many unindexed pages for nuances in history that may have been overlooked in previous research. However, its greatest gift is the ability to delve into the mind of King during Canada’s early years. The diary is less suitable to non-specialists because it gives no background. The website is ideal for non-specialists. It contains a rich backstory of King, political events of the time and an explanation of how and why he reacted the way he did. As a historical source written in diary format, it has many strengths each with a counterpart weakness. The diary provides insights on King’s feelings about certain matters as well as what Canadians, the British and the Americans were feeling.
To William Lyon Mackenzie King, the diary was his friend, a close confidant in which he could confess his true passions, worries and opinions. The tone of the writing represents how he was feeling. When Bert died his writing became sad. When he talked of his mother his writing was feminine and flowery. When the diary had gaps in his younger years it revealed his youthful procrastination. In later years these same gaps pointed to events of great significance taking place. For example, in the event of the Gouzenko affair. The event was so intense that King had a separate diary for it. These stories told in the intimate format of King’s diary are key to keeping history relevant and intriguing to the public. The LAC website provides over 30 000 pages of typed and transcriptive text for keywords, phrases, and dates. This allows anybody to lookup a specific date, key event or famous phrase from that time and be able to see how it affected King, politics and the Canadian population. It provides great detail on King, his personal life, residences, political events and audio records. The diary entries jump into each encounter and event without an explanation so having this website with the relevant backstory is extremely useful, especially for the non-specialist to remain engaged and capable of following King’s diary.
King’s diary provides a unique glimpse into Canada’s development towards independence through the writing of its longest reigning prime minister. Not only is it an interesting and exclusive point of view but it also allows for historians to fact check and find new causes, evidence and consequences of popular past events. For social historians it documents the late 19th to early 20th century lifestyle in Canada. The topics that were talked about at the kitchen table, the rugby games that were won/lost, the wars that began and ended, all inclusive. Although the diary is interesting to read it is difficult to follow especially for non-specialists. King uses abbreviations such as when he “[sends] for H. ” in the diary, without prior knowledge, H. means nothing to the reader and distracts from the content. The website, on the other hand, is much easier to navigate. The main page introduces the diary and contains tabs on the left hand side that pertain to King’s life. The tab Behind the Diary contains information on the diary itself, its archival, future and past impact. The website gives a chronology of King’s life with dates and times as well as snippets of diary entries, so if readers want to know more they can choose a significant date and look it up in the diary for more detail. There is also a page dedicated to biographies of King’s family members, friends/associates, staff and pets. Indeed, one can even learn where he lived throughout his lifetime. The last tab of Behind the Diary explores The Politics, Themes and Events from King’s Life. The website complements the diary by giving the reader a broader understanding and awareness of the events and people in King’s life.
The confidentiality of the diary format authenticates its truth and gives it strength. There is no reason to lie about facts in a diary that the diarist believes no one will ever read. Therefore everything in the diary is King’s truth. The document provides a rare and important chronicle of his thoughts and actions from a young man to a well-regarded academic, high-ranking civil servant and world leader. It also provides mentorship to politicians and leaders on how to deal with public concerns as well as conflicting opinions between oneself and the government. The weakness to such a personal document is the singularity and bias that naturally goes with reading only one person’s writing. It’s difficult to get the whole picture. King also tends to dive right in to his writing, so without reading the whole diary and having background knowledge it can be challenging to discern what is going on. It is also impossible to read at some points due to the condition of the original microfiche from which the diary was scanned.
The diary, unlike research, provides facts with emotion. On May 7th, 1945 the Germans surrendered. The diary radiates King’s thankfulness, the relief of Canada and other allied nations. The diary also provides insight into what happened after King got the message that the Germans surrendered. It wasn’t just Bam! the war’s over. There were many decisions made world wide that day on how, when and who would tell the people the war in Europe was officially, finally over. The entries on this day showed King’s feelings towards the Crown at the time with his decision “that [his] broadcast to the people should not come until after the King himself has broadcast unless the King were to let a day elapse in between. ” He is respectful of the crown, however, he feels a duty to the people of Canada such that if the crown were to take too long he would speak before the King. At the time the government was debating on whether or not to make a Canadian flag official for V. E day, however, King felt that “[he] [could not] imagine anything that would provoke more bitter controversy and feeling at this moment than an endeavour to seize this occasion to force a flag on the Canadian people. ” This shows his incredible devotion to the Canadian people and their interests. King’s reign was not an easy one. It was wrought with political tension, war and personal tragedy. The creation of King’s diary defines him not only as the longest reigning prime minister in Canada’s history but also possibly the most valuable to historians. The quality and usefulness of the website is advantageous to non-specialists. The diary’s unique perspective is valuable to historians. The Strengths of the personal document and website outweigh their weaknesses. The diary’s intimate format allows readers unprecedented insight into the mind of William Lyon Mackenzie King.
