This collection contains Emily Jane Winkler Bealer's diary in which she reflects on domestic life as an impoverished widow during Reconstruction in Atlanta. Topics include raising and educating her children, financial and business affairs, and social and church life. The collection also includes a typed transcript and biographical notes written by Bealer's great-granddaughter, Emily Bealer Calhoun II. These notes contain research on people and businesses referenced in the diary.

This collection contains Thomas Deaton's financial, legal, and personal papers, the bulk of which pertain to the Civil War. Financial records include deeds of purchase for land and enslaved persons, as well as affidavits of sales. Also included is a diary he wrote while working at a Confederate hospital in which he recorded personal notes, information about meetings, records of the weather, and copied obituaries. Correspondence documents Deaton’s sale of grain to the Confederate Army.