This week the ASCSA Archives received a wonderful donation from Professor Martha J. Payne (ASCSA Associate Member 1978-1979) -her great-grandfather's diary from a trip to Greece in 1890. Who was her great-grandfather? Benjamin L. D'Ooge, a professor of classics at Eastern Michigan University. In the diary Professor D’Ooge describes taking trips with Mr. Platner (Samuel B. Platner of Western Reserve University) and attending lectures by Wilhelm Dörpfeld on the Acropolis and at the German Institute.

Benjamin was indirectly related to the School through his brother Martin D'Ooge, who served as the fifth director of the ASCSA in 1886-1887. Together with her great-grandfather's diary, Martha also mailed a copy of Martin D'Ooge's "The Acropolis of Athens" (1909) which contains newspaper clippings from the 1930s about the Acropolis and the Agora Excavations. We want to take the opportunity to thank Martha J. Payne for her gifts to our institution.