This collection contains the diaries of Alfred M. North, a High School and Junior College teacher of the early 20th century from Riverside, California. The diaries consist of a short daily entry, focusing on North's school work, his daily life, his family, and his thoughts on current local and national issues. Some diaries also include news clippings related to various diary entries, and the final diary in 1936 includes entries written by his wife Manta and daughter Mary when Alfred was ill.

The collection also includes an essay by North's daughter Mary North Shimkin, describing the North's Lime Street neighborhood and the other families that lived there around the 1920s.