This Is the Life paints a vivid picture of the life and times of Jennie McLeod, a 20th-century college girl from the mill town of Clinton, Massachusetts. Author Leslie Perrin Wilson presents Jennie and her world through careful research, contextual narrative, and a richly annotated transcription of her 1914-1918 diary. Jennie’s distinctive personality, her family, friends, studies, and aspirations, along with the presence of larger events in the background–world war and woman’s suffrage, in particular–all come to life on the pages of this book.