Shift Details

Shift NameService: Transcribe Historical Documents with Smithsonian Transcription Center
Description

The Smithsonian Transcription Center is a freely accessible website that connects volunteers across the world with digitized Smithsonian collections. Users can transcribe, review, or explore historical letters, diaries, scientific specimen sheets, newspapers, and more through Transcription Center projects. Why is this so important? Because transcription allows researchers everywhere to more easily discover, investigate, and share history. Together, we are unlocking the past and bringing it to life.

For this year’ Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, the Transcription Center team and staff from the National Museum of African American History and Culture will be joining GWU to transcribe and review historical documents from the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. The Freedmen’s Bureau, as it’s more commonly referred, was established by the federal government in 1865 to assist in the political, social, and economic reconstruction of the American south, assisting more than 4 million formerly enslaved African Americans in the transition to citizenship and freedom. 

Because of the Bureau’s extensive work across the south documenting the experiences of African Americans and southern whites, establishing schools, negotiating new labor contracts, and much more, their historical records represent some of the richest information available on African American history and the history of the 19th century United States. During the transcribe-a-thon event on MLK Day, we’ll learn more about this history and the immense importance of transcribing the Freedmen’s Bureau records.

Find Freedmen’s Bureau Projects: https://transcription.si.edu/freedmensbureau

General Instructions and Resources for Getting Started: https://transcription.si.edu/tips

Freedmen’s Bureau specific instructions and resources: https://transcription.si.edu/instructions-freedmens-bureau

Registrations54 out of 63
Date & TimeMon, Jan 18, 2021 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Location
837 22nd St NW
Washington, DC 20052

Location: 837 22nd St NW, Washington, DC 20052