Transcribing African-American History

Last November the Collaboratory hosted a two-part event, "Transcribing African-American History," a series of talks and a transcribe-a-thon of Freedmen's Bureau Records.

The success of that two-day event inspires this follow-up transcribe-a-thon, making good on a mutually shared desire to make this activity a regular feature of life in the Collaboratory.

An act of Congress on March 3, 1865 created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau). The records produced by the bureau are the richest source of information on the African American experience post-Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Most documents have been digitized, yet few have been transcribed. Participants will learn about the ongoing project to transcribe the bureau’s papers from Meghan Ferriter, ‎Project Coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution Transcription Center.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History, The Michelle Smith Collaboratory in Visual Culture in the Department of Art History and Archaeology, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History & Culture.

For information click here.