Transcribing African American History: Documenting the Road from Slavery to Freedom
Laura Coyle, Head of Cataloguing and Digitization at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) and Leslie S. Rowland, Associate Professor of History and Director of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project at the University of Maryland will discuss the importance of the Freedmen’s Bureau Records. Participants will also learn about the ongoing project to transcribe the bureau’s papers from Meghan Ferriter, Project Coordinator at the Smithsonian Institution Transcription Center.
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. Help contribute to our nation’s understanding of this critical period by participating in these events.
To register, please click here.
The African American History, Culture and Digital Humanities initiative has been made possible in part by a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
CO-SPONSORS
Arts and Humanities Center for Synergy
Department of Art History and Archaeology
Department of History
Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture
Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC)
