Apr

Transcription Milestone: 1 Million Pages Transcribed

Last month, The Smithsonian Transcription Center (TC) officially surpassed 1,000,000 pages transcribed and reviewed.

Last month, The Smithsonian Transcription Center (TC) officially surpassed 1,000,000 pages transcribed and reviewed — an extraordinary accomplishment by you, our dedicated volunteers (or volunpeers, as we call them), that ensures the Smithsonian’s diverse collections are more accessible and searchable to everyone. As a statistic, 1 million transcribed documents is impressive on its own, but the true impact of this achievement goes far beyond numbers. Since launching our first project in the Transcription Center more than 9 years ago, we’ve had the privilege of collaborating with volunteers from more than 75 countries to uncover marginalized histories, connect disparate collections, create catalog records, and even discover ancestors. Your hard work has informed and enlightened us all and played an integral role in bringing Smithsonian content out of our museums and into the homes of curious learners everywhere.

As Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III notes, “when you transcribe and review our collections to make them more readily searchable, you tap into their potential. In a digital age information is only valuable if you can find it in the vast oceans of data in which we are all immersed. Your work enables that.”

HERE’S A LOOK BACK AT SOME OF THE INCREDIBLE CONTENT WE’VE UNLOCKED WITHIN THE FIRST 1 MILLION TRANSCRIBED PAGES AND THE FAR-REACHING IMPACT OF VOLUNPEER CONTRIBUTIONS:

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND BIODIVERSITY DATA

Thanks to TC volunteers, over 50,000 scientific specimen labels from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) have been transcribed and used to create new catalog records. This work makes an unparalleled amount of new research possible, as data from these labels can now be keyword searched and aggregated for analysis by scientists worldwide. Information transcribed from bumblebees held in the Natural History Museum allowed researchers to more easily track pollinator behavior across regions and time periods, facilitating new understandings of the effects of climate change on these insects and wider ecosystems. Jessica Bird, Museum Specialist, Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, expanded further on the impact of this work, noting: “I really need to emphasize the work that this took. Reading entomology labels isn’t easy, and each collector had their own style. It was really neat to see how you all learned the handwriting of particular collectors and made this project your own. You all even showed me a better way to represent our date ranges in our public database, and I still use that method today.”

Staff from the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives (SLA) were critical in helping develop and plan the Transcription Center’s first projects in 2013, and since then, nearly 100,000 pages of correspondence, manuscripts, reports, and notes have been fully transcribed from their collections. Within SLA’s holdings are also thousands of field books documenting scientific expeditions and research, providing an incredibly important resource for understanding and locating biodiversity data. “So much of [this] material was handwritten…some while on horseback, and not very legible at all, meaning that machine technology had a very difficult time producing transcripts of this material automatically. It required people to do this work,” Ricc Ferrante, SLA’s Director of Digital Services explains. “Buried in these documents is not only the scientific names and locations of where these specimens were observed and picked up, but in most cases, there is a narrative of the expedition.” in the Transcription Center.

Black and white photographic print of a group of individuals seated outside, on the ground, at mealtime. Trees and a tent can be seen in the background. The group, on the Hayden Survey of the Territories in 1872, includes West, E. Campbell Carrington, Thomas W. Jaycox, Taggart, Clifford De V. Negley, William H. Jackson, William Henry Holmes on the right side, and Beveridge. Their names are handwritten underneath the image.

“Mealtime, Hayden Survey of the Territories, 1872,” 32113-A or MAH-32113A, Institutional History Division, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives.

Scientific field books have also revealed unexpected information thanks to volunteers’ keen observation and research skills. Noticing differences in handwriting in the notes of botanist Joseph Nelson Rose, volunteers uncovered the contributions of 27 previously unrecognized women scientists, and while transcribing the field books of naturalist Vernon Bailey, Smithsonian staff and volunteers engaged in a lively Twitter discussion regarding Bailey’s notes on actually having to eat a golden eagle. Volunpeer Heidi Moses was able to identify an unnamed man in SLA’s photograph collections by drawing on information learned while transcribing the 19th-century Arctic expeditionary notes of Charles Francis Hall from the National Museum of American History (and in the process helped solve a centuries’ old murder mystery – listen to the Smithsonian’s Sidedoor Podcast episode on this!).

Volunpeers have also helped researchers and Smithsonian staff better understand worlds beyond our own by transcribing the notes of 20th-century women astronomers (“computers”) at the Harvard College Observatory, and over 60,000 pages of aviation and astronomical history from the archives of the National Air and Space Museum. Completed projects have not only revealed the significant contributions of women pilots, astronauts, and scientists in American history, but also enabled current NASA research and museum exhibition planning.

PERSONAL STORIES AND FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS OF THE PAST

There are few things as powerful as exploring history through the words of those who lived it. Through transcription, we’ve gained new understandings of our past and connected with individuals long gone — recognizing our own struggles, triumphs, fears, and dreams within the words of people centuries ago.

Transcribed collections from the Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) document the history of the diverse Washington, D.C. neighborhood, including the records of famous icons like Frederick Douglass, as well as everyday individuals and local organizations. Love letters between sweethearts Blanche Queen and Robert (Bobby) Fractious during WWII, oral history interviews with Chesapeake oyster and clam workers, and autograph albums from local area high schools, provide a glimpse into the community’s past and present. Founded in 1870 by former slave and Union Army veteran Henry Vinton Plummer, the Bladensburg Union Burial Association helped generations of African Americans in the Bladensburg, Maryland community afford funeral expenses and bury loved ones. Account books from the Association list members and detail the legacy and importance of Black mutual aid societies in the 20th century. In 2018, Bladensburg High School students visited the ACM Archives to learn more about the history of the Union Burial Association and their own connections to members, even hearing from a direct descendant of Plummer. Watch a conversation on the Bladensburg Union Burial Association Records with ACM Archivist Jennifer Morris and head to the Transcription Center to explore the transcribed records.

Screenshot of a Twitter post from the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum that reads: “Thank you to #BladensburgHighSchool students for contributing to our @TranscribeSI projects for #BHM. The students also learned more about the Bladensburg Burial Association from a descendant of the founder, Henry Vinton Plummer.” Pictured at a table in the Anacostia Museum Archives is Plummer descendant and two high school students, looking at a Bladensburg Burial Association Ledger.

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Twitter Post, March 1, 2018.

Photograph of an open, bound, account book from the Bladensburg Union Burial Association, Meeting Minutes, 1924-1938. The pages are yellowed, and lined. A full transcription of the page can be found at this link: https://transcription.si.edu/view/7769/ACM-acma_06-025.1_011.

Bladensburg Union Burial Association Records, Meeting Minutes, 1924-1938, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution, gift of Reverend L. Jerome Fowler.

Diaries, ledgers, and correspondence from the National Museum of American History (NMAH) and the Archives of American Gardens (AAG) detail the 20th-century experience for many working and middle class citizens. In the more than 2,000 letters written by individuals and families to the W. Atlee Burpee Company, as part of a nation-wide contest on use of their mail-order seeds are details of not just gardening plans, but also the lives of families in the 1920s U.S. AAG and Smithsonian Gardens staff were even able to use Burpee collection transcriptions to map the planting and growth of vegetable crops over time. Social, economic, and political history can also be found within the transcribed journals and account books of more than three generations of the Robinson and Via families, the diaries of Annamae Barlup Meyer and her family in rural Ohio, and the memoirs of engineer Forman H. Craton, all part of the Archives at NMAH.

CULTURE, LANGUAGE, AND GLOBAL CONNECTIONS

Transcription of collections from across the Smithsonian helps museum staff in their efforts to preserve cultural heritage, retrace record history, document multiple languages, and identify related data materials within and outside the institution. Since 2019, volunteers have transcribed over 50,000 Chinese and German currency (dating from the 14th – 20th centuries) from the National Numismatic Collection at the National Museum of American History, enabling museum specialists to update catalog records and internal metadata with accurate language characters and information. Textual and audio materials in Arabic, Japanese, Spanish, and French (to name just a few) have also been transcribed from the Archives of American Art, the National Air and Space and Space Museum (NASM), and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. This work means that public users searching Smithsonian collections in these languages will be able to locate transcribed text — facilitating research at a broader scale than previously possible and unlocking information previously unknown. The transcription of “The Yamada Diary,” from a Japanese engineer and pilot in WWII of which little is known, was requested by Air and Space Museum curators to help them learn more about the author and the collection’s history.

Jess Purkis, Digital Initiatives Archivist at the Archives of American Art, explains the impact of transcribing artists’ papers: “By transcribing materials about people scattered across space and time in our collections, you’ve linked disparate artists, gallery owners, collectors, and arts advocates back together, and you’ve brought their relationships to life… You highlight the fleeting, somewhat hidden connections that are buried within larger collections… If you only knew the broad strokes of [artists Beverly Buchanan and Betty Parsons’] careers, you might never have known that their paths had crossed in the late 1970s, let alone that Betty Parsons supported Buchanan’s work, or that Buchanan felt tongue-tied around her…” Explore the Beverly Buchanan Papers in the Transcription Center.

Yellowed, lined ledger page from the Yamada WWII Diary. This page includes a sketch of mountains and a small village with houses below, with shades of green and brown. Written below the sketch and along the side of the page is Japanese text. See a full transcription of this page at this link: https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/14594/NASM-NASM-9A14520-003.

Page from the Yamada Diary Collection, NASM.2003.0063, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

“When it comes to the cultural materials we steward here at the Smithsonian, the records of early anthropologists and collectors,” TC Community Manager Emily Cain explains, “can help us better illuminate colonial histories and empower community-driven work today.” The papers of 19th-century ethnologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher from the National Anthropological Archives, for instance, shed light on the history of U.S. federal Indian policy and document the names, experiences, and music of many Native Americans — including Omaha, Nez Perce, Winnebago, and Sioux — that Fletcher interacted with. Account ledgers from British dealer William Ockleford Oldman reveal important details on the sales of thousands of ethnographic and archaeological objects in the early 20th century. Transcription of these records helped staff at The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewaand the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) retrace collection histories. Maria Galban, Collections Documentation Manager at NMAI explains: “Now this information can be downloaded and searched, and is accessible to museums and researchers around the world. Because of the work of Transcription Center volunteers, we have now been able to positively match 600 objects in our collection acquired before 1919 from Oldman. We continue to research another 700 objects we also believe came from Oldman… The full impact of this project still remains to be seen.”

MARGINALIZED VOICES AND REPARATIVE HISTORY

The contributions and experiences of African Americans, Latinx individuals, Native Americans, LGBTQIA+ communities, and other marginalized groups have often been hidden, or erased, in dominant narratives of U.S. history. Volunteer transcription is helping to change that. From the names and information of millions of formerly enslaved African Americans uncovered in the Freedmen’s Bureau records to the collections of Native American boarding schools, volunpeers have made hundreds of thousands of pages documenting underrepresented communities more accessible — facilitating community reclamation and ensuring that these histories are not forgotten.

Yellowed manuscript page from the Pine Ridge Agency Day School, No. 27, titled ”The Primary School," March number, 1904, page 224.” Includes a sketch of a chicken coop with one large chicken inside the coop and three small chickens pecking around at food on the ground just outside the coop. A small tree is drawn behind the coop. A description of the coop is written below the drawing; a full transcription of this can be found at this link: https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/14875/NMNH-99-44_01. The document is signed at the bottom by Frank Calico, 2nd reader class.

Page from the Pine Ridge Agency Day School Drawings, circa 1904, Manuscript 99-44, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

White, printed page with black, typed words related to the dishonorable discharge of Air Force Pilot Helen G. James due to her lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender status. The top of the document reads: FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY — PRIVACY ACT OF 1974, RECORDS OF PROCEEDINGS, AIR FORCE BOARD FOR CORRECTION OF MILITARY RECORDS. In the matter of: Helen Grace James. See full document transcription at this link: https://transcription.si.edu/transcribe/36902/NASM-NASM-9A14845-004.

[Legal Documents – Discharge Lawsuit], Helen G. James Collection, NASM.2018.0042, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

Dr. Paul Gardullo, Historian, Curator, and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), shares more on the importance of this work:

“I have had the wonderful experience of working directly with the transcription center on two collections of materials from the NMAAHC: The Maurice Jackson Pamphlet Collection (an amazing repository of materials that track trace and showcase the Black Left, a vital but hidden part of American and African American history in the 20th century. The second is materials from Tulsa related to the history and legacies of Black Tulsa and the Tulsa Race Massacre. Both have been transformative projects for us as they have helped to bring light to histories long and unfortunately hidden or actively suppressed.

“Having transcribers work directly with materials from Tulsa was impactful to the Museum and impactful for me personally. For me, knowing that people were transcribing and working directly to share and make public materials from Ms. Eddie Faye Gates who had worked with passion and rigor to make sure that the voices of Massacre survivors were heard and never forgotten gave me heart. Similarly, to know that our transcribers were working to let the words of B.C. Franklin’s unpublished document “The Tulsa Race Riot and Three of Its Victims” live and breathe 100 years after the event was deeply moving and a powerful part of the restorative and reparative process that good history work can do. Connecting with and sharing in those experiences with transcribers helped me to process the sometimes painful part of this work, realize the immense importance of what we do, and recognize the power in our ability to work collectively and collaboratively to tell the truth in hope of making change.”

Black-and-white photograph of North Greenwood Ave. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The photograph was taken looking North down the avenue from East Archer Street. The Williams Building is visible on the left side of the photograph. Across the street the east side of N. Greenwood Ave. is visible. On the far right side of the photograph is the Botkin Building. Several people are seen walking or standing around the street. There are several automobiles parked on along the street. A horse in carriage is on the left side of the photograph. A man dressed in a white shirt is sitting down on the curb of E Archer St. in the center of the photograph.

Photograph of North Greenwood Ave. in Tulsa Oklahoma, 2013.79.14c, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Families of Anita Williams Christopher and David Owen Williams.

Check out even more #1MillionTranscribed highlights in our virtual celebration featuring Smithsonian Chief Information Officer Deron Burba, Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, collections staff from across the Institution, and TC program staff. Together we explored the far-reaching impact of digital volunpeer work since 2013, learned more about the use of completed TC projects inside and outside the Smithsonian, and even got some tips for transcription from Secretary Bunch! See the full recording from April 12th below and dive into additional examples on social media of what YOUR volunteer efforts have helped us accomplish: https://youtu.be/8ZOIo9_yaYg

Want to help us transcribe and explore even more Smithsonian collections? Join our digital volunteer community!