Active Campaigns

• We the Undersigned: Black South Carolinians Petition for Equal Rights, 1865

  

  Months after the Civil War ended in 1865, over 3,000 African American residents of South Carolina submitted a petition of fifty-four feet in length urging the U.S. Congress to ensure that voting rights be secured to them in the new South Carolina state constitution. Help us transcribe those names, increase their discoverability, and learn more about the creation of the petition and the petitioners themselves!

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• “Such Eventful Times”: Women and the American Civil War

  

  Few women who lived through the American Civil War remained untouched by the conflict, and their letters, diaries, and other personal papers document how each woman experienced the war in her own way. Explore the worlds of women like Mary Ann Arnold, Mary Ann Bickerdyke, Betty Herndon Maury, and Dora Stephens to discover how the Civil War and its legacy influenced their lives.

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• By Design: Frederick Law Olmsted & Associates

  

  2022 marks the bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted’s birth. Many of the parks, estates, residential communities, campuses, grounds of buildings, and gathering places he, his associates, and his successors designed remain in use today. Find out more about landscape architecture, urban planning, and the cultural history of design for public and private greenspaces by transcribing documents from the Library’s Manuscript Division holdings.

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• Clara Barton: "Angel of the Battlefield"

  

  Nurse, educator, philanthropist, lecturer, and founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton (1821-1912) was one of the most prolific, active, and beloved women of her time. Discover how she achieved so much despite widespread prejudice against women.
  
  Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for portions of this collection. Search them.

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• "To Be Preserved": The Correspondence of James A. Garfield

  

  Although an assassin’s bullet shortened his presidential administration to just six months in 1881, James A. Garfield (1831-1881) left an impressive archive of his forty-nine years, including extensive correspondence with family, friends, professional colleagues, and the public. Garfield’s own letters to intimates recorded his thoughts on his private life and public activities, whereas the correspondence Garfield received reflected the interests of both individuals in his inner circle and the public at large. Discover the wide range of subjects addressed in the correspondence of one of America’s more remarkable, but lesser-known presidents.

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• Walt Whitman

  

  2019 marked the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth and the poet remains at the center of cultural conversations today. The Whitman campaign includes projects devoted to his poetry, letters, speeches, and other writings. Discover how he wrote and lived for yourself, and learn more about his creative process.
  
  Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for some portions of the Feinberg Whitman Collection and the Miscellaneous Manuscript Collection. Search them.

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• Woman of the World: Political Thinker Hannah Arendt

  

  Political theorist and cultural critic Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) fled from her native Germany and occupied France and came to the United States as a Jewish refugee from the Nazi regime. She made a life as a New Yorker and became one of the world’s most prominent public intellectuals. Letters and notes in her papers document the personal side of Arendt as a wife and family member, a friend, mentor, and colleague. Correspondence, syllabi, speeches, research materials, and writings convey the public Arendt, a brilliant writer, teacher, activist, and thinker who interacted with a who’s who of fellow literati and intellectuals of her time. The woman who offered deep analysis of human nature, political systems, power and rights to her students and readers left us lasting works including Eichmann in Jerusalem, The Origins of Totalitarianism, and The Life of the Mind.

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• Civil War Justice: The Correspondence of Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate General

  

  Experience many of the most important issues and events of the Civil War era through the correspondence of Joseph Holt (1807-1894) while he served as a newspaper editor, lawyer, and political figure in Kentucky, and United States postmaster general, secretary of war, and judge advocate general of the United States Army (1862-1875). The sectional crisis, the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, and Reconstruction are all played out in Holt’s papers, as his proximity to power prompted letters from well-known figures, the public, and his own divided family.

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• The Blackwells: An Extraordinary Family

  

  Discover the extraordinary history of one family’s commitment to social reform movements such as abolition, women’s suffrage, and temperance. Blackwell family members include Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, who were both prominent in the women’s rights and women’s suffrage movements.
  
  

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• Herencia: Centuries of Spanish Legal Documents

  

  Legal documents shed light on what societies and individuals value, and the struggles, hopes, and triumphs of people across the societal spectrum. You can transcribe documents written in Spanish, Latin, and Catalan between 1300 and 1800, and open the legal history of Spain and Spanish colonies to greater discovery. Help us bring this rare collection to life!
  
  Los documentos jurídicos iluminan lo que la sociedades e individuos valoran y las batallas, esperanzas y triunfos de personas a través de todo el espectro social. Puedes transcribir documentos escritos en español, latín y catalán desde los años 1300 a los 1800 y dar entrada a la historia jurídica de España y de sus colonias para mayor descubrimiento. Ayúdanos a traer a la luz esta colección de materiales únicos.
  
  Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for some portions of this collection. Search them.

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• Rough Rider to Bull Moose: Letters to Theodore Roosevelt

  

  President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was a prolific writer of books, articles, and especially letters, and received as much mail as he sent. His correspondents ranged from heads of states to average Americans, and covered a wide range of topics. Discover what Roosevelt and his correspondents had to say about the issues of their day, and help make the subjects addressed in what Roosevelt called his “great mass of papers” more accessible.

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• American Creativity: Early Copyright Title Pages

  

  Discover endlessly fascinating items in this time capsule of title pages. Sent in by authors and publishers to register their books and other works, they stem from the earliest U.S. copyright laws from 1790 to 1870. This collection is a unique American record of creativity, dreams and aspirations.

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Completed Campaigns

See All 22 Completed Campaigns »

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  Information and Disinformation: The World War II Rumor Project
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  Organizing for Women’s Suffrage: The NAWSA Records
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  Brothers in Arms: The Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection
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  Theater for the People: Federal Theatre Project playbills
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  Artistic Trio: Georgia O’Keeffe & Alfred Stieglitz letters to Henwar Rodakiewicz
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  Ordinary Lives in George Washington’s Papers