Campaigns
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Brothers in Arms: The Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection
Launched February 1, 2022 and completed March 27, 2022.
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Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for this collection. Search them.
The William A. Gladstone Afro-American Military Collection (ca. 500 items) spans the years 1773 to 1987, with the bulk of the material dating from the Civil War period, 1861-1865. This collection documents African Americans in military service, especially the United States Corps d'Afrique and the United States Colored Troops, which were organized during the Civil War. Explore American military history through the lens of African American participants. -
Theater for the People: Federal Theatre Project playbills
Launched January 11, 2022 and completed March 11, 2022.
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Between 1935 and 1939, the Federal Theatre Project employed thousands of performers, directors, playwrights, designers, and stage technicians to produce hundreds of productions across the country during the Great Depression. At no other time in United States history has the government so directly supported the creation of live performance. These playbills of Federal Theatre Project productions document the stories we told in the 1930s, what we valued then, and who we were. -
Artistic Trio: Georgia O’Keeffe & Alfred Stieglitz letters to Henwar Rodakiewicz
Launched March 8, 2022 and completed March 10, 2022.
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Between 1929 and 1947, painter Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, the photographer and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz, each corresponded separately to their mutual friend, the filmmaker Henwar Rodakiewicz. This campaign offers insight into their trio of talent and a chance to engage closely with O’Keeffe’s beautiful calligraphy and expressiveness as a writer. Letters reveal her private thoughts about her art, her self-doubts, challenges, and friendships, and her increasing love of the Southwest landscape and the beauty of the natural world, as Rodakiewicz establishes his career in film and Stieglitz runs his famed An American Place art gallery in New York. -
Women’s Suffrage in Sheet Music
Launched February 16, 2021 and completed February 23, 2021.
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Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for this collection. Search them.
Historic sheet music offers a unique lens through which to explore the women’s suffrage movement. See both “pro-” and “anti-” suffrage sentiments and arguments folded into popular music of the day and discover songbooks published for group singing at suffrage meetings and rallies. Transcribing lyrics reminds us of the power of the suffragist voice, as well as the threat of her detractors. -
Seers, Spiritualists, and the Spirit World: The experiments of Frederick Hockley
Launched October 26, 2020 and completed September 6, 2021.
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British Spiritualist, accountant, and Freemason, Frederick Hockley (1808-1885) is often credited with being a leading influencer of the nineteenth-century Occult Revival, though very little is actually known about him. These 11 notebooks, tucked away in Harry Houdini’s Library, and thought by many to be lost to history, describe the results of Hockley’s numerous experiments in reaching the beyond. -
At the Library and in the Field: John and Alan Lomax Papers
Launched July 13, 2021 and completed September 3, 2021.
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John A. Lomax, Sr., and his son Alan Lomax became stewards of a nascent Archive of American Folk-Song in September 1933. Their tenure lasted until Alan separated from the Library of Congress in October 1942. During that period, they administered an archive that grew in scope and volume. The resultant manuscript material—correspondence, memoranda, reports, notes, and writings—was decades later collated into the John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax papers (AFC 1933/001), the focus of this digital collection. -
Mary Church Terrell: Advocate for African Americans and Women
Launched October 24, 2018 and completed August 10, 2021.
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Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for this collection. Search them.
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) educator, women's rights advocate, and civil rights activist, was the founding president of the National Association of Colored Women and, in 1909, a founder of the NAACP. Her papers are part of the “Suffrage: Women Fight for the Vote” topical campaign, which brings together stories from women on the front lines of the largest reform movement in American history. Transcribing these pages will allow you to explore the long struggle for equality through the diaries, letters, and speeches of the women who fought for the right to vote and changed political history 100 years ago. -
Anna E. Dickinson Papers
Launched June 3, 2019 and completed July 23, 2021.
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Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932) was a lecturer, reformer, actress, and author. She was a teenage phenomenon on the antislavery lecture circuit, and her electrifying speeches made her one of the most sought-after speakers of the women’s suffrage campaign. Her papers are part of the “Suffrage: Women Fight for the Vote” topical campaign, which brings together stories from women on the front lines of the largest reform movement in American history. Transcribing these pages will allow you to explore the long struggle for equality through the diaries, letters, and speeches of the women who fought for the right to vote and changed political history 100 years ago. -
Historical Legal Reports from the Law Library of Congress
Launched April 28, 2021 and completed July 14, 2021.
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Calling all students of history, government, law, public policy, international relations, and other interested members of the public – help us expand access to hundreds of previously unreleased legal reports and other publications from the Law Library of Congress dating back to the 1940s!
Many of these newly available reports have been digitized from thin, carbon copies that have not been found in any other printed format. These often represent the only known remaining versions of the reports. Although they are still quite legible, the poor print quality makes their digitized characters difficult for optical character recognition. Help us to provide accurate transcriptions of these original documents and ensure full-text search. -
James A. Garfield Diary: “His Confidential Friend”
Launched March 1, 2021 and completed May 12, 2021.
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Volunteer transcriptions now enable discovery and access for this collection. Search them.
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 these twenty-one diaries (1848-1881). Garfield used his diary to record the challenges he faced as a self-made man, his activities, intellectual curiosity, accomplishments and defeats, family life, travels, and comments on the people, events, and society of his time. Garfield’s diary provides a sustained and intimate view into the rich inner life of one of America’s more remarkable, but lesser-known presidents.