About this campaign

This campaign launched in celebration of Douglass Day 2024. Thank you to all Douglass Day organizers and volunteers!

Discover the many lives of Frederick Douglass by transcribing letters to and from the great orator, writer, and activist.

After escaping from slavery Frederick Douglass risked his freedom by becoming an outspoken antislavery lecturer and writer. In 1847 he founded the North Star, beginning a long career as a newspaper editor and publisher. During the Civil War he advised President Lincoln and recruited African American soldiers for the Union. After emancipation he continued fighting for civil rights for African Americans, but also advocated for women’s rights and other oppressed members of society. In his later years he served as a bank president and in several government posts.

This campaign consists generally of the General Correspondence series of the Frederick Douglass Papers which documents his personal and public life. It primarily consists of letters received by Douglass, arranged chronologically. Some drafts and retained copies of his outgoing correspondence are also included, as well as letters to and from his wife Helen Pitts Douglass as she worked to preserve his legacy. The campaign also includes correspondence, notes, and notebooks from the Addition I series of the collection and invitations filed in the Miscellany series.

Thanks to the long-running Frederick Douglass Papers Project for collaboration to ensuring volunteers would not duplicate editorial effots. Following this campaign, Douglass Papers Project transcriptions of Library of Congress correspondence will also be incorportated into loc.gov.

About this project

Highlights Douglass’s appointment as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia, his remarriage to Helen Pitts Douglass, his appointment as U.S. Minister and Consul General to Haiti, his service as commissioner of the Haitian pavilion at the World’s Columbia Exposition, and his involvement in antilynching campaigns. Correspondents include, Ebenezer D. Bassett, James G. Blaine, Susan B. Anthony, Blanche K. Bruce, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

Helpful Links

• About the Frederick Douglass Papers, Library of Congress
• Frederick Douglass Papers Project, IUPUI
• Frederick Douglass Correspondence Index
• Frederick Douglass timeline
• Frederick Douglass Papers finding aid

Welcome to By the People! Help transcribe Library of Congress documents to improve search, access, and discovery of these pages from history.

Documents are transcribed and reviewed by volunteers. It takes at least one volunteer to transcribe a page and at least one other volunteer to review and mark it complete. Review ensures transcriptions are whole and accurate. Complex documents may pass through transcription and review several times before they are completed. Completed transcriptions are published on loc.gov.

Let's get started!

1. Read the instructions on transcribing and reviewing. Access instructions at any time by clicking the "How To" tab on the right or at the top of any page.
2. Create an account -- if you want! Anyone can transcribe without an account. Registered volunteers can review, track their work via a profile page, use "Transcribe with OCR," and add tags.
3. Choose what to transcribe. Explore our many campaigns featuring different Library of Congress collections. When you find a group of documents that looks interesting, click through to a page. Use filters to see just "Not Started" or "Needs review" pages.
4. Transcribe what you can in the text box. Type what you see in order and preserve line breaks. Have questions about something tricky? Revisit "How to transcribe."
5. Use image viewer filters to make text clearer. Activate them using the button between full screen and flip. Use filters individually or combine them to adjust brightness, contrast, and invert color.
6. Click “Save” as you go to preserve work in progress. If you decide a page isn't for you, that's ok! Just click “Save” before moving on. Other volunteers can finish what you started.
7. Click "Save" and “Submit for review” when you've transcribed a whole page and think it is ready for review. If you aren't logged in, you will need to verify you are not a bot.
8. After you transcribed a few pages, try out review! Review is the crucial final step before transcriptions are complete and ready for publication. All registered volunteers can review. Learn how.
9. Try out tagging. Read our tagging instructions then try it on any page!

Have a question or comment about By the People?

• Send us a message.
• Connect with our team and other volunteers in our History Hub discussion forum.
• Read through our FAQ.

Text order

Transcribe text in the order it appears on the page. If you're unsure, transcribe the text how it would make sense to read aloud.

Preserve original spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Transcribe original text spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Type what you see.  Do not paraphrase.

Dashes and other punctuation can be a little unusual before the mid-20th century. Make your best guess on whether something is best represented by an en dash, em dash, equals sign, period, etc.

If a misspelling will impact search of the document, you can tag the page with the correct spelling. Example: "Abe Linkin" - Transcribe as spelled and tag with "Abraham Lincoln"

Line breaks

Preserve line breaks. Line breaks make it easier for someone to review your transcription. Sometimes text in the transcription box spills over two lines in the transcription box. If you don't hit enter, no line break is recorded.

When words are broken over two lines on the same page, type the word on the first line. Example: Write library rather than li-brary.

Page breaks

If a word breaks across two pages, transcribe it on the first page. 

Illegible or unclear text

If you can't decipher a word or phrase, that’s ok! Another volunteer may be able to. If you are unable to read a lot of a page, save and looking for another.

You may not be able to read some text due to damage, cross-outs, blurred ink, or bad handwriting! In place of illegible words or letters, transcribe a pair of square brackets around a question mark [?]. If you can read any part of a word, transcribe what letters you can and use question marks for the rest. Example: [?] score and s[????] years ago 

Blank pages - Nothing to transcribe

Do not transcribe any text for blank pages. Check the Nothing to Transcribe box below it and hit "Save."

Deletions

If you can read text that has been crossed out or otherwise deleted, transcribe the deleted words within square brackets [ ].

Inserted text

When text has been inserted over a line or otherwise added later, transcribe it in the original text in the order you would read it. Do not use caret symbols or brackets to indicate text has been inserted.

Multiple pages

If there is more than one page in an image, transcribe all pages in the order they appear, one after the other. Leave empty lines between pages.

Don't leave notes in text

Only type original text from the page into the transcription box. You may be tempted to leave notes about the document, but please don't! You can leave help or context for others as a tag or post in our discussion forum on History Hub.

Expanding abbreviations

Do not expand abbreviations; just type what you see. You can use tags to record the expanded text of an important abbreviation that otherwise does not appear in the text. Example: Transcribe "UL" and tag "Urban League"

Formatting text: Bold, underlined, italic, indented, etc.

Do not try to capture formatting, such as underlining or indents or note it in the text. Preserving text style or format does not enhance the discoverability or accessibility of a page and may not display as desired in published transcriptions.

Printed or typed text

Some material in By the People is typed or printed, including letters and memos, newspaper clippings, printed forms, and more. This text still needs to be transcribed as it is not yet machine-readable. "Transcribe with OCR" (below the image viewer) may be a useful, though imperfect, starting point.

Catalog and page numbers

Do transcribe page and catalog numbers and letters.

Letterheads

Transcribe letterhead text; it often includes names and addresses researchers may find useful.

Newspapers

Transcribe all newspapers articles, not just those you think relevant. Transcribe columns in the order you would read them. Don't try to preserve layout.

When not to transcribe print

Some mass-produced diaries contain many pages of pre-printed calendars, almanacs, dates, and other text that does not need to be transcribed. This text does not broadly aid discovery and access to historical information. We recommend clicking "Nothing to transcribe" and moving on.

Images

Ignore images. Don't describe or note them in the transcription box. If a page has only images and no text, click "Nothing to transcribe." You can use tags to capture information about images, watermarks, stamps, or any other non-text features.

Text in margins

Marginalia is text written around the main text block. It is often a comment on the main body text, but can be unrelated. It differs from an insertion, in that it was not intended to be woven into the main text.

Transcribe marginalia within square brackets and asterisks [* *]. If it comments on a specific portion of the text, order it after that text. Put it at the end of the transcription if it appears unrelated. Transcribe all original punctuation within the [* *], including parentheses. Example: We are met on a great battlefield of that war. [*Refers to Gettysburg*]

Non-English languages, characters, and translation

Many languages are found in our campaigns. All text should be transcribed wholly and accurately in the original language.

Use the correct characters when transcribing non-English text. For example, do not substitute C for Ç. You can use alt codes to enter non-English characters. See our Spanish and Latin cheat sheets.

Do not enter translation! If you want to translate a document, you can share it in History Hub!

Shorthand

Do not transcribe shorthand. Some of our campaigns include shorthand text, a note-taking method popular in the early 20th century that substituted symbols for words and phrases to quickly capture text (here's an example).

Many forms of shorthand exist and shorthand transcription can be closer to translation. When you recognize shorthand, just insert [[shorthand]]. You can also add the tag "shorthand."

Other symbols and special characters

Transcribe symbols and other special characters as they are used in the original. Most common are ampersands (&), currency ($, £, etc.), and the silcrow (§, used in legal documents). Here's more help for early American and British Colonial currency.

Bleed-through

Text written or printed on thin paper, like letterbooks, will often have bleed-through. Ink from the proceeding page seeps through the paper or is visible through it and appears to be written backward. Ignore backward mirror image text. You can go to the previous page to transcribe it.

Long s or "funny" f

Some historical handwriting and printing uses the "long s", which looks like a lowercase "f". Transcribe this as a lowercase "s".

Tables

Some documents contain tables of data, such as accounting records or statistical information. Transcribe these in a way that will preserve the relationships between columns and rows, and reflect the meaning of the original documents. Don't worry about replicating layout, just try to capture the data and make your transcription relatively easy for a reviewer to check. You can use spaces and hard returns, but please do not add characters such as the pipe symbol or slashes to divide the data.

Cross-writing

Some letters include "cross-writing" where the author layered text in two directions to save on paper or postage. Transcribe a cross-written page in the order you would read it. You can also add the tag "cross-writing."

Volunteer peer review is the final vital step. Once a page is accepted by a reviewer, it is complete. Completed pages are published on loc.gov to enhance search and accessibility. Review is also great way to become familiar with reading handwriting and our transcription rules.

How to review

Read the entire transcription and carefully compare it to the document image, checking for accuracy and completeness. We recommend going line-by-line, which is why we ask transcribers to preserve line breaks. Make sure the transcriber followed all transcription rules.

Register to review

Anyone can review; you just need to register. An account also allows you to track your contribution on your profile page and to tag documents.

Accepting a transcription

If a transcription is whole and accurate and you do not need to make any changes, click "Accept". The page is now complete! You can no longer edit, but the page is still available to read and tag. If you think a completed page in an active campaign can be improved, contact us to reopen it.

Editing a transcription

If you find errors or missing text click “Edit”. You can make changes to the text yourself or leave it "In Progress" for another volunteer. Correct any mistakes made by the transcriber and complete any words you can. Just like transcribing, click “Save” as you go and "Submit" when you're done. Another volunteer will need to review the page again. 

Should I add line breaks?

Line breaks aid reviewers and other readers in comparing the transcription to the lines of text in the image. They allow you to read across the transcription and image line-by-line. However, if the absence of line breaks is the only issue in a transcription, and you can review it as-is, you do not need to add them.

Can I review my own transcriptions?

You cannot review transcriptions you submit unless someone else edits the page and re-submits it.

Add tags to communicate with other volunteers and capture additional information about a page. Completed campaign tags are published as part of campaign datasets on loc.gov.

Register to tag

Tag, you're it! Anyone can tag; you just need to be a registered user. An account also allows you to review and to track your contributions on your profile page.

Add a tag

To add a tag, type a word or words in the Tags box at the bottom of any page. Separate tags with a comma or click “Add” after each.

Delete a tag

Delete a tag by clicking the X next to the text.

Tag recommendations

Add any tags you feel are appropriate, as long as they follow the Library’s comment policy. Here are some ways you may want to tag:

• It’s useful to tag with words that aren’t already included in the transcription text, since the transcriptions will already be searchable on loc.gov and as datasets.
• Keep tags short, but use whole words instead of abbreviations. This will make it easier for other people to understand and reuse your tag.
• Identify a document’s subject. For example, you may want to tag a page with the name of a social movement it describes.
• Note an interesting format. You may want to tag the language of a page, the type of document, or if it includes unique features like shorthand or cross-writing.
• If an important word like a name is spelled incorrectly in the original text, you can add a tag of the correct spelling.
• Sometimes writers use nicknames or code words. If you identify a full name or subject using context or research, you can add that tag.