Courtesy of The Library of Congress
You can help classify and transcribe thousands of original suffragette documents dating back to the 19th century.
Practice your transcription skills or help keyword tag documents to make the Library of Congress more accessible to the public. All you need to work on this project is a computer, time, and a willingness to learn. Thousands of documents have already been scanned and just need to be transcribed, tagged, and reviewed. And since this is an ongoing effort to make these important papers more easily searched by the public, you can volunteer online and work at your own pace.
You’ll be working on transcribing and reviewing private correspondence, including letters, diaries, and more, for such historical figures as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. If you’d prefer to assist with categorizing the documents, you can volunteer to assign keywords to transcriptions, making them easier to find online. Experience with search engine optimization guidelines would be helpful but is not required.
How to Get Started
“By the People” is a web-based crowd-sourcing program for multiple users to contribute to ongoing projects. It’s extremely intuitive and free to use.
Go to the Library of Congress website and register for the By the People platform. You just need to put in an email address and access a verification link. Once you’ve done that, go back to the project you want to volunteer for (in this case, the Suffrage Movement) and choose a set of documents. All transcription and reviewing will be done directly on the web-based platform. You can take your time and save your work as you go.
If you really enjoy this type of work, there are several campaigns on the By the People main page that could use your help. Put your talents to good use and try another project!
For more information, visit the Library of Congress website for By the People.
**All of the photos in this article are courtesy of the Library of Congress Facebook page.
Have you done any transcription for the Library of Congress before? Do you have experience with keyword tagging? What advice would you have for people thinking about volunteering? Let us know in the comments!