By the People invites you to transcribe, review, and tag digitized pages from the Library’s collections. Everyone is welcome to take part! Volunteer-created transcriptions improve search, readability, and access to handwritten and typed documents for everyone, including people who are not fully sighted.
All transcriptions are made and reviewed by volunteers before they are returned to loc.gov, the Library's website. You don't even need to create an account to transcribe, but registered users can also tag and review other people's transcriptions. By the People is powered by the open source crowdsourced transcription platform Concordia, developed by the Library of Congress.
We launched By the People in Fall 2018. The name comes from the closing line of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which states “...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The name reflects the spirit of democracy of this transcription program, which asks you to join us in enhancing Library of Congress digital collections.
Here are some instructions that will help you get started with By the People, the platform we will use for this transcription project:
The majority of handwritten documents in By the People were penned between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Spencerian Script (Approx. 1850-1925) is a script style considered the American standard writing style prior to the widespread adoption of the typewriter.
If you are new to historical transcription you may run into unfamiliar spellings and abbreviations common for this style of script. The resources provided below demonstrate many of these and how to transcribe them correctly.
Want to get some transcription practice before Douglass Day? Check out these resources: