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By the People Bulletin

 

NEW! Transcribe Civil War era naval collection

We just launched the papers of naval officer Louis M. Goldsborough! You can explore the many letters he sent to family and friends home and abroad during his long career (1816-1873). Goldsborough's papers contain descriptions of his service during the Mexican War, and tenure as superintendent of the United States Naval Academy. Material dating from the Civil War relates to his participation in the blockade of Charleston Harbor, S.C., naval operations on the James River in Virginia, the scuttling of the USS Merrimack, visits to the front lines by Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet, and the capture of suspected Lincoln assassination conspirator John H. Surratt in 1866. There is much to learn and explore in this campaign. 

The women in his family, especially his wife Elizabeth Wirt Goldsborough and his daughter Lizzie Goldsborough, are particularly visible in the correspondence as they navigated the everyday activities of life in Goldsborough’s absence and steered through the triumphs and tragedies brought on by the American Civil War. Jump in today to help make this collection more accessible to all! 

Volunteer Office Hours on July 17

Register to join our virtual volunteer office hours session on Thursday, July 17 from 3-4pm EDT. Office hours are a great way to meet other By the People volunteers and Community Managers, hear about upcoming campaigns and events, and ask any questions you might have about participating. All are welcome! 

Have you used By the People transcription datasets? Tell us about it! 

Our colleagues at the Library are interested in hearing from dataset users to assess how they can improve the experience of finding and using datasets on the Library's website. Have you used a By the People transcription dataset (part of the Selected Datasets collection)? If so, let our colleagues know it by taking a short survey.  

Once volunteers complete an entire campaign and the By the People team determines there will be no future additions, we publish all the transcriptions together as a full-text dataset. Our datasets contain a README file which gives context for the data, and a CSV file of the transcription which can be used in any commonly available spreadsheet program (like Excel or Google Sheets). The sets make it easy to search and use the data in bulk, facilitating data analysis and digital humanities projects. Download one our datasets and try it out! 

All the best,

Abby, Carlyn, and Lauren