Crowdsourcing at the Library of Congress Update

We're almost done!

Well, no surprises here folks, you're amazing as ever! We set a new challenge yesterday morning (11/6), and you've already nearly completed transcribing and reviewing all of the pages in Samuel J. Gibson's Civil War POW diary. See how quickly work progressed and share what you found in Gibson's writings on our History Hub challenge page. 

Challenge stretch goal

So, "what's next?" you ask. Let's complete all 1,594 pages needing review in the "Civil War Soldiers: 'Disabled but not disheartened'" Campaign by the end of Veterans Day. This is a lot of material, but you all have shown yourselves to be an incredible community, and we think you can do it! This campaign features entries from the left-handed penmanship competition created by a reformer, poet, editor, and clergyman named William Oland Bourne for Union soldiers who lost their right arms in the conflict. Reviewing these pages you'll encounter soldiers' personal accounts of battle and loss, as well as their lives after the war, when they trained themselves to write left-handed and returned to civilian life and work. 

This was one of our original campaigns launched in October 2018. It would be amazing to round out the review of these letters by wounded soldiers, so that we could publish the full set of transcriptions back on loc.gov. That would be a lot to be proud of, and grateful for, this Veterans Day. 

-Victoria and the By the People team

Click here for more information.