Browse Projects
National Numismatic Collection - Chinese Bank Notes, Set 5
Ready for a new challenge volunpeers? Help us transcribe Chinese Bank Notes from the Smithsonian's National Numismatic Collection (NNC). Established in the mid-19th century, several of the earliest additions to the NNC were artifacts from Japan, Korea, and China, including coins and medals gifted to President Ulysses S. Grant from Japanese Emperor Meiji (received in 1881) and the 2,025 East Asian coins, amulets, and notes from George Bunker Glover’s private collection (received in 1897). These donations were the foundation of the NNC’s East Asian holdings, which continues to grow with new acquisitions, such as the Howard F. Bowker collection in 2017. The NNC is now working to digitize 6,000 Chinese notes and paper transactional objects that range from the Ming Dynasty to the present day. One of the main challenges to the digitization process is transcription, transliteration and translation of several Asian alphabets. Sometimes this can be done quickly, but often the process is too lengthy for NNC team members to complete while moving the project forward efficiently. In order to continue to share these objects rapidly, we need your help! The transcription of these bank notes will help NNC staff figure out how best to make these objects available and more easily searchable online. Please visit the special instructions for this project before beginning transcription.
Project PHaEDRA - Henrietta Swan Leavitt #34
At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women computers studied glass plate photographs of the night sky. Here they catalogued stars, identifying variables, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring the vast distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. In these books, follow the work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered the relation between luminosity and the period of the Cepheid variables and led to the first “standard candle” with which to measure the distance to other galaxies. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest. Have questions? Want to start a discussion? Head over to our blog posts to make comments about notebooks and ask questions about transcribing. PLEASE NOTE: Please follow these special instructions when transcribing these notebooks.
Project PHaEDRA - Henrietta Swan Leavitt #35
At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women computers studied glass plate photographs of the night sky. Here they catalogued stars, identifying variables, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring the vast distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. In these books, follow the work of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, who discovered the relation between luminosity and the period of the Cepheid variables and led to the first “standard candle” with which to measure the distance to other galaxies. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest. Have questions? Want to start a discussion? Head over to our blog posts to make comments about notebooks and ask questions about transcribing. PLEASE NOTE: Please follow these special instructions when transcribing these notebooks.
Project PHaEDRA - Annie Jump Cannon 49
At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women computers studied glass plate photographs of the night sky. Here they catalogued stars, identifying variables, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring the vast distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. In these books, follow the work of Annie Jump Cannon, who in 1901 devised a robust and elegant stellar classification scheme that astronomers still use today. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest. Have questions? Want to start a discussion? Head over to our blog posts to make comments about notebooks and ask questions about transcribing. PLEASE NOTE: Please follow these special instructions when transcribing these notebooks.
Project PHaEDRA - Cecilia H. Payne #38
At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women computers studied glass plate photographs of the night sky. Here they catalogued stars, identifying variables, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring the vast distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest. Have questions? Want to start a discussion? Head over to our blog posts to make comments about notebooks and ask questions about transcribing. PLEASE NOTE: Please follow these special instructions when transcribing these notebooks.
Letters from Paris: American Artists in Paris, 1860-1930
In the mid- to late 1800s and early 1900s, many Americans traveled to Paris, France, to further their careers, and artists were no exception! American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists all studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of them wrote letters back home to family and friends describing their lives there, whether it was studio visits, copying the masters at the Louvre, or their military service during World War I. Transcribe the letters of thirteen of these artists and their families and friends, and travel with them to the small world of expatriate American artists in Paris, circa 1860-1930.
Subprojects
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Edmund Tarbell Letters to Emeline Souther Tarbell, 1885 January
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Edmund Tarbell Letters to Emeline Souther Tarbell, 1885 February-October
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Mary Cassatt Letters to Robert and Minnie Cassatt, 1921-1925
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Cecilia Beaux General Correspondence, 1888
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Cecilia Beaux General Correspondence, 1888 (Part 4)
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William Cushing Loring Letters to Stanton D. Loring, 1904
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William Cushing Loring Letters to Mrs. Stanton D. Loring, 1901
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William Cushing Loring Letters to Mrs. Stanton D. Loring, 1903
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John White Alexander Correspondence, 1896-1897
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John White Alexander Correspondence, 1898-1900
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Henry Ossawa Tanner General Correspondence, 1918-1924
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Henry Ossawa Tanner General Correspondence, 1924-1925
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Henry Ossawa Tanner General Correspondence, 1926-1928
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Henry Ossawa Tanner General Correspondence, 1929-1930
Friedrich "Fritz" Rumpf Notebooks - Loose Notes
Friedrich Karl Georg Rumpf (1888-1949) German illustrator and ethnographer, and son of German artist Fritz Rumpf. The younger Fritz Rumpf was living in Japan at the outbreak of war and likely composed parts of at least one of the following notebooks while living as a prisoner of war. PLEASE NOTE: The notebooks will be a special challenge as they contain multiple notes in German and Japanese, and drawings in pencil, ink and wash made during his travels and research in Japan.
Project PHaEDRA - Cecilia H. Payne #27
At Harvard College Observatory (now the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), women computers studied glass plate photographs of the night sky. Here they catalogued stars, identifying variables, interpreting stellar spectra, counting galaxies, and measuring the vast distances in space. Several of them made game-changing discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. Interested in historical women? Love astronomy? Help us transcribe the work of the Harvard Observatory's women computers and see which stars shine the brightest. Have questions? Want to start a discussion? Head over to our blog posts to make comments about notebooks and ask questions about transcribing. PLEASE NOTE: Please follow these special instructions when transcribing these notebooks.
North Carolina Field Offices, Subordinate Field Offices: Fayetteville, Press Copies of Letters Sent, Vol. 88, May–Dec. 1867
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, often referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established on March 3, 1865. The duties of the Freedmen’s Bureau included supervision of all affairs relating to refugees, freedmen, and the custody of abandoned lands and property. These documents come from the Records of the Field Offices for the State of North Carolina, Series 4.9: Subordinate Field Offices: Fayetteville. Additional resources including a list of Freedmen's Bureau staff in North Carolina are available on the Freedmen's Bureau Instructions Page. Please help us transcribe these records to learn more about the experiences of formerly enslaved men and women in North Carolina during the Reconstruction Era.
Mississippi Assistant Commissioner, Letters Received, Entered in Volume 3, A–G, Jan.–Aug. 1867, Part 2
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, often referred to as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was established on March 3, 1865. The duties of the Freedmen’s Bureau included supervision of all affairs relating to refugees, freedmen, and the custody of abandoned lands and property. These documents come from the Records of the Assistant Commissioner for Mississippi, Series 4: Letters Sent. Additional resources including a list of Freedmen's Bureau staff in Mississippi and a style sheet for help when transcribing Mississippi records are available on the Freedmen's Bureau Instructions Page. Please help us transcribe these records to learn more about the experiences of formerly enslaved men and women in Mississippi during the Reconstruction Era.
