Browse Projects
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23 Total pages
18 Contributing members
USNM Curators Annual Reports: Department of Mollusks, 1896-1897
Curator William Healey Dall's report on the Department of Mollusks annual activities in 1896 and 1897 is straightforward and to the point. There continued to be noteworthy work done on the specimen collections received from Dr. Chamberlain three years earlier. Dall makes a special mention of gathering metrics on the various inquiries from people desiring access to the collections and department literature for purposes of research. Will you help us to transcribe the report Dall submitted to the the Director of the United States Museum in 1897?
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136 Total pages
26 Contributing members
USNM Curators Annual Reports: Department of Mollusks: 1882 - 1885
How would you keep track of the work of a brand new museum, one whose collections were still growing rapidly from donations and strategic purchases? Equally important, how would you keep track of the research those collections made possible? The United States National Museum was opened in 1881 by Smithsonian Secretary Spencer F. Baird . It was located in what is known today as the Arts & Industries Building on the National Mall. In order to make sure the museum director could provide a comprehensive summary of museum activity each year, every department's head curator submitted their own reports which give us a more detailed understanding of success and obstacles of America's first National Museum. Join in with other #volunpeers to help us transcribe Department of Mollusks reports from head curator William H. Dall in 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885. Dall was well-known as an Alaskan explorer and for his collecting expeditions throughout North America and a protege of Secretary Baird.
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41 Total pages
16 Contributing members
USNM Department of Mollusks, Exhibited at the Atlanta Exposition, 1895
Several of the United States National Museum's departments contributed to the Institution's exhibits at the Atlanta Exposition of 1895, also known as the Cotton States and International Exposition. The transcription project contains the draft, handwritten labels of the specimens from the Department of Mollusks. Help us transcribe these notes for a taste of what it was like preparing an exhibit at the Exposition.
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3 Total pages
7 Contributing members
Valentine Card send to Robert Fractious from Blanche Queen, February 12, 1940
Over one hundred personal letters describe the experiences of the Fractious Family of Washington, D.C. The family descends from William and Lucy Fractious, who came to the District of Columbia during the Civil War and acquired land in the Barry Farm development, where the Freedmen’s Bureau sold lots to formerly enslaved men and women. The correspondence was written primarily by Blanche Queen to her future husband, Robert Fractious, during World War II. It describes their romance, Robert’s time overseas as part of the war effort, everyday life in Washington, D.C., and personal reactions to political events. Help us discover more about the experiences, thoughts and feelings of this African American family by transcribing these letters.
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378 Total pages
76 Contributing members
Vauban's Traitté des siéges et de l'attaque des places
Sébastien Vauban (1633-1707) was the premier military engineer of his age and revolutionized siege warfare. Vauban's manuscript dates towards later in his life, from around 1700-1707. The title of the manuscript Traitté des siéges et de l'attaque des places: Traitté de la deffense des places roughly translates to Treatise on sieges and the attack of places: Treatise of the defense of places. The manuscript contains a letter from Vauban to the Duke of Burgundy, and is divided into two parts with the first on attack of places and the second on defense of places. After the second part, there are a number of hand-painted illustrations of fortifications and attack plans.
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45 Total pages
9 Contributing members
Velma Maul Tanzer Scrapbook - Flight Diary
Velma Maul Tanzer (1911-1990) was born in Alton, IL. She attended high school in Burlington, IA and received nurses' training at Chicago's Jackson Park Hospital in 1933. Later that year, Tanzer joined American Airways as one of its first four stewardesses, rising to the level of chief stewardess. She remained with the company until 1936, and then went to work for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in Los Angeles as a visiting nurse. After her stint with Metropolitan Life, she became a nursing supervisor at Frances Shimer Junior College in Mount Carroll, IL. In 1942, Tanzer joined the Army Nurse Corps with the rank of Second Lieutenant. She was assigned to Bushnell General Hospital in Brigham City, UT, where she met Radford Tanzer, a plastic surgeon who she married in December of 1943. Velma Maul Tanzer was assigned to the 104th Evacuation Hospital in Bend, Oregon, before being transferred to England in 1944 and serving one year in the European Theater. In 1946, the Tanzers were released from military duty and moved to Hanover, New Hampshire. Velma Maul Tanzer was a member of the American Airlines Kiwi Club.
Browse projects by Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives
100% Complete
92 Total pages
24 Contributing members
Vernon Bailey - British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, July 1909 - October 1909
In his government issued field diary, naturalist Vernon Orlando Bailey recorded his daily highlights. Transcription Center #volunpeers have already helped transcribed that diary. However here we have another, personal, field journal covering the same dates. More pages, more detail. Can you join in and help us make these additional details more accessible? Let's uncover the information Bailey recorded that doesn't appear in his government diary or his lists of collected specimens from 1909.
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26 Total pages
9 Contributing members
Vernon Bailey - California, North Dakota, Oregon, July 1909 - November 1909
If you had to summarize your days activities in just a few sentences, what would you focus on? Chief Naturalist Vernon Orlando Bailey (1864-1942) of the United States Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Biological Survey covers over four months on twenty-six pages in a small field notebook as he traveled through North Dakota, Oregon and California during the late summer and early fall of 1909. Join other volunteers and help us transcribe his chronological entries. This will help us to match these entries to the other reports Bailey submitted during this time and his field book of specimens identified or collected.
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60 Total pages
27 Contributing members
Vernon Bailey - Field Notes, California, July-October 1907
California is an area rich in biodiversity--with multiple climate zones and thousands of plant species native to the state alone. What kind of wildlife might be found there more than 100 years ago? Travel California with naturalist Vernon Bailey's 1907 field notes. Bailey, who spent decades as the Chief Field Naturalist for the Bureau of Biological Survey, conducted research on the state's plant and animal life in Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, and San Bernardino. Explore Bailey's notes and help transcribe them for generations of future scientists!
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52 Total pages
25 Contributing members
Vernon Bailey - Field notes, California, September 8-October 24, 1911
Bureau of Biological Survey naturalist Vernon Bailey carried around this small, pocket-sized notebook, which is smaller than one of today’s smart phones, on his trip to California in 1911. But who needs a smartphone? Instead of the Calendar app, he wrote his trip agenda clearly on the first page. Rather than typing his observations in the Notes app, he jotted down the genus and species he saw in this notebook, sometimes while riding horseback. And as for taking quick photographs using the Camera app, Bailey had something even better. He pressed small plants he found in the pages to study in person. Okay, maybe it would be nice to have a typed version of these notes, but we’re hoping you and a team of volunpeers will help transcribe this important information.
100% Complete
38 Total pages
26 Contributing members
Vernon Bailey - Field notes, Montana and Idaho, June 23-September 8, 1911
How often do you have to visit a place before you begin to notice it changing? By 1911, the Bureau of Biological Survey had been working on a comprehensive survey of North America flora and fauna for over a decade. Chief naturalist Vernon Orlando Bailey's first survey of Montana had been in 1894, fifteen years earlier. Join our volunpeers and transcribe his lists of the plants and animals he collected and observed during this 1911 trip, starting at the very first leg of his journey!
100% Complete
21 Total pages
12 Contributing members
Vernon Bailey - Field notes, New York, New Jersey, and New Hampshire, August 26-September 17, 1910
As the summer of 1910 drew to a close, chief field naturalist Vernon Orlando Bailey left the local neighborhood birds around Washington, D.C. for points north on another expedition for the United States Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Biological Survey. This field book is a record of the plants and other species he observed along with a few special notes about some of the locales he visited. Join other volunpeers to transcribe this book to expand its usefulness to botanists and other natural history researchers.
