Browse Projects

Amelia Earhart Letter to Winfield B. "Bert" Kinner

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly (as a passenger) across the Atlantic, and the first woman (and second person, after Charles Lindbergh) to fly solo and nonstop across that ocean. She flew many record flights, published several books, and accomplished much for women in aviation before disappearing over the Pacific Ocean during an attempted around-the-world flight in 1937. Winfield Bertrum "Bert" Kinner was active in the aviation business and organized various aircraft and engine companies, one of which produced the Kinner Airster, the first aircraft that Earhart purchased.

Browse projects by Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Archives

American Civil War Letter- Battle of Williamsburg, 1862

Are you interested in the Civil War or reading a first hand account of the first use of the mechanical landmine in battle? You can be part of this experience by helping transcribe this great document.

Browse projects by Archives Center - NMAH

An Assortment of Euphorbiaceae

In this set, we have a number of different genera of Euphorbiaceae, all different and yet all very much the same in certain features.

Please contact Sylvia Orli, Department of Botany, or tweet us at @sylviaorli @TranscribeSI for any questions or comments about the transcriptions.

Browse projects by NMNH - Department of Botany

An Elegy, Sacred to the Memory of the Great Divine, the Reverend and Learned Dr. Samuel Cooper, Who Departed this Life December

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.

 The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.

 The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

Browse projects by National Museum of African American History and Culture

An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species

Phillis Wheatley Peters (c. 1753 – 1784) was born in West Africa and captured by slave traders as a child, whereupon she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Boston, Massachusetts. She was named after the slave ship on which she was transported to the Americas and the name of her enslavers, but her surname of Peters is that of the man she married in 1778—John Peters, a free man of color.  The story of the discovery of her talent by the Wheatley family is oft told—they taught her to read and write, and by age fourteen, she had begun to write poetry that was soon published and circulated amongst the elites of late eighteenth century America and Great Britain. Her first and only volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was published in London with the assistance of wealthy abolitionists. Peters’ poetry brought her renown in abolitionist circles as proof of the humanity of those of African descent and the inhumanity of the institution of slavery.  The Wheatleys manumitted Peters in 1773 under pressure from critics who saw the hypocrisy in praising Peters’ talent while keeping her enslaved. They died within a few years of this decision, and Peters soon met and married grocer John Peters. Her life afterwards was indicative of the troubled freedom of African Americans of the period, who were emancipated but not fully integrated into the promise of American citizenship. Peters was also affected by the loss of all three of her children—the birth of the last of whom caused her premature death at age 31 In 1784. Despite being feted as a prodigy while enslaved, the emancipated Peters struggled to find the support necessary for producing a second volume of poetry and her husband’s financial struggles forced her to find work as a scullery maid—the lowest position of domestic help. Posthumous publications of Peters’ poetry in various anthologies and periodicals solidified her image as a child poet for the benefit of abolitionist activism and African American cultural pride in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the twenty-first century, the accumulation of this collection is a restoration of Peters the woman and the influence of her poetry and activism today.

Browse projects by National Museum of African American History and Culture

An Outline of Resurrection City as Used

In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference launched the Poor People’s Campaign, a national, multiethnic movement for economic justice, security, and opportunity for every American. During the Campaign, participants built a tent city, known as Resurrection City, on the 16-acre site between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument along the National Mall. John Wiebenson, a professor of architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park, led the committee that helped campaign organizers negotiate land, design the encampment, and build housing units for protesters. Published in English, French, and German, this original manuscript by Wiebenson, “An Outline of Resurrection City as Used,” explains the philosophies behind Resurrection City’s design and construction.

Browse projects by National Museum of African American History and Culture

Andy Warhol letter to Russell Lynes

Andy Warhol letter to Russell Lynes

Browse projects by Archives of American Art

ANNAMAE BARLUP MYERS 1931

The Annamae Myers diaries record the activities of a farm family in Ohio, 1931-1967. There are daily entries about the weather and frequent mention of trips to the hairdresser and trips to the children's music and dancing lessons and to town for shopping, movies, or to pay bills. The diaries include frequent entries of amounts received for the sale of farm produce, and some financial data are entered at the end of each volume, but such entries are neither regular nor complete. They do however provide information on prices for agricultural products in a rural community. Major political and historic events are noted. There is infrequent reference to the emotions generated by family living and by the historic and political events of the twentieth century. Also includes a few diaries kept by Stephen Harriman, Mrs. Myers' maternal grandfather, with very brief daily entries of the weather, trips to town, visits made and visitors to the farm, and the start of farm operations, i.e., plowing, sowing.

Browse projects by Archives Center - NMAH

ANNAMAE BARLUP MYERS 1932

The Annamae Myers diaries record the activities of a farm family in Ohio, 1931-1967. There are daily entries about the weather and frequent mention of trips to the hairdresser and trips to the children's music and dancing lessons and to town for shopping, movies, or to pay bills. The diaries include frequent entries of amounts received for the sale of farm produce, and some financial data are entered at the end of each volume, but such entries are neither regular nor complete. They do however provide information on prices for agricultural products in a rural community. Major political and historic events are noted. There is infrequent reference to the emotions generated by family living and by the historic and political events of the twentieth century. Also includes a few diaries kept by Stephen Harriman, Mrs. Myers' maternal grandfather, with very brief daily entries of the weather, trips to town, visits made and visitors to the farm, and the start of farm operations, i.e., plowing, sowing.

Browse projects by Archives Center - NMAH

ANNAMAE BARLUP MYERS 1933

The Annamae Myers diaries record the activities of a farm family in Ohio, 1931-1967. There are daily entries about the weather and frequent mention of trips to the hairdresser and trips to the children's music and dancing lessons and to town for shopping, movies, or to pay bills. The diaries include frequent entries of amounts received for the sale of farm produce, and some financial data are entered at the end of each volume, but such entries are neither regular nor complete. They do however provide information on prices for agricultural products in a rural community. Major political and historic events are noted. There is infrequent reference to the emotions generated by family living and by the historic and political events of the twentieth century. Also includes a few diaries kept by Stephen Harriman, Mrs. Myers' maternal grandfather, with very brief daily entries of the weather, trips to town, visits made and visitors to the farm, and the start of farm operations, i.e., plowing, sowing.

Browse projects by Archives Center - NMAH

ANNAMAE BARLUP MYERS 1934

The Annamae Myers diaries record the activities of a farm family in Ohio, 1931-1967. There are daily entries about the weather and frequent mention of trips to the hairdresser and trips to the children's music and dancing lessons and to town for shopping, movies, or to pay bills. The diaries include frequent entries of amounts received for the sale of farm produce, and some financial data are entered at the end of each volume, but such entries are neither regular nor complete. They do however provide information on prices for agricultural products in a rural community. Major political and historic events are noted. There is infrequent reference to the emotions generated by family living and by the historic and political events of the twentieth century. Also includes a few diaries kept by Stephen Harriman, Mrs. Myers' maternal grandfather, with very brief daily entries of the weather, trips to town, visits made and visitors to the farm, and the start of farm operations, i.e., plowing, sowing.

Browse projects by Archives Center - NMAH

ANNAMAE BARLUP MYERS 1935

The Annamae Myers diaries record the activities of a farm family in Ohio, 1931-1967. There are daily entries about the weather and frequent mention of trips to the hairdresser and trips to the children's music and dancing lessons and to town for shopping, movies, or to pay bills. The diaries include frequent entries of amounts received for the sale of farm produce, and some financial data are entered at the end of each volume, but such entries are neither regular nor complete. They do however provide information on prices for agricultural products in a rural community. Major political and historic events are noted. There is infrequent reference to the emotions generated by family living and by the historic and political events of the twentieth century. Also includes a few diaries kept by Stephen Harriman, Mrs. Myers' maternal grandfather, with very brief daily entries of the weather, trips to town, visits made and visitors to the farm, and the start of farm operations, i.e., plowing, sowing.

Browse projects by Archives Center - NMAH