On Friday, February 14, Loomis Chaffee students celebrated Frederick Douglass’s chosen birthday by transcribing the Daniel Murray Collection at the Library of Congress. The event was organized by LC Writing Initiatives, the Katharine Brush Library, the History, Philosophy & Religious Studies Department, and the Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
The transcription project was part of a larger initiative organized by the Library of Congress and Penn State University’s Center for Black Digital Research. Each year, they choose a collection at the Library of Congress and open it to the public for transcription. A total of 8523 pages have been transcribed this year, and the number is still rising as individuals and institutions worldwide join the collaborative enterprise.
“It’s an opportunity … for anybody in the community to come together and participate in actual historical work,” said Director of Writing Initiatives Dr. John Morrell. “It’s an opportunity to … contribute to making these collections more accessible.” As hand-written original works are digitized into searchable documents in the Library of Congress database, they can be more easily accessed by scholars, researchers, and the general public.
Specifically, Loomis students worked with the collection of Daniel Murray, Murray is an early black historian of black arts and culture, bibliographer, and the second Black employee of the Library of Congress. Throughout his life, he worked on an encyclopedia of black arts and culture and donated this collection to the Library of Congress. The collection encompasses diverse document types, from books and pamphlets to letters and political mailings. As such, the transcription process expands students’ understanding of black literature, history, and storytelling. “ I hope that each part of the process was a learning experience, from learning about the Library of Congress … to learning about Douglass and his life, to learning about [Daniel] Murray, and beginning to think about the kind of work that a historian in the early twentieth century might do,” said Dr. Morrell.
Loomis contributors also reflected on the relationship between historical sources and the authenticity of narratives. “This experience … taught me the importance of primary sources as evidence to construct a more equitable narrative in history,” said Cookie Danchaivijitr ’26, who contributed to the transcription with her CL United States History class.
By working with first-hand sources, students examined how history was made, collected, preserved, and curated. As they digitized Daniel Murray’s collection, they continued this historical narrative and enlarged its accessibility to a broader audience.
Ultimately, the event incorporates academic learning and a celebration of Frederick Douglass’s life and the richness of black history.
“I hope that this is an opportunity for students to learn about and celebrate Frederick Douglass’s … impact on American history and American life,” said Dr. Morrell. “It is also an opportunity to celebrate black history and to engage with it in the form of a real historical research process.”