WADING INTO THE FOOTNOTES OF HISTORY
Bored amid pandemic, volunteers get intimate with figures of past as Smithsonian’s transcribers double
In April, Meghana Venkataswamy came across a blog post that piqued her curiosity.
The Smithsonian Institution, which increasingly relies on the public to transcribe historical documents, was looking for volunteers to work on astronaut Sally Ride’s papers.
Venkataswamy, 28, a data engineer in Vancouver, signed up and quickly got sucked down the rabbit hole of history. Channelling her “inner Sherlock Holmes,” Venkataswamy cruised through Ride’s letters, then moved on to Second World War diaries and the field notes of biologists on remote expeditions.
“There is a strange meditative aspect to it,” Venkataswamy said. “It’s enough to take one’s mind off of whatever else is happening in their lives. A good respite from crazy times.”
Worldwide, museums and libraries are reporting huge spikes of do-it-yourself historians such as Venkataswamy. With so many staples of daily life out of reach, they’re reaching into history to put their quarantine time to good use, soothing their psyches in the process.
“I think we all expected there would be an influx with so many people staying at home,” said Victoria Van Hyning at the Library of Congress.
But the sheer number of new sign- ups has been staggering, officials said. Teachers scrambling for engaging projects sign up their students, who in addition to learning about cool historical figures have also discovered something called cursive writing.
In Washington, the Library of Congress reports a fivefold jump in new transcriber accounts since midMarch. The Smithsonian has seen new transcribers jump from 100 to 200 per month in pre- pandemic times to more than 5,000 per month now. Organizations are scrambling to upload new documents to meet the insatiable demand.
There’s something for everyone. Recipes from Rosa Parks. Diaries of suffragists. Slave letters. Depression-era menus. Crop reports. Science-fiction fanzines. School yearbooks. The corporate files of Maidenform, the pioneering bra manufacturer.
“Maidenform advertising campaigns were enormously successful and generated controversy as well as praise,” the Smithsonian says.
“Help transcribe some of the company’s historical records, including advertisements and reports, to learn more about the history of the brassiere industry and female- centred marketing campaigns.”
Crowdsourcing the transcription of historical records has been a cheap way for research organizations to make their vast holdings searchable online for scholars and others interested in historical artifacts.
Materials are uploaded to the internet and then volunteers type what they read into a digital notepad.
Up until the pandemic, volunteers generally skewed older. But now, with so few places to go, the ranks of younger transcribers is swelling and their work ethic is prodigious.
Amanda Dillon, 36, signed up with the Smithsonian two years ago and had spent an hour every week or two on projects. Stuck at home just outside Charlotte, Dillon is now transcribing four or five times a week for multiple hours.
A podcast junkie, she used to listen to true crime shows and read thrillers.
“Right now, I really don’t want anything dark like that,” said Dillon, who studied history in college. “There’s enough bad things going on right now.”
So she has been getting to know John A. Meyer, a Second World War photographer who kept a daily diary during the war. One of the days Dillon picked was Feb. 11, her birthday. That day, in 1942, began early for Meyer.
“Up at 0230M,” he wrote in cursive. “Worked all day making copies with the C-1. Nutty loafed all day again and I did all the work. I don’t care it gives me a lot of experience. Slept during the afternoon and wrote a letter home after supper. Bed 1930M.”
His “sis” — presumably sister — was apparently in the hospital.
“Daddy took her over last week,” Meyer wrote. “I hope she gets better soon.”
Dillon enjoys transcribing so much she’s thought about doing it full time after the pandemic subsides.
“Going down the research rabbit hole is fun for me,” Dillon said. “I don’t find it tedious at all.”
Venkataswamy, the Vancouver data engineer, finds delight in the minutia.
“I think I approach transcribing with a mix of curiosity and as a way of practicing mindfulness,” she said. “It can be a meditative exercise where all of one’s attention is focused on a single task.”
It is, she said, “like going through an old person’s trunk. You’ll never know what you find in there. Sometimes it’s junk, but sometimes you find interesting things.”
Venkataswamy and Dillon have never met. They don’t know the other exists. But both have worked on Meyer’s diaries.
In 1943, Meyer went to see Flight for Freedom, a film loosely based on Amelia Earhart. Venkataswamy didn’t just transcribe his review: “very good.” She watched the movie herself.
“I have never seen his photos or his face,” she said, “but I feel like he and I could have been friends.”
In his diaries, Venkataswamy found a way of thinking about our times, when “we’re at a global war with a virus.”
“What I find unusual about his diary,” she said, “is that he was living through one of the most brutal times in history, yet made no commentary on the war or his enemies. His diary mostly revolved around the people near him, how he spent his time — mostly flying, developing photographs, watching a movie a day, flirting with women, taking them to dances.”
To Venkataswamy, there “is a lesson here somewhere about staying calm and carrying on.”
This is the magic and the mystery of history at its most intimate level. And the Library of Congress as well as many other organizations around the world are hoping that students will discover this as the pandemic wears on — and that they’ll continue the work even after lockdown recommendations subside.
There is a strange meditative quality to (transcribing).
It’s enough to take one’s mind off whatever else is
happening in their lives. A good respite from crazy times.
— Meghana Venkataswamy
I think I approach transcribing with a mix of curiosity and as a way of practicing mindfulness.
It can be a meditative exercise. — amanda dillon