A New Primary Source Crowd-sourcing Project from the Library of Congress
By the People is a crowd-sourcing project that enlists the help of the public to transcribe thousands of primary source documents that are housed by and have been scanned by the Library of Congress. Over the years there have been collections of documents from the American Civil War, papers from the American Revolution, presidential papers, documents about suffrage, and documents about the integration of Major League Baseball. A collection of nearly 6,000 documents written by President James A. Garfield is the latest addition to By the People.
Applications for Education
Anyone can participate in the LOC’s By the People project to transcribe documents in the Garfield collection of notes and diaries. Having high school students attempt to transcribe some of the documents could be a good way for them to learn about the 20th President of the United States and learn about the value of primary sources.
