WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — This isn't an ordinary day in the computer lab for students, faculty, and staff at Wilkes University.
Thanks to the work happening on these keyboards, history is getting a new life.
"This is our fourth year doing the Douglass Day Transcribe-A-Thon event," said Amy Sopcak-Joseph, an assistant professor of History of Wilkes. "Most of us can't believe that we've been doing this for four years, but we're really excited to be transcribing materials related to Mary Ann Shadd Carrie and celebrating Frederick Douglass' birthday on his chosen birthday of Valentine's Day."
"There's so much history in these documents, and the fact that we're still transcribing them means that there's so much that we haven't uncovered yet," said Kathrine Ermeus, a junior at Wilkes. "It's very important to make sure we're keeping that dream alive, and we're keeping those words alive, and the history is preserved. So, you know, keeping the transcriptions going is very important for us."
The focus of the transcriptions this year is the work of Mary Ann Shadd Cary.
"Shadd Cary was born in the 1830s, and she had a long life. She lived until the 1890s. She crossed borders. She spent some of her time in the United States, working on the anti-slavery cars, but she also spent some time in Canada, where she helped to resettle African American refugees who had escaped slavery," explained Sopcak-Joseph.
"I love it. You know, I always encourage students to come look at the history and this history in a different form. Like, you're not sitting in a classroom, you're learning it as you go. So, you're transcribing like a society grew up with receipts, a journal name, everything that you can think of, so it gives them a different perspective of things that were going on," said Erica Acosta, director of Diversity initiatives at Wilkes.
If you want to join in on the effort, you can start transcribing by clicking here.
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