On February 14, 2020, the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project partnered with Douglass Day, the Colored Conventions Project, and Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center to bring together groups from around the world to transcribe, teach, and read Cooper’s writings and to discover the secrets and hidden stories that her archives tell. View the transcriptions on Zooniverse and watch highlights from the event in the video below.
Transcribing Details
Six-hundred fifty volunteers transcribed 1,754 documents. The current set of Anna Julia Cooper papers has been completed.
Transcribe Cooper 2020 Highlights
Credit: Maurice Keyes, editor, videographer. Watch full event at the Douglass Day YouTube channel.
2020 Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project Team
D’Angelo Bridges, Ph.D. student in the English and African American Studies Departments at Pennsylvania State University, studies African American rhetoric, literature, culture, and identity. He was a part of the Zooniverse Development Team for Douglass Day 2020.
Sabrina Evans, dual title Ph.D. student in English Literature and African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, researches nineteenth-century African American literature, specifically engaging with African American print culture and the Black Digital Humanities. She was the Project Manager for Douglass Day 2020 at Penn State.
Dr. Heather Froehlich, Literary Informatics Librarian at the rank of Assistant Professor at Penn State University (University Park, PA, USA), has expertise in the afterlives of transcription data, including in corpus analysis, stylistics, and quantitative text analysis more generally.
Adrena Ifill is CEO of Ifill/DoubleBack Global Group, a firm that specializes in cultural heritage management. With over 25 years of experience in event production, strategic planning and documentary video, Ms. Ifill has worked with many corporations, nonprofits and government entities. An award-winning filmmaker, she has written and directed several historical films that have shown internationally. A graduate of Williams College, Howard University and George Washington University, Ms. Ifill was an AADHum Scholars at the University of Maryland for 2019-2020.
Wendyliz Martinez, a graduate student in English and African American studies, at The Pennsylvania State University, whose current research interests are in black community formation on social media, afro-futurism and its iterations on digital spaces, and Caribbean literature. She was on the Social Media team for Douglass Day 2020.
Dr. Lopez Matthews is the Manager of the Digital Production Center and Digital Production Librarian for the Howard University Libraries and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center. He led the team at the Moorland-Spingarn in creating the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Collection. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Coppin State University where he teaches courses covering United States, African American, African and World History.
Shirley Moody-Turner is an associate professor of English and African American Studies at Penn State University where her current work focuses on how digital methods can support efforts to reconstruct black women’s literary, organizing, and intellectual histories. She is co-director of the Center for Black Digital Research, founder the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project, co-director of the Black Women’s Organizing Archives, and co-organizer of Douglass Day 2020.
Courtney Murray is a graduate student in English and African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research interests involve African American Literature and Culture with specific interests in literary lineages, cultural phenomena, and archives. Shewas a member of the Zooniverse Development Team for Douglass Day 2020.
Justin Smith is a dual-Ph.D. student in English Literature and African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, with a focus is on political identity and solidarity in early twentieth-century African American literature. He was the Zooniverse team project leader for Douglass Day 2020.
Eunice Toh is a graduate student in English and African American studies at Penn State University. Her research focuses on late nineteenth-century American literature, with specific interests in material culture, black geographies, and critical race theory. She was the Outreach, Community, and Academic Partnerships co-chair with Racine Amos for Douglass Day 2020.
Katie Warczak is a Ph.D. student in English Literature and African American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She studies American modernism and African American literature with a focus on disability studies, critical race theory, and animal studies. She serves as a research assistant for both the Hemingway Letters Project and the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project.
Graduate Students in the English 568: Black Print Culture spring 2017 course at Penn State University (Katie Boyer, Danielle Carder, Andrew Erlandson, Gabe Nieves, and John Smilges) participated in the early stages of the Anna Julia Cooper Digital Project.
Douglass Day 2020 Partners Team
Racine Amos is the Engagement and Equity Librarian at the rank of Assistant Professor at Penn State University (University Park, PA, USA). Racine will service as on-site event coordinator for Penn State University Libraries during Douglass Day 2020.
Denise Burgher is an English Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware, chair of the Historic Churches and Community Engagement Committee and co-chair or the Curriculum Committee for the Colored Conventions Project. Denise was part of the founding team and served as chair for Douglass Day 2019.
Jim Casey is a Perkins Fellow at the Princeton Center for Digital Humanities. Next, he will move to Pennsylvania State University to be an assistant professor of African American Studies, History, and English along with the managing director of the Center for Black Digital Research. He co-founded and co-directs the Colored Conventions Project and co-organizes each year’s Douglass Day.
Julia Grummitt is a Ph.D. candidate in the History department at Princeton University, where her research focuses on histories of slavery and settler-colonialism. She is a University Administrative Fellow in Princeton’s Center for Digital Humanities, and part of the Douglass Day team responsible for project management, programming, outreach and communications.
Elena M’Bouroukounda is a student in the Master’s in Architecture program at Princeton University. She is a University Administrative Fellow in Princeton’s Center for Digital Humanities, and part of the Douglass Day team responsible for project management, programming, outreach, and communications.
Christopher D.E. Willoughby (PhD, History, Tulane University) is a Junior Visiting Fellow in the Center for Humanities and Information at Penn State University. His work examines the coevolution of Atlantic slavery, white supremacy, and the medical profession in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.