Deciphering the Past: Transcription Hour
Image: Letter from T. Robert Baker to James C. Booth, 1852. Science History Institute
March 30 from 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m. EST
Have you ever been interested in transcription and the mysteries it can unlock?
Join the American Philosophical Society (APS) and the Science History Institute for this three-part series on deciphering historical documents throughout time. Puzzle through mysterious writing and try your hand at decrypting colloquialisms and unfamiliar spellings with Newberry Library fellow Julie Fisher. In each session we’ll be working with a specially selected manuscript straight from our vaults. Learn tips you can use when transcribing historical documents, practice new skills, and discover your inner detective.
Our March session features Patrick Shea, the Institute’s chief curator of archives and manuscripts, who will talk about James Curtis Booth, an analytical chemist who established the first student training laboratory in 1836 and was the chief melter and refiner of the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. We’ll take a look at one of his letters and transcribe our first 19th-century document!
About the Speakers
Patrick Shea is the chief curator of archives and manuscripts for the Othmer Library of Chemical History at the Science History Institute. His current responsibilities include archival acquisitions and donor relations, archival processing, reference, and the general administration of the Institute’s archival program.
Patrick has a BA in history from Salisbury University and an MA in the history of technology from the University of Delaware, where he was a fellow in the Hagley Graduate Program. He has been a professional archivist since 1998 and holds the professional designation of Certified Archivist from the ACA. He has worked for a variety of cultural institutions during this time, including the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Russo Museum for Business History and Technology, and the Science History Institute, which he joined in 2006.
Julie Fisher is a public historian with a PhD in history from the University of Delaware. Currently a fellow at the Newberry Library, before that she was a fellow with the American Philosophical Society, a consulting editor with the Yale Indian Papers Project (now the Native Northeast Portal), and the primary investigator for the National Park Service at the Roger Williams National Memorial. She began transcribing and learning paleography skills for her first book, Ninigret, Sachem of the Niantics and Narragansetts: Diplomacy, War, and the Balance of Power in Seventeenth-Century New England and Indian Country. She has been transcribing ever since.