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A collage with black-and-white photos of a woman, furniture, buildings, and abstract shapes
A collage created by Library staff and Senior Innovation Specialist, Kimber Thomas, using photographs from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division: [Mary Church Terrell, three-quarter length portrait, seated, facing front] www.loc.gov/item/97500102/, Mary Church Terrell House, 326 T Street Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.dc0267.photos/?sp=1, [Unidentified woman, possibly Mary Church Terrell's mother, full-length studio portrait, standing, facing front] www.loc.gov/item/2001699849/

CCDI Interns Explore the Power and Possibilities of Words with the Mary Church Terrell Papers

Posted by: Brian Foo

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In the fall of 2023, Ide Amari Thompson and Madeline Toombs participated in the Archives, History and Heritage Advanced Internship Program (AHHA) as interns with the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative (CCDI) team. During their 10-week remote internship, they explored how transcript data of the Library’s Mary Church Terrell Papers could enable new forms of storytelling and/or creative research that would deepen and enrich our understanding of Terrell and the lasting impact of her work. The result of their time with the Library was an interactive art project and web interface called At the Table with: Mary Church Terrell which supports artists, writers and poets during the generative process of creative writing. As documented in this blog post, their project aims to treat the Mary Church Terrell Papers not as a static collection of documents, but a vibrant and dynamic repository that leaves you with a renewed sense of the possibilities and power of words.

For those unfamiliar with Mary Church Terrell, a brief bio would not do her 90-year life justice. For Ide and Madeline, that was one of the central challenges and driving forces of their project. How could they illuminate the multifaceted life and career of a pioneering civil rights activist, suffragist, educator and lecturer from approximately 13,000 documents, comprising 25,323 images representing her diaries, correspondence, printed matter, clippings, speeches and writings?

Fortunately, between 2018 and 2021, volunteers transcribed the entirety of this collection by participating in the Library’s By The People crowdsourcing program and the Douglass Day celebrations. This work enabled unprecedented access for the interns to search and explore this collection in a way that would have been not possible for remote users . To further support their navigation of the material, Ide and Madeline performed in-depth research interviews with subject matter experts including Dr. Sharon Harley, Professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, Dr. Alison M. Parker, History Department Chair and Richards Professor of American History at the University of Delaware, Library staff within the Manuscript Division, members of the