Being (Multigenerational) Citizen Archivists: Transcribathon 2025

On a rainy March evening, students, Holding History staff, and fellow Madisonians came together for our first ever Transcribathon. Over 30 participants came to the basement of UW-Madison’s iconic Science Hall to take part in the National Park Service's citizen archivist initiative which called for assistance in transcribing thousands of Revolutionary War pension documents.

A packed room of citizen archivists

The event captured the multi-generational, public-facing impulse that defines Holding History as students from Professor Joshua Calhoun’s literature course, a Constellations course titled “Archival Information & Artificial Intelligence,” sat side-by-side with members of the wider Madison community, working together to decode and transcribe the handwriting of America’s first veterans and their widows. For many, it was the first time engaging directly with archival documents—some more than 200 years old. Between bites of pizza, participants toggled back and forth across screens and compared notes as the room buzzed with curiosity and collaborative energy.

Multigenerational practices of historical engagement

Our multigenerational assemblage of participants modeled an expansive kinship network as those of older generations were uniquely suited to decoding these documents which featured elaborate penmanship while younger participants were adept at navigating the technological component. Such an event invites consideration into what it means to be a citizen and how to belong to a social and communal world. How does collaborative work like this, which reaches beyond the university, redefine a relationship to history, knowledge, information, and ourselves?

Holding History is deeply grateful to all who joined us. We are especially thankful to Grace Gooley, Student Ambassador with the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, for her assistance in organizing the event.

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The Revolutionary War Pension Files Transcription Project is an ongoing collaboration between the National Park Service and the National Archives. For more information, go to: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/citizen-archivists-revolutionary-war-pension-project.htm