T.E.A.M.S.
Transcribing Early American Manuscript Sermons
Overview
Today you will take on the role of a Modern Puritan Scholar. Before now, these
images, taken from primary source documents, have only been available to a
handful of researchers with the funds and time to visit the archive that houses the
original, physical copy of this text. By transcribing these texts, scholars assist in the
democratization of knowledge. Transcribers make important primary sources
available to anyone with an internet connection. Seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury American colonists listened to and read sermons almost as often as
twentieth- and twenty-first-century citizens of the United States watch television,
but because of access issues most of those sermons have not been read since
Thomas Jefferson signed the Declaration of Independence; we still know
surprisingly little of what went on in colonial pulpits at an average Sunday sermon
or midweek lecture. Scholars who transcribe these documents, and create
searchable, manipulable database of early American sermons contribute to our
understanding of a literary form that shaped the values, literature, and culture of a
nation. This activity will simulate what University Researchers do every day.
Instructions
Use Microsoft Word to reproduce the sermon in question as exactly as possible. The
following guidelines, with examples, will assist you in that process:
1. The filename of your document should include the last name of the preacher,
the Bible verse that this sermon elaborates on, and the year this sermon was
first preached (if known; if not, write ND for “no date”). So if you have been
assigned a sermon on the ninth verse of chapter three in Genesis, that was
first preached by Jacob Cushing in 1770, your filename would be: cushing
genesis3.9 1770.doc
2. Begin your transcription with the page number, bolded and in brackets. The
first line of your transcription should read: [page X]. This will help us
identify the different sections of the sermon you each transcribe.
3. The first page of manuscript sermons often include headnotes that assign the
sermon a number or provide the date(s) when the sermon was preached.
Before you begin to transcribe the sermon itself, copy these notations,
inserting an empty line between each “paragraph” or unit of text. Thus, the
first page of transcription for the Cushing sermon pictured below would
begin:
[page 1]
No. 1301
[illegible]
September 14.
1770.
Genesis III.9—
And the Lord called . . . [continue transcription]
4. When transcribing the text, preserve the original line breaks of the
manuscript; this will facilitate the work of those who verify your
transcription. Because paper was so precious, writers often wrote all the way
to the right margin, even when this forced them to hyphenate a word
somewhat awkwardly. Preserve these textual oddities, as in the
hyphenations of “mighty” and “obtain” in the transcription below:
in him? seeing Help for us is laid on one migh
ty to save? how restless shd you be to ob
tain this Help, & have it cleaved up to you,
5. Be aware of odd handwriting and spelling patterns. For instance, in colonial
handwriting the “s” is often shaped like a cursive “f,” as in the word “restless”
above. In some texts, the letters “I” and “J” or “u” and “v” may also be
interchangeable. Colonists also frequently represented the “th” sound with
the letter “y,” leading to the use of “ye” for “the” and abbreviations such as
“yt” for “that” or “yr” for their/there, as in the example below (notice that
these words are written vertically as well as horizontally):
And it may increase our Wonder yt. he did
not, consg. how hateful Sin is to him, yt. for wh.
he spared not ye. Angels, but for ever banisht
6. You won’t be able to anticipate all of the creative spellings, abbreviations,
and infelicitous handwriting patterns (refamiliarize yourself with the cursive
alphabet if you’ve forgotten) used in the sermon you’re transcribing, so
occasionally you’ll have to rely on context. If you get stuck on a word or
phrase, try to read the sentence or two preceding the troublesome word or
passage, and ask yourself: what word(s) might make sense in this context?
For example, in the snapshot below, can you figure out what the last word on
the first line is? The fourth word of the first line? The third word of the
second line?
Cushing regularly abbreviates the ending “ing” to “g”—so the fourth word in
that first line “hearkeng” means “hearkening.” He also abbreviates the
endings of other words; the last word in the first line is “Tempn,” short for
“Temptation.” Letters from an abbreviated suffix are often underlined or
followed by a period. If you can understand that first line—“Our first parents
hearkening to ye Temptation”—then you’ll be able to figure out that the “D.”
in line two stands for “Devil.” Colonial ministers commonly abbreviated their
references to God and Jesus Christ as well, so that God often becomes “G.” and
Christ or Christians becomes “X” or “Xians.” Striving to understand the words
you’re recording will make the process of decoding difficult passages of
handwriting easier.
7. If a word is particularly difficult to read, take a guess. Ask for a second
opinion. If necessary, indicate the presence of one or more illegible letters
and words by inserting the place holder: [illegible]. For example, if you
couldn’t read the word “experienced” in the third line above, you might
transcribe the line: “of ye. forbidden fruit, soon [illegible] a sad . . .”
Do your best with the transcription, and know that there are others across the
country working to create this archive. Good luck!