WASHINGTON — Reading cursive writing is a skill that could be fading away over time. But if you know how to read cursive, the National Archives could use your help.
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, as the National Archives are officially known, is the nation’s record keeper. The archives contain materials dating back to the founding of the U.S. related to the business conducted by the federal government.
Those records cover a range of topics including eyewitness accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, genealogy resources for millions of Americans and documents that helped facilitate the Louisiana Purchase.
A vast majority of the records in the National Archives come from a time before computers, and many were written before typewriters or other mechanical writing tools were developed and became widely available.
Because of this, they were written by hand, in cursive. As fewer people retain the knowledge of how to read and write cursive, it can be harder to get help transcribing many of these records.
To make these records easier to access, the National Archives enlists volunteer citizen archivists from around the world to help transcribe and catalog the documents important to the United States.
“Reading cursive is a superpower,” said Suzanne Issacs, a community manager with the National Archives Catalog in Washington D.C., in an interview with USA Today. “We create missions where we ask volunteers to help us transcribe or tag records in our catalog.”
This isn’t the first time the National Archives has requested volunteer help. But the archives’ latest push is a joint effort with the National Parks Service ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday. Specifically, the agency is asking for help transcribing Revolutionary War documents — specifically veteran pension files — that could give a clearer picture of exactly what life was life around the founding of the nation.
“Join in today and help tell the story of America’s first veterans,” the National Archives declared in a recent Facebook post.
Is reading cursive your superpower? 📜🔍
The National Archives and the National Park Service are collaborating on a special project to transcribe the #RevolutionaryWar veteran pension files.
Join in today and help tell the story of America’s first veterans!
archives.gov/citizen-archivist/missions/revolutionary-war-pension-files#RevWarVets #FirstVeterans #History #Research #Volunteers #CitizenArchivist #NationalArchives #Veterans
Posted by US National Archives on Friday, January 10, 2025
To begin, the only thing a potential historian needs to do is register for a free account. Once that account is made, volunteers can simply start reading a document that hasn’t been organized yet.
“There’s no application,” Issacs explained to USA Today. “You just pick a record that hasn’t been done and read the instructions. It’s easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.”
Although cursive remains an important skill for those keeping the history of the U.S., it’s fallen out of favor as block writing, similar to the print that appears on computers, is used as the default.
In fact, only half of the states in the U.S. require cursive writing to be taught in school now. Most people, even after learning the old-fashioned writing style, tend to use it only for signing their name — meaning most people lack practice in reading and deciphering the often dense lettering used in cursive writings.
“It’s not just a matter of whether you learned cursive in school, it’s how much you use cursive today,” Issacs told the outlet.