Frederick Douglass Day 2025
Event cancelled due to university-wide closure. Due to the closure on Friday, February 14, The Price Lab and Penn Libraries will no longer be able to host this year's annual Douglass Day Celebration in person. We encourage you participate virtually as an individual. All the information you need can be found on the Douglass Day website.
This event has already occurred
Hosted by: Research Data & Digital Scholarship
Join us as we celebrate Frederick Douglass' Birthday by taking part in the annual Douglass Day Transcribe-a-thon event organized by the Center for Black Digital Research at Penn State. This year's event at Penn is hosted by the Price Lab for Digital Humanities and co-sponsored by the Research Data and Digital Scholarship department of Penn Libraries.
What is Douglass Day?
Douglass Day is an annual holiday celebrated on February 14, the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass. As Douglass never knew his actual birthdate, his family chose Valentine’s Day to commemorate his life. The holiday was established after Douglass’ passing in 1895, when influential activist Mary Church Terrell proposed a national holiday to honor his legacy. Douglass Day events were widespread in the early 20th century and served as inspiration for the creation of Black History Month. In 2017, a group at the University of Delaware revived the holiday as an annual event to preserve Black history through collective actions, such as creating new resources for teaching and learning about Black history. All are welcome to participate and learn more about the history of Douglass Day, both distant and recent, by visiting the Douglass Day website. Between 2017 and 2023, Douglass Day has involved 24,450 people in 565 locations around the world.
What is a transcribe-a-thon?
A transcribe-a-thon is an event in which a group of people work together to transcribe a collection of digitized historical materials. The primary goal of a transcribe-a-thon is to make the materials more easily accessible, but these events also serve to promote awareness of parts of Black history — and especially Black women’s history— that remain too-little-known. Transcribe-a-thons can take place at in-person events. Many people organize virtual gatherings. The experience of taking part in a transcribe-a-thon can transform us from consumers of history into knowledge producers — a collective action for saving and expanding Black history together!