Students digitize Black women’s history, one diary at a time

Research & Scholarship

The Black Women's Diaries Project is a multi-year effort to transcribe, annotate and digitally encode the diaries of 19th- and early 20th-century African American women. The project will debut online in October 2026 beginning with the 1902 diary of Norfolk resident Florence Barber.

Professor Jennifer Putzi and some of the students working on the Black Women's Diary Project pose outside Swem Library's Special Collections unit. From left: Micah Hutchings '27, Putzi, Mia Hunt '27, Jacob Brown '26, Ava Wladar '26 and Sapphire George '27. Photo by Katie Warner

When Mia Hunt '27 went searching for a one-credit class to round out her schedule at William & Mary, she didn't expect to learn a new skill or find a research home.

A psychology and American studies double major, she stumbled across Professor Jennifer Putzi's Digital Humanities Lab - listed under the Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies Program - and decided to try it. Three semesters later, she's still there.

"I had never done any work like this," Hunt said. "I took Intro to Computer Programming and got fairly comfortable, but I never thought coding would be something I'd learn not just to do, but to like."

Hunt is one of a dozen W&M students contributing to the Black Women's Diaries Project (BWDP), a multi-year effort led by Putzi to transcribe, annotate and digitally encode the diaries of 19th- and early 20th-century African American women. The project will debut online in October 2026 beginning with the 1902 diary of Norfolk resident Florence Barber.

For Hunt, the appeal is both academic and personal. "Black women's history is important to me - it's my history," she said. "This has given me more knowledge."

Research begets more research

Putzi, the Sara and Jess Cloud Professor of English & Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies and a Swem Library Faculty Scholar, launched the BWDP while she was writing "The Reconstruction Diary of Frances Anne Rollin: A Critical Edition." Published in 2025, that book spotlights the life of Rollin, born in South Carolina, but educated at the Philadelphia Institute for Colored Youth from 1859 to 1864.

In 1867, Rollin met Martin R. Delany, a Freedmen's Bureau official, when she sued a steamboat captain for refusing her first-class passage. She won the suit and was awarded $250. Delany hired Rollin to write his biography. She traveled to Boston to do research, finish the book and find a publisher.

She also kept a diary, documenting her negotiations with publishers, visits from friends, attendance at lectures and readings. The research Putzi did to contextualize Rollin's diary led her to other diaries by 19th-century African American women. And that led to the creation of the BWDP, which enrolls 10 students a semester. "I can't emphasize enough how much the students contribute - not just the transcription, but the coding itself," Putzi said. "It would be very lonely without them."

The team, which also includes Rachel Hogan, a research librarian at Swem, and Kirsten Lee, project co-director and assistant professor at Auburn University, is digitizing and encoding the diaries, as well as adding contextual materials from people and place databases and archival newspaper research. They are designing a website interface that will allow users to read the diaries by page, by date, or by "putting them into conversation with one another by searching across texts," Putzi said.

"There's no project quite like this," Putzi said. "Plenty of sites cover correspondence but not diaries. We're adapting code, inventing workflows and learning together."

Making sense of voices from the past

Hunt's current work focuses on the diary of Sarah (Sallie) Sanders Venning, a teenager from an upper-class Philadelphia family writing in the 1890s. The entries are full of daily life - beach trips, parties and social visits - but also surprising flashpoints. Researching Venning is especially challenging because much of the 1890 U.S. Census burned in a 1921 fire. That loss complicates efforts to identify people and contexts.

Mia Hutchings '27 and Micah Hunt '27 study a page of coding from their work on the Black Women's Diary Project (Photo by Katie Warner)

"I expected there would be gaps," Hunt said, "but it's still frustrating. With Barber, we could piece things together. With Sallie Venning, we're solving mysteries without all the clues."

Even deciphering handwriting can become a team effort.

"They exclusively wrote in cursive," Hunt explained. "And with inconsistent spelling and faded pencil or graphite, sometimes you don't know if it's an 'i' or an 'r.' We'll sit in a group of four and ask, 'Do you know what this is?' If we can't figure it out, we mark it illegible."

The diaries look large on a computer screen, she added, "but when you finally see the originals in the archive, you realize how tiny they are."

Finding research that matters

For Micah Hutchings '27, a double major in government and Africana studies, the project came via a friend's recommendation - and instantly clicked.

"It perfectly aligns with my studies," she said.

Hutchings serves as the student lead on the diary of Mary Virginia Montgomery, whose family had been enslaved and later purchased the plantation on which they once labored. The diary, written in 1872, touches on issues like Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and a changing South.

"It was intimidating at first," Hutchings said. "I didn't think coding would ever be part of my job description. Now it's one of the best parts of my job. Honestly, it's relaxing."

Her work involves tracing people through census records, writing annotations for historical events, and reconstructing how the community cared for one another.

"What I've learned is that Black history flows through every field - science, sociology, education," she said. "I used to think of Black history as something separate, but Black history is everywhere."

Hutchings plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Africana studies and ultimately work in policy or advocacy in Washington, D.C. "This project has absolutely prepared me," she said.

A literary lens on digital humanities

Ziz Kilmer '26, an English major who graduated in December, joined the lab after a friend recommended Putzi's course.

"I moved around my whole schedule to make it work," Kilmer said. "I'm an English major; I didn't think I could code. But this program was created for the humanities. Once you learn it, it's a fascinating new way to approach a text."

Kilmer, who led the work on Florence Barber's diary, said seeing Barber's diary in person in Swem Library's Special Collections unit, packed a punch.

"It was pocket-sized - something she traveled with," Kilmer said. "Holding it, I got emotional. I was crying over this little diary."

Pairing Barber's brief entries with archival research reveals a richer world: a violent streetcar strike in Norfolk, a police killing in her neighborhood, records from a church she attended. "I love that her diary shows a record you might not otherwise see," Kilmer said.

Looking ahead

When the site is finished, it will feature roughly a dozen diaries by Black women, offering new insight into everyday life, community networks and Black women's intellectual history across the 19th and early 20th centuries.

For the students involved, the project has already left a lasting mark. "It recontextualizes what research means to me," Hunt said. "This is research that feels alive."

Susan Corbett, Communications Specialist

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