Category Archives: Crowdsourced

College of Staten Island Public History Coronavirus Chronicle

Organized by the History Department at the College of Staten Island (CUNY), this project seeks Staten Islanders from all walks of life to send in anything that will help tell the story of the health emergency in order to archive the what life has been like during the crisis. The project operates through the group’s Facebook page. Those who wish to submit pictures, videos, stories or documents can do so through the Facebook page or via email to: susan.smithpeter@csi.cuny.edu

Chippewa Valley Covid-19 Archive

In response to the pandemic, in spring 2020 the Public History Program and the McIntyre Library at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire joined with the Chippewa Valley Museum to launch the Chippewa Valley Covid-19 Archive, a rapid-response collection project to document the effects of the Coronavirus in rural Western Wisconsin. The archive is dedicated to preserving oral histories and materials related to Covid-19 and its impacts on the region, with the imperative to compile a diverse picture of its effects across our communities.

MISSING THEM: Remembering the New Yorkers Lost to COVID-19

MISSING THEM is a joint project of The City (a nonprofit, nonpartisan, digital news platform reporting on New York City), Columbia Journalism School, and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York that is building a searchable memorial to remember and honor all New Yorkers who have died of coronavirus. Obituary pages are missing names and stories, especially among members of the city’s black and Latino communities, which have been impacted at disproportionately high rates. To include a New Yorker lost due to the coronavirus:

The Pandemic Journaling Project

The Pandemic Journaling Project from the University of Connecticut combines survey questions with open-ended journal entries to make sure that ordinary people struggling through this pandemic have their voices heard, and their experiences remembered. Participants will receive weekly prompts via email or text message with a link to a few questions and the option to create (via writing, audio, or uploading and describing a photo) brief description of how the pandemic is affecting them. Answers to the survey questions, together with the journal entries, will be preserved as a digital archive, and users can control the privacy and access settings for each entry. They will help researchers learn how different people are experiencing the pandemic, identify challenges in our country’s pandemic response, and work toward solutions.

#HerTestimony: A Campaign About Black Women’s Experiences of COVID-19 in North Carolina

#HerTestimony is a three-part campaign organized by The Beautiful Project, taking place during June and July 2020, focused on raising the voices of Black women in the coronavirus pandemic. The three components are: an online survey giving North Carolinian Black women an opportunity to share their stories anonymously, a narrative project, and a guide to help Black women engage storytelling in their own spaces. The Beautiful Project is a collective of image makers using photography, writing and care to create spaces for Black women and girls to confront the mass misunderstanding, misrepresentation and misuse of their likeness in the media and in the world at large. 

Unmasking Our Heroes (New York City Fire Museum)

The New York City Fire Museum’s mission is to Preserve, Celebrate & Educate. In light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the historic response of the FDNY to unprecedented requests for emergency medical services (reaching over 6,500 in one day), the Museum is collecting any and all signs of gratitude expressed by the public for the FDNY. These will constitute an exhibition, “Unmasking Our Heroes” as soon as the Museum can re-open and allow unrestricted numbers of visitors to bear witness to these expressions of thanks. In the meantime, the NYC Fire Museum is asking for the public’s cooperation to contribute to this project with either their simple statements of their experiences or by contributing artifacts for display, by visiting www.nycfiremuseum.org/thanksFDNY #wewillrememberfdny

The NYC Fire Museum is the fourth oldest Museum in Manhattan, tracing its roots back to December 1870, when artifacts were put on display in fire headquarters at 155 Mercer Street. The tradition continues today in a 1904 Beaux-art firehouse at 278 Spring Street.

Documenting COVID-19 (Villanova University)

All Villanova University students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to contribute to the Documenting COVID-19 collection effort, created by Falvey Memorial Library, in conjunction with the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest. Villanovans may:

    • Submit their story
    • Share images (photographs, artwork)
    • Share a video or audio recording
    • Create and share a collection of objects
    • Share any reflections from this unique period

Contributors may submit as many times as they like, as events unfold, emotions change, or they feel like sharing more about their experience. Collecting will be ongoing throughout the pandemic and in the subsequent weeks after the pandemic has passed. All submissions will be preserved in the University Archives at Falvey Memorial Library.

Communities of the West During COVID-19

The Autry Museum of the American West is helping communities across the West identify and preserve items of historical and cultural significance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting April 22, the Autry is launching its Collecting Community History: A Regional Collections Initiative of Exploration and Preservation. It is the first in a series of efforts to support communities in the West collect, catalogue, and preserve moments of history—past and present.

They invite you to share an aspect of your creative practices and ways of staying connected during this time, such as journal entries, recipes, and pictures of face masks during this quarantine. Particular objects of interest include face masks, photographs, and recipes. They will be highlighting some of these different objects, images, and experiences on their blog, The Autry Files.  In the case of photographs of physical objects, please note that—at some point in the future—they may get in touch to see if you would be interested in donating the objects to their collections.

Black Carolinians Speak: Portraits of Pandemic

The South Carolina African American Heritage Commission (SCAAHC) (part of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History) has initiated Black Carolinians Speak: Portraits of a Pandemic to gather first person testimonies, letters, music, images, art and other documents that capture the experiences of African Americans in South Carolina during the global pandemic of 2020.  They suggest the following possible submission formats:

  • Write: Share written testimonies of your personal experience – Diary or journal entries, letters, essays, poetry, etc.
  • Create Artwork: Submit scans or photographs of drawings or paintings or share original music that reflects your own or your community’s experience.
  • Take photographs or video of your environment/community/life in quarantine
  • Share screenshots of relevant social media posts
  • Gather testimonies from children and teens about their experiences 

The Commission plans to collect stories throughout the duration of this crisis and, whenever possible, will connect with participants to conduct oral history interviews during the months after the situation is resolved.  All documents and information collected will be included in the Commission papers housed at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History (SCDAH).  If you have questions or would like to donate oversized documents and other materials for this purpose, please contact SCAAHC Chairperson Jannie Harriot (scaahcchairlady@gmail.com) or SCDAH African American Heritage Coordinator Dr. Ramon Jackson (rjackson@scdah.sc.gov).  

Coronavirus Chronicles

Created by PhD candidates Conor Donnan, Sarah Yu and Jennifer Yip at University of Pennsylvania, Coronavirus Chronicles invites people of diverse backgrounds around the world to pen “diaries” of their day-to-day, as well as to share their thoughts on public health strategies. The resulting collage of stories, presented on an online platform, will facilitate continued connection, and demonstrate that no one is or should be alone in this fight. The voices of the majority of people are often neglected in history books, but this project hopes to provide future scholars and members of the public with diverse perspectives on COVID-19.