Category Archives: Museums and Historical Societies

New York Responds: The First Six Months

New York Responds: The First Six Months looks at the still-unfolding events of 2020 through the eyes of over 100 New Yorkers. This crowd-sourced exhibition presents objects, photographs, videos, and other artworks that document and interpret the COVID pandemic, the racial justice uprisings, and the responses of New Yorkers as they fought to cope, survive, and forge a better future. A jury of a dozen New Yorkers representing many walks of life helped to make the selection from among tens of thousands of submissions received from individual artists and from partner institutions.

Museum of the City of New York, December 18, 2020 through May 9, 2021

New York Responds: A Timeline of Year One

This timeline is part of a larger Museum of the City of New York exhibit, New York Responds. It was curated by Azra Dawood, the Museum’s Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow, with data visualization and web design by Sandy Guberti Ng. It is periodically illustrated by footage from Brooklyn-based artist and photojournalist Ian Reid.

Pandemic Perspectives: Stories Through Collections

The National Museum of American History’s Pandemic Perspectives series of online programs presents curators, historians, and topic specialists in engaging panel discussions offering perspectives on the current pandemic. Panelists virtually share historic objects and photographs as a springboard to a lively discussion of how to better understand the present. Audience questions are encouraged and will be addressed during the moderated dialogue. Information on upcoming programs as well as links to recording of previous sessions are available.

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.

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.

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.

Objects of Comfort

In late March, the Tenement Museum launched a crowdsourced collecting initiative, Objects of Comfort. Grown from their digital exhibit platform Your Story, Our Story, Objects of Comfort seeks to know how people are coping through this crisis. What objects, traditions, recipes, and songs are giving people strength? How are people finding inspiration from their families, and from the past, to keep going? How do meaningful objects connect us to each other, spark memories, and even make us healthier?
The object stories are curated into an online collection on Your Story, Our Story, and any new submission will be added to that collection.

Anyone can contribute a story of something that is bringing them comfort right now—all that’s needed to submit is a story of 250 words or less, and an image. Families and classes can participate through a special group gallery function on the platform.

We Stayed at Home: A Record of Geneva During the 2020 Pandemic

The Geneva (New York) Historical Society’s mission is telling Geneva’s stories.  Join them in documenting this historic moment through We Stayed At  Home: A Record of Geneva During The 2020 Pandemic.

What might future historians and generations need to understand the COVID-19 Pandemic?  Everyone has a story to tell and they invite you to share your story on how the Pandemic is affecting your life.   Are you in an at-risk group or have someone in your home who is?  How has the stay-at-home order affected you?  Do you shop less or use a grocery delivery service? What has been your experience at the store?  If you eat out regularly, do you continue to get takeout or delivery from those restaurants?  If you are on Facebook or Instagram, do you have a favorite meme or post (PG-13) that sums up your experience?  For students at home, what has your experience been like? What is your new normal?

Share your story through

  • Narratives – letter, poem, song, recipes, short story
  • Images – photographs, screenshots of social media, memes
  • Audio
  • Videos
  • Files – emails, flyers, announcements, text messages, tweets

Through their Facebook page, Instagram account, blog articles  and this page, they will regularly share submissions to We At Stayed Home.  Some submissions to We At Stayed Home will become part of the Historical Society’s collection.  For more information about the project, contact  Archivist Becky Chapin at archivist@genevahistoricalsociety.com.

Submit your story here.

Por­trait of a Vil­lage in a Time of Cri­sis: Irv­ing­ton 2020

The Irvington (New York) Historical Society seeks the community’s help in chronicling the extraordinary circumstances all are living through as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Please send personal reflections, stories, and photos that express your response to the crisis. The Society will collect, compile, and preserve your submissions as part of our mission to chronicle the history of the village.

They welcome contributions from villagers of all ages. Your contributions will provide a portrait of Irvington as it faces the challenges of this very complicated time. They plan to share some of your reflections on their website, on social media, and in their newsletter The Roost.

Sub­mis­sion Guide­lines:

* Send your sub­mis­sions to pres­i­dent@irv­ing­ton­his­tor­i­cal­so­ci­ety.org

Or Irv­ing­ton His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, PO Box 23. Irv­ing­ton, NY 10533

* In­clude your sub­mis­sion as an at­tach­ment to your email.

* To send pho­tos, use .jpg and in­clude a cap­tion.

* There is no min­i­mum or max­i­mum word length. Sub­mis­sions may be ex­cerpted or edited, as deemed ap­pro­pri­ate for pro­ject pur­poses.

* By mak­ing a sub­mis­sion, you are grant­ing per­mis­sion for dis­tri­b­u­tion and/​or pub­li­ca­tion by the Irv­ing­ton His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety