Westmoreland County residents can share stories for pandemic archive

What’s your covid-19 story?

Westmoreland County residents are invited to share their pandemic experiences for a digital archive being created by the Saint Vincent College History Department and the Westmoreland Historical Society.

“The public is encouraged to submit personal stories about family life, work, school and relationships, along with videos, photos, social media and other digital items to help preserve the memory of this time for future generations,” according to a release.

Contributions can be personal or largely observational and can include images, stories, videos, recordings, screen shots or documents that capture something about experiencing the covid-19 pandemic. Participants can share their names with their contributions or can remain anonymous.

In addition to being available in the digital archive, the submitted items will be added to the Westmoreland Historical Society’s permanent collections.

“This project is part of a larger effort within museums around the world to preserve history in real time,” said Pamela Curtin, Westmoreland Historical Society education coordinator and Saint Vincent College history lecturer. “Sometimes referred to as ‘rapid response collecting’ and ‘history harvests,’ these initiatives embrace that history happens all around us and that we have the opportunity to work with our communities to preserve and share those stories.

“In a time when it is easy to feel isolated, this project invites the Westmoreland County community to come together and share their unique experiences of the pandemic,” Curtin said.

Historic moment

The digital archive includes sections on community support, social media posts, parks and recreation, nonprofit and cultural organizations, businesses/stores and colleges and universities. A map enables users to view contributions by their locations throughout the county.

Saint Vincent College history and public history students will create exhibits, collect information and conduct interviews for the project.

Local historians providing oversight include Curtin; Karen Kehoe, SVC associate professor of history; Lauren Churilla, curator of the McCarl Coverlet Gallery and lecturer of history at SVC; Casey Bowser, archivist of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill and SVC history lecturer; and Joanna Moyar, Westmoreland Historical Society coordinator of collections and interpretations.

“Part of what we want the project to do is to be a place where people can come together and share their joy, as well as their pain, and create a beautiful picture of the struggles and triumphs that come with stay-at-home orders, like remote working, unemployment, digital school and the new normal of our strange routines,” Churilla said.

“We hope to incorporate work on the project into our Introduction to Public History, Museum Studies and Digital Humanities classes to allow students first-hand experience in the creation of digital projects while documenting this extremely important historic moment,” she added.

Details: pandemic2020svc.omeka.net