Oral histories, which record the intimate perceptions of
people who have gone through a significant event, are a very important part of understanding
history. The goal of oral history
projects is often to record the experiences of a group of people affected
before they all pass away. Some examples
of these are the Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938 collected by the Federal Government during the Depression, The
Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive held at United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum which collects testimonies of Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals,
political prisoners, liberators, collaborators, witnesses, and rescuers, and
the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation oral history collection of
a series of interviews from 2011 called "500 Oral Histories
Project" (the Houston area interviews are housed at Rice University’s
Woodson Research Center in Fondren Library).
However, the closer the collection of stories can be to the
time the events took place the better for time always affects one’s perspective
on events. Therefore, the Library of
Congress has recently partnered with the non-profit company StoryCorps to
create an archive of stories from anyone effected by the recent Covid-19
pandemic in order to record these stories as soon as possible. These stories will become part of the
American Folklife Center collections and will be made available through
StoryCorps archive. Stories may be recorded at
the Covid-19 Archive Activation website.
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden stated “Curators and
specialists at the Library of Congress are skilled at documenting history as it
happens. Recording the voices and stories of Americans’ experiences with the
COVID-19 pandemic for our national collections will honor this history and
ensure these stories will not be forgotten. We are proud to collaborate with
StoryCorps on this important work to build this archive of oral histories.” Nicole Saylor, director of the American
Folklife Center at the Library of Congress says “We are particularly interested
in doing this work through people’s stories, as storytelling is a crucial
medium of communication and central to the work of the American Folklife
Center.”
The collection is meant to commemorate and honor those lost
to the illness, those whose lives were unalterably affected by the pandemic and
those who worked the front lines during the crisis. Moreover, preserving the stories will be an
essential primary source to future generations attempting to analyze and
understand the events on a national level.
Anyone and everyone are encouraged to participate in the
project, for a variety of voices with a variety of experiences and a variety of
perspectives will create the fullest resource from which historians,
researchers, and others interested in the events can draw.
