Telling Your Story: Documenting COVID-19 in Indiana

At the Indiana Historical Society, we have collected items that document Indiana’s past since 1830. There are thousands of letters, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, slides, albums, graphics, and ephemera in our archives documenting the Hoosier experience.

Right now, we are all grappling with a unique historical moment as we respond as a state, nation, and world to a pandemic. At the Indiana Historical Society, we want to add your story of how you and your family are understanding and experiencing the current “new normal.”

Below are examples of what we’re looking for:

• Writings
• Photos
• Drawings, paintings
• Short videos (limited to 100MB file size, for larger files please email collectingcovid-19@indianahistory.org)

How to Help

We have set up a special online resource that will allow you to share your stories, photos and other items so future generations can understand what this experience was like for Hoosiers. To upload resources, click on the button below. Please note, you must have a Google account to upload resources. If you are a teacher or student and need ideas on how to help, please visit the following link.

Upload your resource here View example submissions

Why This is Important

Items in our collection let us hear the voices and see the people from our past who are living all the ranges of human experience and emotion. Through the items we collect, we can understand their joys and disappointments, as well as their achievements and failings. And yes, we can even understand the seemingly dull tasks of everyday life – what the weather was like, the neighborhood gossip, or what someone ate for dinner.

Please take the time to read and respond to each of the fields in this form before uploading your item(s) for consideration. It is important that we have your permission to use and share the items you submit with future researchers, just as it is important that our digitization and archives team have a basic understanding of the object you are submitting.

Future researchers and visitors to the Indiana Historical Society will have you to thank for sharing a part of your lives with them as they work to understand our current lived experience.