Browse Exhibits (13 total)
Pandemic Life: Fragments of Our Stories
Beginning on September 1, 2020, a group of fourteen of us at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey -- comprised of graduate students, undergraduate honors college students, and a history professor -- began to journal about our experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to journal into December 2020. Some of us are located in Newark during this period, but more of us are located elsewhere in New Jersey; a few are in other places in the United States and the world. We represent a wide range of backgrounds, ethnicities, and life experiences and range in age from late teens / early twenties into our forties. Each week, one student will curate excerpts from some of our journals, and we will share them publicly. Our goal is to offer a window into our subjective experiences of life during the pandemic in near real-time. We also aim to create a usable archive for future historians.
Because journaling is a personal activity, many of us elected to be identified by pseudonyms, initials, or first name. A few chose to use their full real name.
Archival versions of all linked material is available (or will be shortly) in the collection Pandemic Life: Fragments of Our Stories.
First Days of the Pandemic
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic. For some of us, our lives changed radically in that moment. For others, our lived experiences shifted more gradually in the coming days and weeks. For a few, life as we knew it had been turned on its head weeks, even months, earlier. This exhibit features individual stories of how a group of Rutgers-Newark students, their professor, and various peoples in their lives that they interviewed reacted in the initial moments -- most often the beginning few days -- of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among our stories you'll find humor, despair, disbelief, hope, and -- writing our memories of the pandemic's initial days six to seven months later in fall 2020 -- regret at early nonchalance. Our First Days reflect some common experiences, such as panic buying toilet paper, saying farewell to family and friends for a while, and donning our first masks. Our First Days also feature some less common experiences, such as jetting off to Vegas for a good time, settling bets, and watching friends attend a NOVID party at a frat. We invite you to learn about our First Days.
2020 Election Day Snapshot
This is a snapshot archive or news and politics on American election day, November 3, 2020. This archive was put together on the afternoon of Nov. 3, 2020 and captures events, ideas, trends, and theories of interest in that moment.
Meanwhile...
The 2020 election, foremost in the conciousness of many Americans, is dominating public discourse. Meanwhile, the beat goes on. American's tend to have a somewhat myopic view of world news, especially during a politically charged election. This exhibit is a snapshot of some other news from around the world.
Cultural Responses to the 2020 American Election
While every election feels important, the 2020 Election feels particularly important, especially given the global coronavirus pandemic. This exhibit -- put together on the afternoon of November 3, 2020 -- illustrates responses and reactions of people both within the U.S. and beyond the U.S., as well as gives an idea a bit about the voting culture in the U.S.
Postcards from the Pandemic
Postcards from the Pandemic is a collection of posts, tweets, texts, and captions circulating on the World Wide Web since February 2020. These forty-seven items were culled from over 2000 pieces through the first week of November. Each of the ten exhibit sections addresses major themes of the global crisis: masks, economy, working from home, animals, schools, quarantine, hand washing, the virus itself, and the inherent ironies presented by of all of the above. When every segment of society struggled to respond, memes gained greater gravity and resonance. The original post symbolized a shared experience – a shared place of knowing when all else was unknowable. The collective experience of fear, frustration, and uncertainty was distilled into keyboard characters, digital ones and zeroes by unlikely spokespeople: social media comment heroes.
The Covid Commute - Working From Home During a Pandemic
When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 Pandemic, many people found themselves working from home. Often without warning, individuals and families had to try to find a balance between personal space and the invasion of professional space into their private homes. This exhibit featues Oral Histories and media artcles on the subject of adhoc home workspaces.
Pandemic Sex: How the Covid-19 Pandemic has Affected the Sex Lives of Gay and Bisexual Men
Across nations and cultures, sexuality is universal. And yet, even in 2020, sex is still taboo, across nations and cultures. The following exhibit seeks to record a snapshot of human sexuality during the Covid-19 pandemic. More specifically, in what ways has the pandemic affected the sex lives of gay and bisexual men?
Admittedly, this collection of oral histories was originally intended to represent a broader spectrum of humanity. However, the LGTBQ+ community is hardly monolithic. Seeking out interviews across the entire spectra of gender and sexuality is time consuming. Unfortunately, the scope of this oral history project was indeed truncated by time constraints. Also, not all members of the LGBT+ community are equally straightforward about their sex lives, taboos are powerful forces in society. Additionally, social networks, digital and otherwise, do not universally criss-cross between gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans circles. It should be recognized that countless voices are missing from this exhibit. And yet, diversity still exists, even within a thin slice of the spectrum.
The following voices represent gay and bisexual men of a variety of ages, ethnicities, and professions. As a student of history, it is in my nature to analyze and seek to interpret. However, as the creator of this exhibit, functioning as an archivist, I feel it important to present these voices with minimal distortion. Therefore, this exhibit does not intend to offer analysis nor interpretation. Each voice is accompanied by only a brief expository introduction and a curated selection of quotations from each interview. Please click on a story to the right, and enjoy listening to history from the ground up.
Restaurant Survival in the Pandemic
The hospitality industry operates on thin margins to begin with. Two in every three new retaurants that open will be closed in five years. Restuarant owners face many challenges on a daily basis. They did not see the coming pandemic and requisite shut down of society in March of 2020. This shut down devasted the hospitality industry and forced restaurants to rethink their role in society in order to survive. The shut down also thrust upon local, state and the federal government the need for aid to these business owners and their employees.
The following is a record of restaurant owners' voices disucssing how their organizatons adapted to meet the challenges of the pandemic. They also discuss the effects of government aid and restrictions from both the local and federal government. Their voices close with prognostications for the winter of 2020-21 and its effect on the industry. Aside from their voices, a collection of restaurant pictures and news articles from the spring, summer and fall of 2020 that are relevant to the subjects' comments are attached. The Hospitality and Restaurant industry typically returns 90% of it's revenue back into the local community in the form of wages and overhead. They are vital local economic engines for a thriving community. It is of utmost importance that they survive.
Young People and the COVID-19 Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns and restrictions have taken a toll on everyone in the nation. It's been an especially trying time for young people. What are you supposed to do when you're in the prime of your life but unable to live the way you would like out of fear of contracting a deadly illness. This exhibit offers a look at how the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns and restrictions have impacted the lives of young adults and how they have been able to start to cope with big life changes.