Help us document this moment in history: COVID-19 Archive Collection

Right now, we find ourselves in a unique historic moment as our communities, our nation, and the world are struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the Monadnock Center for History and Culture, we have collected a rich archive of materials that tell the stories of those who have gone before us. Now is the time to collect the materials that will tell today’s story- the story of our communities during this crisis.

We hope you will join us as a citizen-historian and help us to document this time. Future local historians will want to know the ways the pandemic impacts our region’s health and economy, how our children’s education changed, and the ways day-to-day life was altered by social distancing and the stay-at-home order.

In partnership with the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, the Monadnock Center is creating an archive of the COVID-19 crisis that will document the experiences of people in the Monadnock Region.

This collection of materials will be preserved for future generations at the Monadnock Center. In ten, fifty, or a hundred years, the people of the Monadnock Region will be able to hear our voices, learn the ways the community pulled together (while staying 6 feet apart!), experience our disappointments and triumphs, and see the ways we persevered.

The Monadnock Ledger-Transcript’s reporters and editors have been doing an amazing job reporting on the unfolding crisis. Photographs and news stories from their coverage will form part of the COVID-19 collection but we also need your first-person contributions!

What we are looking for:

Photographs
Writing (poetry, journal or diary entries, nonfiction story about an event or person related to the crisis, etc.)
Video

Get the family involved! Have your children photograph, write, draw, paint or make a video about their experience during this historic moment. If you are submitting a child’s work, please indicate that you are the child’s parent and let us know the child’s first name, age and town.

As a citizen-historian, you are not limited to a one-time submission. Feel free to submit as much or as often as you would like over the course of the pandemic.

Some submissions may be published in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript. By submitting your materials to the COVID-19 archive collection, you are giving your permission for the Monadnock Center for History and Culture and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript to reproduce, publish and share the material.

Email your submissions to director@nullMonadnockCenter.org or send via US Mail to the Monadnock Center at P.O. Box 58, Peterborough, NH 03458. Be sure to include your full name, email or mailing address and a phone number with your submission. We must be able to document where submissions came from in order to include them in the collection.

Thank you in advance for your submissions!

Be well,
Michelle Stahl, Executive Director, Monadnock Center
Heather McKernan, Publisher, Monadnock Ledger-Transcript

Monadnock Center Partners with Savron Graphics to offer COVID-19 Journals

When Rob Crowley of Savron Graphics in Jaffrey learned about the project to document the COVID crisis, he contacted the Monadnock Center with an idea to print journals for people to record their experiences. “We thought it would be interesting to have some documentation for future generations to know how people are dealing with staying at home and social distancing. We hope people will use these journals to create a snapshot in time through writing, drawing and other creative ways to record their experience, “said Rob.

Once the crisis is over, journals may be turned in and Savron graphics will digitize them. Digital copies will be made available to the town historical societies and the Monadnock Center to be preserved for the future. COVID-19 Journals will not be collected until after the stay-at-home order is lifted by the governor. The content of the journals will not be published in the newspaper.

These COVID-19 journals are free and have been distributed throughout the Contoocook Valley. Pick up a journal at the following locations: Savron Graphics in Jaffrey (32 Fitzgerald Drive, box located by outside office door), Peterborough Town Library (under the overhang adjacent to the rear entrance), Hancock Inn (on the porch), Delay’s Harvester Market in Greenfield (on the porch), and Dublin General Store (inside store, only available during store hours).

Please pick up your journal when you are out for essential activities like grocery shopping rather than making a special trip to get your journal.

The Monadnock Center thanks Savron Graphics and the Crowley family for bringing this idea to us and for printing the journals!