Chicago’s Community Response to COVID-19
In This Together is a community-based initiative to collect digital records that document personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are all affected by this crisis in varying degrees, and diaries, journals, oral histories, images, recordings, and similar materials will help us tell stories of this unprecedented time in history. Personal accounts provide depth and context for what an event or era was like for the everyday people experiencing it. Gathering this type of information about the COVID-19 pandemic in the Chicago area will be important for people to understand this period of our history.
We invite those of you living in Chicago and its surrounding metropolitan area to contribute any digital records that document your experience and that of your community during the COVID-19 pandemic. These could include digital journal entries, audio/video recordings, images, or emails. Submissions can be made with smartphones, tablets, or computers. To contribute a physical item, please use our donation inquiry form.
Selected submissions will be displayed here. Due to the volume of submissions, we are unable to notify you if your submission is posted, but you can check the page for regular updates.
Tips for Capturing Your Experience
As a starting point, try writing between 250 to 500 words, or if you are recording your thoughts, between 30 seconds and 3 minutes of sound/video recording.
- Tell us about yourself and what do you do (age range, work/school, neighborhood/community/organization, family/household)?
- How has your life changed?
- What activities are you doing now that you didn’t do before the pandemic?
- Are there any pandemic-related signs (e.g., business closure, delivery, etc.) up in your area?
- Are there deserted spaces, or other places that look and feel very different now?
- How have communities that you are involved in changed their practices?
- How are you staying connected to friends and family?
- What are things you don’t miss?
- Is there anything you will miss when stay-at-home orders lift?
- What are the moments you won’t forget?
- What new habits or ways of doing things have developed in the last few weeks? Will you keep any of these after the pandemic?
- How have your friends and loved ones been affected?
- How do you think you, your family, or our city will be impacted in the future?
Frequently Asked Questions
What can I submit?
What if someone else created it?
How do I submit?
What if I need to make changes to my submission?
What if my work was uploaded without my permission?
Submit Here
Submit Here
COVID-19 Community Collecting Submission Form
The terms and conditions can be found here. If you have any questions or are having trouble with your submission, please contact us at covid19@chicagohistory.org.