COVID-19 Collecting
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A New Reality for Los Alamos: Collecting the Moment
By Don Cavness, Curator As COVID-19* reshapes the Pajarito Plateau, we have been unexpectedly thrust into the pages of history as the story of the COVID-19 pandemic is being written. Like many of you who are working remotely during this pandemic, I am writing this column from my home office. |
Don Cavness, Curator, is responsible for the conservation,
preservation, restoration, and cataloging of the Los Alamos Historical Society's
cultural artifact collections.
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From the beginning of this column almost five years ago, I’ve spotlighted the provenance of artifacts in our collections. For my research, I had ready access to our thousands of artifacts in the collections vault, as well as to our donor and catalog records. Everything is changed now that our collections are sequestered, sheltered in place, out of reach. I battle separation anxiety daily, missing interaction with our objects, paintings, documents, photographs, maps, and buildings. I also miss interactions with you, our volunteers, members, colleagues, researchers, and friends. But there is light ahead.
However distressing this momentous time is, we can choose to see this as a great opportunity for all of us to come together as a community to document the ways COVID-19 is reshaping of the Pajarito Plateau. Our great opportunity is that we have this moment at hand to intentionally identify, assess, and collect museum-quality items that will, one day, become historic realia. To do this we need your help in collecting items for our COVID-19 stories in the following ways.
First, please email us your stories and photographs and tell us how you are coping with the pandemic by considering the following questions:
1. When did you first learn of COVID-19? Where were you? How did you learn about it?
2. Describe when and how when you realized this event would have a major impact like no other on the life of you and your family?
3. Did you anticipate sequestering? How did you first learn of the order to shelter-in-place?
4. How long did you initially expect sheltering-in-place to last?
5. How did you prepare for the sequestering? What were the challenges, rewards, surprises of doing it?
6. Was there a communal spirit? If so, how was it exhibited? If not, how was it exhibited?
7. What were the effects of social distancing on individuals, groups, and businesses? How did your daily home and work life change?
8. Covid Care: Did you, a group, or someone you know, help neighbors if they needed help? What did you/they do?
9. How did you deal with shortages of food items, bottled water, non- perishable staples, and other necessities of life? Were you surprised that there were shortages in Los Alamos and nearby communities?
10. The remainder of the school year was cancelled. How did the schools, public and private, assist parents and students in emergency schooling from home?
11. How did emergency schooling from home affect parents who were not professional teachers?
Second, please consider donating items that we might use in special exhibits when one day we look back on this period in the history of Los Alamos. These could come from the following sources:
1. Examples of distance learning exercises sourced from local professional educators and others
2. Examples of personal protective equipment people are using such as commercially manufactured, homemade, and designer face masks and shields, gloves, and gowns
3. Photos of shoppers and others coping with PPE, both professionally and personally
4. Photos of deserted streets, parks, churches, and businesses, photos of people’s faces and their reactions and emotions to the times
5. Examples of shelter-in-place calls to action, items such as posters, posted announcements, and any other ways the call to shelter-in-place was posted
6. COVID-19 art, i.e. photos of chalk artwork, window art, wall art, hand-made signs and posters, amateur photography, artwork on bread, graffiti in public places, T-shirts with sayings, new logos that seem to spring up and become
an emblem of the time
7. Photos of Safari Hunt windows and stuffed COVID-19 animals
Third, Oral Histories. We wish to record oral histories of all aspects of our community, including the medical community, of doctors, dentists, nurses, mental health providers, non-profits such as United Way, Los Alamos Community Foundation, All Together Los Alamos, Self Help, churches, schools, barbers, museums, assisted care facilities, large and small business, comments and stories
from children and teens on how the pandemic has felt to them…from all aspects of our community.
Finally, keep a journal. You can help the Historical Society collect history as it happens by keeping a daily journal during the COVID-19 crisis with the intent to share your journals with the Historical Society. (Retrospective entries are ok.)
However distressing this momentous time is, we can choose to see this as a great opportunity for all of us to come together as a community to document the ways COVID-19 is reshaping of the Pajarito Plateau. Our great opportunity is that we have this moment at hand to intentionally identify, assess, and collect museum-quality items that will, one day, become historic realia. To do this we need your help in collecting items for our COVID-19 stories in the following ways.
First, please email us your stories and photographs and tell us how you are coping with the pandemic by considering the following questions:
1. When did you first learn of COVID-19? Where were you? How did you learn about it?
2. Describe when and how when you realized this event would have a major impact like no other on the life of you and your family?
3. Did you anticipate sequestering? How did you first learn of the order to shelter-in-place?
4. How long did you initially expect sheltering-in-place to last?
5. How did you prepare for the sequestering? What were the challenges, rewards, surprises of doing it?
6. Was there a communal spirit? If so, how was it exhibited? If not, how was it exhibited?
7. What were the effects of social distancing on individuals, groups, and businesses? How did your daily home and work life change?
8. Covid Care: Did you, a group, or someone you know, help neighbors if they needed help? What did you/they do?
9. How did you deal with shortages of food items, bottled water, non- perishable staples, and other necessities of life? Were you surprised that there were shortages in Los Alamos and nearby communities?
10. The remainder of the school year was cancelled. How did the schools, public and private, assist parents and students in emergency schooling from home?
11. How did emergency schooling from home affect parents who were not professional teachers?
Second, please consider donating items that we might use in special exhibits when one day we look back on this period in the history of Los Alamos. These could come from the following sources:
1. Examples of distance learning exercises sourced from local professional educators and others
2. Examples of personal protective equipment people are using such as commercially manufactured, homemade, and designer face masks and shields, gloves, and gowns
3. Photos of shoppers and others coping with PPE, both professionally and personally
4. Photos of deserted streets, parks, churches, and businesses, photos of people’s faces and their reactions and emotions to the times
5. Examples of shelter-in-place calls to action, items such as posters, posted announcements, and any other ways the call to shelter-in-place was posted
6. COVID-19 art, i.e. photos of chalk artwork, window art, wall art, hand-made signs and posters, amateur photography, artwork on bread, graffiti in public places, T-shirts with sayings, new logos that seem to spring up and become
an emblem of the time
7. Photos of Safari Hunt windows and stuffed COVID-19 animals
Third, Oral Histories. We wish to record oral histories of all aspects of our community, including the medical community, of doctors, dentists, nurses, mental health providers, non-profits such as United Way, Los Alamos Community Foundation, All Together Los Alamos, Self Help, churches, schools, barbers, museums, assisted care facilities, large and small business, comments and stories
from children and teens on how the pandemic has felt to them…from all aspects of our community.
Finally, keep a journal. You can help the Historical Society collect history as it happens by keeping a daily journal during the COVID-19 crisis with the intent to share your journals with the Historical Society. (Retrospective entries are ok.)
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Please send your responses, comments, and questions about Covid-19 collecting to Don Cavness, curator@losalamoshistory.org or call Don at (505) 795-9970.
Note: If you have physical items to offer for donation, please don’t bring them to the Museum or to the Archives. Instead, please send a description and photograph of the item to Stephanie Yeamans, registrar@losalamoshisory.org or call (505) 695-5253. Please include your contact information. Contributors to this column included Historical Society staff as well as Cherie Trottier and Mary Pat Kraemer, Los Alamos Historical Society Directors. |
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*COVID-19, the novel coronavirus disease of 2019, is a disease caused by the SARS-CoV2 virus, was given the abbreviated acronym name of COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) in a press release on February 11, 2020.
The Los Alamos Historical Society Museum & Archive
accepts objects and materials that relate to the community and history of Los Alamos
from the ancestral pueblo people to today.
Please click here to find out more about donating your items,
or contact us using the form at the bottom of this page.
accepts objects and materials that relate to the community and history of Los Alamos
from the ancestral pueblo people to today.
Please click here to find out more about donating your items,
or contact us using the form at the bottom of this page.
The Los Alamos Historical Society Archives are located in the Los Alamos Municipal Building
1000 Central Avenue, Suite 180, Los Alamos, New Mexico
1000 Central Avenue, Suite 180, Los Alamos, New Mexico
