Research

The COVID-19 pandemic is the gravest infectious disease crisis the United States has faced since the Influenza pandemic of 1918, and we fear that it will not be the last. Our team of sociologists, oral historians, and anthropologists at Columbia University’s INCITE and the Oral History Archives at Columbia is building an archive documenting New York City’s experience of the pandemic.

New York City was the early epicenter of this pandemic in the United States because of its international connections and the local density of its social life. The virus spreads most intensely in households, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Our archive focuses on New York--a city of neighborhoods--to illuminate and document the social structure of the pandemic.

We’ve noticed that in this crisis people’s perceptions and understandings change daily, sometimes hourly. This is why we started interviewing as soon as we could, in March. Our work builds on our experience developing the September 11, 2001 Oral History Narrative and Memory Project, and combines sociology and oral history to create a rich, composite picture of the struggle against COVID-19 as it evolves over the next year and beyond.

For this project, we are conducting video interviews with each narrator three times over the course of twelve months. The voices from these interviews will be enriched by written diaries chronicling daily life during the pandemic and survey data tracking the demography of our participants and their social lives.

This crisis is highlighting structural fault-lines in our society as well as the strength and resilience of our communities, even as our society transforms in ways we do not yet understand. It will be important for those navigating the post-COVID future to hear the voices of those who lived through this period. Researchers, health workers and advocates, historians, artists, and policymakers will learn from listening to and watching New Yorkers talk about how we made it through this extended crisis.

Our team of thirty oral history interviewers is working this April and May to record initial interviews with two hundred New Yorkers, including doctors, nurses, home health aides, funerary workers, doulas, parents, homeless people, organizers, artists, immigrants, teachers, other essential workers, public officials, and everyday New Yorkers of all kinds. At the same time, we are gathering chronicles and survey responses from a broad sample of the city’s population. 

If you are interested in participating in this project take the survey above. Some survey participants will be invited to write chronicles or participate in interviews. This info sheet will tell you more about participating. You can also reach us by email at covid19archive@gmail.com if you have questions.

If you want to learn more about doing oral history in this period, here are some resources.

Video