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State history museum seeks artifacts from COVID-19 pandemic

Right: Turk Holford greets his family through his window on the Colville Reservation. Left: A sign posted on the front door of another home on the reservation urging residents to protect their elders.
Joseph Holford and Jalene Finely
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Courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society
Right: Turk Holford greets his family through his window on the Colville Reservation. Left: A sign posted on the front door of another home on the reservation urging residents to protect their elders.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult time for everyone as it ripples through all aspects of life. But that also makes it a historic time. 

That's why the Washington State Historical Society is asking people to submit artifacts documenting their experiences to help future historians understand this period.

March 17 was Maggie Wetherbee's first day as the new head of collections for the historical society. Her first task was to come up with a plan to do her job from home.

"We're lucky we live in a digital age," Wetherbee said in an interview with KNKX. "Quite a bit of our collection is digitized, so we can still do things like answer research requests."

Maggie Wetherbee
Credit Courtesy of Maggie Wetherbee
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Courtesy of Maggie Wetherbee
Maggie Wetherbee is the head of collections for the Washington State Historical Society.

Wetherbee's next project is collecting artifacts from the COVID-19 pandemic as it's happening in Washington state. 

"This moment in history is important for us to document in every way possible so that, in 100 years, when scholars and researchers and epidemiologists want to look back on what happened, we have a record of it," Wetherbee said.

As of Monday, the history museum had received more than 200 submissions to the project. The artifacts range from digital posts on social media and online to photos of boarded-up restaurants to letters from essential workers.

A 14-year-old named Molly submitted a piece of art representing her experience as a person of Korean descent. The digital painting shows a person wearing a medical mask and looking at a phone while shadowy figures turn their backs.

"The inspiration for my picture was how I felt when our president called COVID-19 'the Chinese virus,'" Molly said in a video accompanying the artwork. "Because I'm Asian, it made me feel the next time I went out in public, people would think I had the virus and they would avoid me."

Molly, a 14-year-old from Puyallup, drew this to illustrate her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic as a young person of Korean descent.
Credit Courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society
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Courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society
Molly, a 14-year-old from Puyallup, drew this to illustrate her experience during the COVID-19 pandemic as a young person of Korean descent.

The museum also will collect physical artifacts, such as homemade masks or journals. For now, the collections team is asking people to set those aside until the museum's research center reopens. Wetherbee says artifacts typically go through a sanitation process even in non-pandemic times.

The goal is to collect a broad range of experiences. Wetherbee says she wants people to decide for themselves what is historic.

This face mask was made from a Seahawks beer can koozie.
Credit Debbie Mensinger / Courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society
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Courtesy of the Washington State Historical Society
This face mask was made from a Seahawks beer can koozie.

"Part of what we do in museums is collect not knowing exactly what the key pieces or the key takeaways will be from an experience," Wetherbee said. "Right now, museums have this amazing opportunity, and also a challenge, where we are living through this pandemic."

She compares the potential here to the state history museum's collection from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Wetherbee says the museum's collection is mostly photographic: images of people who died from the illness or of businesses' signs. There wasn't much collection during the emergency. 

But with more people staying home during this digital age, the barrier to participating in historical collecting is a lot lower.

"I really think that's part of the reason we're getting such wonderful submissions," Wetherbee said. "Because I think they have time to really talk together and listen and document what's going on in their lives and see how it relates to the past."

There's no deadline for submissions. Wetherbee says the goal is capture a range of experiences, including what happens as things open back up. Eventually, the collection will be displayed at the museum and available for researchers.

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A Seattle native and former KNKX intern, Simone Alicea spent four years as a producer and reporter at KNKX. She earned her Bachelor's of Journalism from Northwestern University and covered breaking news for the Chicago Sun-Times. During her undergraduate career, she spent time in Cape Town, South Africa, covering metro news for the Cape Times.