The Pandemic Histories Archive was developed through a collaboration between the UC Irvine School of Social Ecology, the UCI Libraries, and the Blum Center Compassion in Action program. Throughout history, pandemics have had pervasive and enduring impacts on societies. In the United States, COVID-19 has intersected with multiple forms of inequality and injustice, affecting people in dramatically different ways. The collaboration recognizes it is important to record these diverse experiences, to be inclusive in assembling the historical record of this crisis, and to give future generations as complete an understanding of what happened as possible. This collection consists of submissions by students in the academic year 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 who documented their own or others' experiences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the social justice issues, including anti-Black and anti-Asian racism, that were of public concern. The submissions include field notes about daily life, oral histories, photographs and videos, and other files documenting the pandemic and social justice issues.

12.669 Gigabytes (921 digital files)

Property rights reside with the University of California. For permission to reproduce or to publish, please contact the University Archivist.

The collection is only minimally processed, but is open for research. Researchers may request access copies to digital materials. Please contact the Department of Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access.