BUCKS COUNTY IN THE PANDEMIC:
SHARING YOUR STORIES
In 1793, Dr. Jonathan Ingham of Solebury, Bucks County, rode to Philadelphia to help tend to those who were sick and dying during the Yellow Fever Epidemic. Sadly, Ingham contracted the illness himself and succumbed while trying to reach a mineral spring in New Jersey. We know about Ingham, his practice, and his sacrifice because someone chose to record his story. And, because his account book from 1782-86 was preserved, and survives in the collections of the Mercer Museum Library.
What stories will be recorded and remembered about Bucks County’s present-day pandemic experience? What accounts, writings, journals, images, and artifacts will be preserved to help tell those stories? The Mercer Museum and Library is embarking on a project to collect some of these materials and accounts now – while history is happening around us. And, we would like your help.
How You Can Help
We would like to hear how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting you, your family, your neighborhood, and your community. How has your life changed? How are you spending your time? What emotions are you experiencing? What changes have you observed in your neighborhood or in others around you? Future Bucks Countians will want to know how you coped, what you did, how you managed. This is your opportunity to tell them.
You are invited to submit stories, observations, accounts, drawings, screenshots, and photographic images – anything that can be submitted digitally – for potential inclusion in the archives of the Mercer Museum and Bucks County Historical Society.
How to Submit
These can be submitted in the body of a message or as attachments to the Mercer Library’s email box: mmlib@mercermuseum.org. Please use the identifier “Pandemic Stories” in the subject line of your email.
Also, to ensure that we will have the rights to utilize your submission, please read our Gift Terms and Conditions, and then paste the following into the body of your email message:
I acknowledge that I am the author, owner or agent for the work(s) included in or attached to this email, and that I unconditionally give it/them to the Bucks County Historical Society (BCHS) for its unrestricted use or disposition, including all applicable copyrights and other property rights. I also acknowledge that I have read and accepted all of the BCHS Gift Terms & Conditions.
Thank you for participating in this effort. A future initiative will also seek to identify representative objects or other physical items that the museum might wish to add to its collections, as material reminders of Bucks County’s experience in the pandemic.
