At the beginning of tenth grade, I started the Upper School History Club for history-lovers like me to come together and do all things history. With the help of two upperclassmen I recruited as co-leaders, I created new and fun activities to do with the club each week. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York City in March of 2020, I came up with the idea to conduct an oral histories project that would document the Packer community’s experience with the pandemic. It would also offer people the chance to share their stories and make connections with each other.
From April to early June, we interviewed 31 members of the community, including students, teachers, and staff. Topics of discussion included home life, the government’s response, loneliness, and coping mechanisms. Before the end of the school year, we published a few of these interviews on The Prism website, Packer’s Upper School student newspaper. Over the summer, we created our own website to showcase select parts of each interview in both video and transcript form. I also worked with the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Public Library to archive these interviews in the Packer Collegiate Archives so that these testimonies could be saved for future generations.
From late October to early December, we conducted follow-up interviews with some of the same interviewees about their summer break, the first three months of school, and the ways in which their feelings have changed since the start of the pandemic. I again worked with the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Public Library to archive these interviews. In March 2021, the Packer COVID-19 Oral Histories were featured in the Packer Magazine.
View our website with select parts of each interview.
View the full archived interviews.
View the Packer COVID-19 Oral Histories feature in the Packer Magazine
Sadie Sadler 