You will notice that some categories on the submission form are required, but others are optional:

• Required categories are the minimum amount of information we need to appropriately archive your submission in our collections and communicate with you when publishing it. Your email address will not be shared.
• Optional categories will help us (and future historians) to better understand your experience and contextualize your entry. This makes it more likely that your story will play a role in future research and exhibition. For example:
  • Tags give you the opportunity to tie your entry to others by using keywords. This will make it easier for readers to find when it is published and will help future historians understand the key ideas that defined your experience. If you write a story about seeing empty shelves at a grocery store you might tag: Acme, Supplies, GhostTown, and/or NoToiletPaper. Feel welcome to be creative!
  • Cities and Towns related to your entry, like tags, help connect your story to others. Is what you are experiencing unique to Wilmington? Or is it similar to what people in Lewes are experiencing? Having key cities or locations listed helps give readers and future historians a point of reference.

In short, for the optional categories only share information that you are comfortable sharing with Delaware Historical Society staff and err on the side of providing information that you are comfortable sharing publicly.

Yes. You have the right to change your public-sharing preferences at any time. That includes having your entry made anonymous or removed entirely. If you would like to change your preferences, please email covidchroniclesde@gmail.com with your request. Please include the email address listed on the submission form to help us identify which submission is yours.

Absolutely! If you need some ideas to get you started, check out our list of prompts and ideas.

Be creative! What format best represents you and your experience? For example, maybe you want to send in a picture of a line to get in the grocery store and a quick caption -- go ahead and just plug everything into the form. If you express yourself better in the form of a handwritten journal entry, go ahead and write it!

You can upload a scan of the page(s) to the form. If you’re a singer, submit an audio file - just give us a sentence or two explaining why you chose the song you did. For examples of published submissions, check out our blog, facebook, or instagram.

• You may submit up to 5 files or 10 MB in documents, spreadsheets, pdf’s, image files, audio files, and/or video files files per submission.
• If your file size exceeds 10 MB you may submit your form and email the large file to covidchroniclesde@gmail.com. Just include a note in the entry field of the form, so that we know to look for it.
• You may create as many submissions as you’d like. Our world is changing day-to-day, so you might feel frequent submissions better capture the immediacy of this moment for you. However, you might also feel that a single song or reflective journal crafted over days or weeks better expresses your experience. It’s entirely up to you!

To maintain accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) all contributors must be over the age of 13. If you are between the ages of 13 and 17, your submission will be collected, but it will not be shared publicly until at least January 1, 2025. If you’re under the age of 13 or the parent/guardian/caregiver of a child under 13, check out COVID Chronicles for Children & Caregivers to find out how you can participate!

Of course! You can submit your entry in whichever language expresses your experience best.

The short answer is all submissions will be archived; some stories will be published or “highlighted.”

All submissions will become a part of the permanent Delaware Historical Society digital collection. They will serve individually and collectively as primary sources for future generations of students, researchers, and historians to better understand what it meant to live through the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some entries will be selected for immediate sharing via our social media and website. This means they will be available publicly. We may feature your entry on its own, in a collection of stories, or on our own or a partner institution’s social media, with authors’ first names only. Before sharing anything digitally, a DHS staff member will email you at the address on the submission form. Once we receive confirmation from you, we will format and upload your entry. Don’t worry, we’ll let you know when it’s up in the digital world for you to see and share!

You do! You retain copyright over stories and media submitted and also the right to determine how information is shared. This means we will contact you via email for permission before sharing your entry. Delaware Historical Society retains copyright to all other aspects of the project, including but not limited to design, functionality, and images, and the right to decide, based on user agreement, whether an entry can be published.

Founded in May 1864, the Delaware Historical Society (DHS) is a non-profit organization that preserves, promotes, and shares Delaware's history in a welcoming environment to educate, inspire, and empower people and communities. DHS owns and operates several historic properties and sites. The Wilmington campus is located on N. Market street. It includes the Delaware History Museum, Old Town Hall, the Jane and Littleton Mitchell Center for African American Heritage, the Research Library, and Willingtown Square (which consists of four historic buildings, the Cook-Simms House, Jacob and Obidiah Dingee Houses, Jacobs-Ferris House, and Coxe House). DHS also owns and operates the Read House & Gardens, a National Historic Landmark, located at 42 the Strand in Historic New Castle. Visit dehistory.org to learn more about DHS and its properties.

For the latest information on COVID-19 please visit the Center for Disease Control website or the World Health Organization website.