MARBLEHEAD — Two massive efforts to preserve a significant portion of the town’s history are underway at the Marblehead Museum.
The first, “Marblehead Memories,” is the museum’s four-year, multi-faceted project to collect, preserve and share rapidly-disappearing memories and stories of the town from the 20th century, according to the museum’s website.
The second undertaking, the “COVID-19 Archive Project,” is a supplemental portion of the “Marblehead Memories” project, which aims to collect the stories and experiences of people as they live through the current pandemic.
The idea is that when future generations study the event in history classes, they will know what it was like to live and work in Marblehead during a global pandemic, according to Lauren McCormack, executive director of the Marblehead Museum.
Part of the aim with both projects, which involves collecting the memories and stories of people who lived in the 20th century and those who are living through the current pandemic, is to avoid repeating the mistakes of past generations of residents who did not prioritize preserving their own history, McCormack said.
“The early 20th century people were very interested in history but didn’t record their own,” said McCormack. “Of course it is history and we, like many others, are stuck with little to show for what happened over (those) 100 years. That’s what we’re trying to remedy with the ‘Marblehead Memories’ and now the ‘COVID-19 Project’: to not lose those memories or stories.”
Similarly, when the COVID-19 pandemic started, Marblehead Museum staff realized that not much had been recorded from residents who lived through another major pandemic, the Spanish Flu of 1918, which the coronavirus has often been compared to.
“We realized we didn’t have anything, so we started this so people would have something to look back on and understand what it was like to be here,” said McCormack. “We wish we had something to share with people to put COVID-19 in context, but unfortunately we didn’t have anything. We don’t want to put our descendants in the same (situation). We want them to be able to study this time period.”
As the memories and stories are being collected, McCormack said there will be a variety of exhibits in the next four years, including ones that will focus on different neighborhoods and businesses in town.
For example, in 2021, there will be a six-month exhibit on Marblehead Handprints, a former business that closed in the 1990s and was known for making screen-printed fabrics into clothes, McCormack said.
The exhibit was supposed to be this year — 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of when the business was founded in 1970 — but it was pushed back because of the pandemic.
“As years go by, we are losing so many people every year and their memories, their stories of what it was like to live in Marblehead, to grow up and work in Marblehead — that is their story,” said McCormack. “If we don’t preserve the memories of people, we won’t understand what the community was like, how it changed over the years.”
It’s vital that people share their stories in order to preserve that, as there’s only so much that can be gleaned from a newspaper article or photograph, McCormack said.
“We need the stories to go along with them,” she said.
There are several ways to contribute to the project. Marblehead Museum has a growing archive of photos and artifacts that people can peruse and add to, McCormack said.
They can access certain forms through the museum’s website for an online submission, send a written piece, or call 978-414-5093 and leave a message with their story or memory.
There is also a “Marblehead Memories” booth in the museum, which will enable visitors to have conversations alone or with another individual that are video-recorded during their session.
