A new Mass Observation? Journaling for future historians

History students,
Historians know the value of qualitative sources like journals, diaries, and memoirs, especially when they are sources kept by 'average' people. 

One of the biggest experiments in journal keeping by a large population was the British experiment called Mass Observation. According to our own Dr. Ritschel:

"Mass Observation was founded in 1937 as a novel experiment in recording daily life in Britain. Its founders sought to capture the lives and views of ordinary people by asking hundreds of them to keep diaries that kept track of their everyday experiences. The result was not the “scientific” polling of national opinion introduced recently by Gallup, but an archive of individual observations and reactions that has allowed historians to paint a vivid portrait of the British people in the tumultuous years before and during the Second World War."

We are now living through another tumultuous time. If you are so inclined you might want to keep a journal of your experiences of living through a pandemic. Don't feel you have to make anything up, the more mundane the better. Future historians will thank you.

Best, Prof. Froide, Chair, History