Living History:

Hingham on Hold

Please join the Hingham Historical Society in collecting and preserving Hingham History during the 2020 COVID19 Pandemic.

Please send personal reflections, stories, photos and videos that chronicle your experience and express your response to life in Hingham on Hold. The Historical Society will compile and preserve these submissions, as a record of this historic moment.

Your contributions become part of the Historical Society archives and your shared experience make you a Hingham History Maker. With your permission, we will feature some of your submissions on our website and on social media. Sharing our experiences, thoughts, and response during these unsettled times can be cathartic and bring us together as a community. Help us inform future generations of what life was like when Hingham, the region and the nation was put on hold in 2020.

Submission Guidelines:

  • WEBSITE: Complete the form on this page
  • EMAIL submissions: historymaker@hinghamhistorical.org
  • MAIL to PO Box 434, Hingham, MA 02043
  • DROP OFF in dedicated Mailbox at the front of the Hingham Heritage Museum, 34 Main Street
  • CALL IN:  1-800-437-3009, enter 75796

Submission Format Guidelines:

If not using our web form and sending via email, please include your name, address, email and how long you’ve lived in Hingham. If you are submitting for someone else, please be sure the author of the work is clearly identified. If you prefer to remain anonymous, please indicate that in your email.

Submissions via Email Should be as Follows

  • Included in the body of the email OR as an attachment as a Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF
  • Photo submissions and include a caption or a description
  • Video submissions please use Movie file ( .mov)

There is no minimum nor maximum word count.  Your submission may be excerpted or edited, as deemed appropriate for project purposes.

Each submission will receive an acknowledgment from staff or volunteers at the Hingham Historical Society.

Prompts

  • With whom do you miss most spending in-person time? Are you now using technology to connect “live”—for teamwork on work projects or class assignments or just hanging out?
  • Have you found joy in spending more in-person time with immediate family members?
  • What experiences away from home to you most miss?
  • Would you typically have been somewhere else during the day (e.g. at school/ at work/ in college classes)? Was it hard to adjust? In what ways?
  • What % of your normal activity still gets done—though perhaps in different ways?
  • Perhaps you’ve learned something new or surprising from those with whom you are at-home time with—a college son or daughter? a parent? or grandparent?
  • Have you found time while “on hold” to learn a new skill?
  • What is the biggest downside/upside of all this time at home?
  • What has changed about the role of technology in your life as a result of the pandemic?
  • What has become part of your day that you hope will continue when you can go back to your normal life?
  • What is horrible/uncomfortable, what is liberating/fun, what is tedious/boring, etc. during this time of confinement?
  • What is your favorite part of the day and why?
  • What have you learned about your family that you didn’t know.
  • Would it be easier for you to express your feelings about this time in a poem or in song lyrics? We’d love to see it and hear it.
  • If you aren’t comfortable writing but are artistic, create a drawing or painting of something you associate with this time or represents this pandemic for you.

Living History: Hingham on Hold

  • Drop files here or
    Accepted file types: pdf, docx, doc, txt, jpg, gif, png, mov, Max. file size: 512 MB, Max. files: 10.
      File types: pdf,docx,doc,txt,jpg,gif,png,mov