Events › South Side Home Movie Project: Preserving Our Memories for the Future

Home movies capture a range of details about everyday neighborhood life in Chicago, from fashion to food to how people walk down the street. During moments of social change, they also show historical events from a unique perspective, revealing what it was like to watch Myrlie Evers receive a posthumous award for her husband Medgar in Grant Park in 1963 or to visit the Lorraine Motel with your family in 1969. The South Side Home Movie Project has been collecting and preserving home movies from Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods since 2005 and now holds over 700 of these rare glimpses of South Side life in their local film archive. 

For Black History Month, join the SSHMP team for a virtual guided tour of the project, an opportunity to watch home movie clips from the 1920s-1980s, and a chance to learn about preserving and sharing your family films.

This session will also debut SSHMP’s new Community Tagging Tools, which let you add your memories to the home movie database and identify the people, places, and events you recognize. For the first time, Chicagoans from across the city are invited to try out this custom crowd-sourcing interface so that your stories become part of SSHMP’s virtual archive. Join us for a live demonstration and hands-on orientation to this new way to contribute your memories to Chicago’s history.

How to Attend
This event takes place on Zoom; the last day to register is 2/21/2023. Only one registration per household is needed. You’ll receive an email link to the secure Zoom link before the event. Automatic transcription is included in all CPL events using Zoom.

Accessibility
Need sign language interpretation or other accessibility assistance for this event? Please call (312) 747-8184 or email access@chipublib.org to request accommodations. Requests must be made at least 14 business days before the event.

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