_Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project

The Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project (SECASP) is an online collaborative venture ten years in the making. It highlights a remarkable collection of objects gathered and preserved by residents of a former steel mill community as its industrial base was collapsing. These materials have all been donated to the Southeast Chicago Historical Museum by multiracial working-class residents who historically settled here.

Using the residents’ saved objects – and the stories told about them – the project brings to life everyday experiences of work, immigration, job loss, and environmental contamination from the residents’ point of view. And it does so through a Digital Archive and four mini-documentaries or “Storylines.”

The Digital Archive offers a window directly into the Museum’s collections that present the community’s history via donated materials. The thirteen “featured curations” on topics including “Black Experience in the Mills,” “Women at Work,” and “Union Life” offer valuable access points for viewers. Also, using a unique coupling of metadata from ArchivesSpace (the museum’s archiving and information management software) and WordPress, the Archive offers an easy search of the donated items. Many items also have “Backstories,” which provide deeper insight into their source and meaning within Southeast Chicago. At launch, the Digital Archive contained over 1,000 of the 10,000+ items found in the Museum. And it continues to expand.

The Storylines represent an immersive addition to the online archive genre and offer another way to explore the Museum’s collections. Visitors can explore these mini-interactive documentaries at their own pace. Upon entry, they are introduced to a single object evocative of a larger theme such as immigration, union history, or environmental pollution. A contemporary video depicts a current resident handling that object and discussing its meaning within Southeast Chicago, highlighting how history is a project of intergenerational storytelling. The Storyline weaves together photographs, videos, oral histories, historical text, and soundscapes to tell a larger story that creates connections and teases out the meaning from the memories and vivid emotions conveyed through Museum objects. In another unique feature, each item in the Storyline links directly back to the Digital Archive through a tab in the upper left-hand corner. Even amid a storyline, a visitor is never far from knowing an individual item’s place in the more extensive Museum collections.

The extensive website emerged as a collaboration between the project team, Museum Director Rod Sellers, museum volunteers, and the community residents.