Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project (SECASP)
Southeast Chicago Archive and Storytelling Project/Southeast Chicago Historical Museum PROJECT
About This Project
Summary
SECASP is a collaboration between the all-volunteer Southeast Chicago Historical Museum and a project team based at MIT. Southeast Chicago is a multiracial former steel mill community polluted by industry yet devastated by its closure. The project digitized countless artifacts and oral histories donated by residents and created an online archive and storytelling site that explores what history looks like from the point of view of a post-industrial community.
Goals & Objectives
To counter depictions of the American past that downplay the richness of multiracial working-class lives. To use interactive documentary storytelling to bring different generations into dialogue on key issues like immigration, industrial job loss, union struggle, racial conflict, and environment.
Results & Impact
Creation of a visually striking virtual space in which donated objects and stories from a former steel mill region allow viewers to explore key tensions in the American past. Recently launched site engages community while archive materials are already being pulled into exhibits by major museums.
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