“We want your home movies!” proclaimed Hyde Park Herald ads and fliers tacked up in South Side storefronts. Two decades ago, the scrappy archive headed by University of Chicago Prof. Jacqueline Stewart first put out the call for the historical treasure troves hidden in basements and attics.
Today, in a climate-controlled vault at the Logan Center for the Arts, the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) holds over 1,200 reels of footage shot by South Siders from the 1930s to the 1980s. With a few clicks on the archive’s portal, anyone can step inside a 1940s nightclub, wave to Joe Louis in the Bud Billiken parade, or spend Christmas morning in a Chatham neighborhood living room.
This year the memory project is marking its 20th anniversary with an exhibition titled “The Act of Recording is an Act of Love,” kicking off a year-long celebration of the archive’s journey collecting community history.