South Side Home Movie Project

CTL-E-6358 · Institution · other · 2005–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07544 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6358.

The South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is an archival and community engagement initiative at the University of Chicago that preserves and shares amateur films and the stories of local everyday life they capture. Founded in 2005 by Cinema and Media Studies professor Jacqueline Stewart, it is dedicated to collecting, preserving, digitizing, exhibiting, and researching home movies created by Chicago's South Side residents. It was first hosted at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; in 2015 a partnership with the Film Studies Center provided climate-controlled storage in the Logan Center Film Vault, and in 2019 the project joined Arts + Public Life. The project states that it holds more than 1,200 reels of 16mm, 8mm, and Super-8mm footage shot by South Siders from the 1930s to the 1980s, and launched its digital archive in 2018.

The record

• Also known as: SSHMP

Notes

STAGING: temp id EB-14. SIZE DISCREPANCY across UChicago's own pages: SSHMP's own 20th-anniversary pages state 'more than 1,200 reels,' while the Arts + Public Life anniversary page states 'more than 1,400 reels.' The description uses the project's own SSHMP-site figure (1,200+); ask the project which is current before publishing a count. Host history is layered, not single: Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (2005) → Film Studies Center storage partnership (2015) → Arts + Public Life (2019, current). Home Movie Day was not verified from the project's own site in this pass and is not claimed. The located_in edge to Hyde Park is NOT emitted: the packet's sources place the project at the University of Chicago but do not themselves state the Hyde Park neighborhood — listed in the memo as unsourced-in-packet, not blocked by schema. CURATOR'S JUDGMENT (DRAFT): The packet's Chicago anchor — proof the recovery method is not an abstraction: it runs reel by reel, family by family, on the South Side.

Relationships

• Jacqueline Stewart — founded by
  The South Side Home Movie Project's own history page states: 'Founded in 2005 by Dr. Jacqueline Stewart' (live record CTL-E-4807).
• University of Chicago — operated by
  SSHMP is a University of Chicago initiative (live record CTL-E-0345, Institution): founded at the University of Chicago, hosted by its units since 2005, and currently housed at UChicago's Arts + Public Life, per the project's own history and UChicago Humanities.

Sources

• SSHMP, UChicago (accessed 2026-10-29): 'Founded in 2005 by Dr. Jacqueline Stewart, the South Side Home Movie Project (SSHMP) is dedicated to collecting, preserving, digitizing, exhibiting, and researching the rich tapestry of home movies created by Chicago's South Side residents.'; 'Today, SSHMP holds more than 1,200 reels of small-gauge film – 16mm, 8mm, and Super-8mm footage shot by South Siders spanning from the 1930s to the 1980s.'; 'Over 1,200 reels of film collected from 45 South Side families'; 'The South Side Home Movie Project is founded by Professor Jacqueline Stewart at the University of Chicago, with support from the Women's Board and hosted at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.'; 'Partnership with the Film Studies Center provides access to climate-controlled storage of preserved reels in the Logan Center Film Vault.' (primary source · build store)
• SSHMP exhibition page (accessed 2026-10-29): 'Founded in 2005 at the University of Chicago by Cinema and Media Studies professor Jacqueline Stewart, SSHMP is dedicated to collecting, preserving, digitizing, exhibiting, and researching the rich tapestry of home movies created by Chicago's South Side residents.'; 'In partnership with the Film Studies Center, the SSHMP preserves these fragile films and makes them accessible online.' (primary source · build store)
• UChicago Humanities (accessed 2026-10-29): 'She founded the South Side Home Movie Project in 2005, which collects, preserves and hosts screenings of small-gauge amateur films by residents of Chicago's South Side. Housed at UChicago's Arts + Public Life initiative, the project digitizes and makes these unique films available to educators, artists and the general public.' (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6358 · Combined Graph record U-07544 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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