Great Migration Home Movie Study Collection
name: label: Creator
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.)
topic: label: Topic
content: Amateur films
label: Topic
content: Families
label: Topic
content: Travel
label: Topic
content: Parties
label: Topic
content: African Americans
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: NMAAHC creates and retains digital copies, 2016-[ongoing]. Original analog materials are not retained by the museum.
creator: label: Creator
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture (U.S.)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Great Migration Home Movie Study Collection
abstract: label: Summary
content: The Great Migration is a unique, ongoing digitization service program that partners the National Museum of African American History and Culture with individuals across the United States to preserve their important analog audiovisual media.


While major motion picture film and television historically lacked diverse representation, black history was instinctively being preserved in everyday home movies. Today, these personal narratives serve as an invaluable tool for understanding and re-framing black moving image history, and provide a much needed visualization of African American history and culture.
accruals: label: Additions
content: New material is added to this collection on an ongoing basis.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 825 Digital files
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1940 - Ongoing
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Museum of African American History and Culture
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAAHC.SC.0001
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Digital files
label: Type
content: Home movies
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged into file, and item-level records. Each file corresponds to a family that has participated in the Great Migration program. Each item within a file corresponds to a single piece of audiovisual media, such as a film or videotape, digitized by NMAAHC staff.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Collection processed, described, and arranged by Ina D. Archer, Jasmyn R. Castro, Walter W. Forsberg, Alexander J. Lawrence, Harry B. McDowell, CK Ming, beginning in 2016 as part of the Great Migration Home Movie Project.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Home movies
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The collection contains 825 digitized audiovisual media objects. However, as an ongoing project the scope of the collection will continue to increase over time. The scope will be updated as is appropriate. 

The content of the collection consists predominantly of amateur recordings created by families to document their lives. This includes major life events, such as birthdays and weddings, quotidian life, as well as family vacations and holidays.