Your Story, Our Story

Tenement Museum

The Tenement Museum expanded in the summer of 2017 to include 103 Orchard, a new building that tells the stories of families who came to New York after World War II. This expansion allowed the museum to tell more modern stories from an era of immigration that is often overlooked.

Before the official opening of 103 Orchard, the Tenement Museum staff wanted to begin interpreting the objects of 103 Orchard in a public way. Your Story, Our Story (YSOS) was born out of this desire. The program was originally launched in 2014 as an educational curriculum and supporting website. YSOS grows out of the Tenement Museum’s long history of object-based storytelling, inspiring users to select an object that represents their family’s personal immigration story. Users then submit their story online, creating a digital exhibit of immigration stories which allows the Museum to tell a larger and more inclusive story of immigration.

Your Story, Our Story became a popular tool for teachers in the New York City area. Many of these teachers were already bringing their students to the Tenement Museum on class trips and saw YSOS as a way to extend and enhance that experience. Institutions around the country began to look to YSOS as a tool for engaging their own community in discovering their diversity and common history.

Overview

  • User-generated content allows communities to define their own identity
  • Digital archive of object-based stories extends the Tenement’s mission beyond its walls
  • Dynamic system maps stories as they are submitted
  • Customizable templates allow partner institutions to adapt the site and educational program to their unique needs

Credits

  • Potion
    Design
  • 201 Created
    Software Development
  • Tenement Museum
    Concept

When the Tenement Museum received a grant to redesign YSOS, we worked with them to determine new features that would allow YSOS to scale in order to accommodate use by these partner institutions.

These new features included the ability for partner institutions to create their own personalized galleries that can be customized with the institutions name, logo, and mission statement. This templated approach allows the Tenement Museum to control the YSOS brand but also gives partner institutions across the country the chance to put their own spin on the program when they implement it in their community.

We also added a mapping function to the redesigned site which allows stories to be tagged by location. This dynamic system plots stories as they are submitted, providing a visualization of the program’s new and expanded reach.

When the Tenement Museum received a grant to redesign YSOS, we worked with them to determine new features that would allow YSOS to scale in order to accommodate use by these partner institutions.

These new features included the ability for partner institutions to create their own personalized galleries that can be customized with the institutions name, logo, and mission statement. This templated approach allows the Tenement Museum to control the YSOS brand but also gives partner institutions across the country the chance to put their own spin on the program when they implement it in their community.

We also added a mapping function to the redesigned site which allows stories to be tagged by location. This dynamic system plots stories as they are submitted, providing a visualization of the program’s new and expanded reach.

Credits

  • Potion
    Design
  • 201 Created
    Software Development
  • Tenement Museum
    Concept