The Tenement Museum is a nonprofit cultural institution that welcomes visitors into the historically recreated homes of immigrants, migrants, and refugees who lived in New York City between the 1860s and the 1980s.
In the museum’s two historic tenements, teachers and students can explore the homes of diverse families with roots all over the world. The museum shares their stories to inspire connections between the past and the present and to build a more inclusive and expansive American society. The museum’s newest initiative allows students to visit the recreated apartments virtually.
The Tenement Museum’s exhibit Your Story, Our Story highlights stories of immigration, migration, and cultural identity, past and present, through objects and traditions. Each story reveals one individual’s experience. With Your Story, Our Story, the museum invites people across the country to share their stories in the museum’s online digital storytelling exhibit.
Your Story, Our Story can make history relevant and personal for students, bringing their own identities and experiences into the classroom. Teachers can use the site to explore common themes in immigration and migration stories. They can have students conduct research, write, and publish their own stories, and/or create a classroom exhibit. The Your Story, Our Story resources page includes educator guides and lesson plans.
Together, Your Story, Our Story and the virtual field trip offer students a chance to become historians and connect their experiences to others, to better understand the role of ordinary people in shaping our past, present, and future.