About Your Story, Our Story Contributions
Your Story, Our Story is only possible because of our contributors. All stories submitted to this website will be moderated and approved by Tenement Museum staff. Submissions will not be edited for content. Submissions containing intolerant or hateful language or content will not be approved.
Your submission to Your Story, Our Story becomes part of the Tenement Museum’s digital exhibit, which will be archived in the Museum’s permanent digital collection. Tenement Museum staff will organize related stories and connect them to wider stories about American history, migration, and identity. You connect your story to others’ by choosing tags, and your story may also be tagged with a particular theme, time period, country, or object type, and may be featured in collections of stories on similar themes and patterns.
At a Glance:
- Your story will be published on the website and is part of the Tenement Museum digital collection. The Tenement Museum tags and connects stories that have similarities, and contributors also can tag their story.
- You keep the rights to your story and photograph when it is published.
- You can decide privacy permissions for your story.
- At any time, you can have your story removed from the website.
- Write to [email protected] with any questions or ideas.
Privacy and Intellectual Rights for Your Story, Our Story
We are committed to protecting the privacy of our contributors. When submitting a story to this website, only include information that you (or the original author) is comfortable sharing with the public. When you upload a story, you will have the opportunity to select options that control privacy and sharing, and you retain the copyright to your story and photograph. Stories may be submitted anonymously, and names may be abbreviated or removed from stories containing sensitive personal information. Entries will be digitally preserved by the Tenement Museum. At any time you can change your privacy preferences, or have your story edited, made anonymous, or removed from the collection by contacting us at [email protected].
Information that we Archive
Your Story, Our Story archives what you share with us in the Tenement Museum’s digital collection. This archiving is for museum purposes and will not be accessed or shared without permission. At any time you can write to [email protected] to request that we remove your story from the collection.
How we use your information
- Story, photographs, audio: Photographs of objects may be used in marketing materials, but we do not use or share any part of your story without your permission. If you grant permission to share your story, we will notify you if it will be shared on our social media or on a Tenement Museum tour.
- Email address: Your Story, Our Story staff may write to you to say hello, give you information about the project and its changes, notify you that your story will be shared, or ask a question about your story. We do not sell or share your email address with any third party.
- Zip code: we only use zip codes to put your story on the map feature of the website.
How we may share your information
We share Your Story, Our Story entries so that others can learn about the range of personal migration stories within our country, about the complexity of Americans’ cultural identities, and how personal experiences help us understand bigger patterns in history. Your story has the power to teach others, and to show how everyone’s story matters.
We only share information with your permission. When submitting a story, you decide to approve the sharing of your story.
If you approve your story being shared, here is how we may share it:
In a featured collection: Your Story, Our Story connects stories to broader themes and questions in the exploration of United States history and American identity. We create featured collections of stories, and yours could be chosen to be included in a collection. Your story would then be linked to others and visible on the first page of the website. For an example of how a story is shared in a collection, click here.
On social media: Your Story, Our Story entries are shared on the social media through the Tenement Museum and our partners, to connect to wider audiences and share the importance of everyone’s story. We share direct quotes and photographs, but never photographs of story authors. For an example of how a story is shared on social media, click here.
On a Tenement Museum tour: The Tenement Museum is located in two historic tenement buildings on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and the museum is only accessible through a guided tour of recreated family apartments. During these tours, our guides occasionally selected share entries from Your Story, Our Story, with author permission, to help visitors make connections between people past and present. For a video example of how a story would be shared on a tour, click here.