Mapping—Connecting our Past to our Future

Whose Land? has long been working on an interactive mapping platform to support community archiving. The platform will allow community groups, schools and individuals to preserve their own histories and ultimately to decide which content is publicly accessible and which is protected within their community. The map is still in development but we have a few exciting updates and opportunities to share. First and foremost, we want to thank Wisconsin Humanities for supporting this work.

Wisconsin Humanities awarded Whose Land? a Major Grant in October to support the mapping platform as the next phase of the Northside Milwaukee Community Archives Project. The first phase of the project brought eight Northside Milwaukee neighborhood organizations, local historians, and historical institutions together to build a vision for cross-organizational community archiving in Milwaukee, focusing in particular on Black history in the city. The planning project revealed the need for a digital tool to share resources across projects while protecting their autonomy. 

We’re excited to be collaborating on this project with one of our favorite partners, Metcalfe Park Community Bridges.  To read more about the grant, you can find the official announcement here.

Additional partners working with the mapping prototype include Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) historian Michael Carrier’s community-based learning class and UW-Milwaukee historian Joseph Walzer’s Ethnic Studies class. 

The mapping project is only a tool. Our most important work is done in person and in community. But this platform has the potential to help our partners sustain their local history work and to connect and share resources with other organizations. If you are interested in helping us develop the platform or our other related programs, we are still looking for additional individuals and organizations to participate in the testing process. If there is a community and/or location that you are interested in learning about and documenting—maybe your elementary school grounds, maybe the town you live in, maybe even your own home—email us at info@whoseland.org to learn more and get involved!

To read more about the project, make sure you are following Whose Land? on all platforms and are subscribed to our newsletter. You can also learn more about the mapping platform by keeping up with our 250th project.

Happy Thanksgiving

Before signing off, we at Whose Land? wish a happy holiday to those of you who celebrate.  For reflections on the origin of the holiday, please check out this article from the National Museum of the American Indian on Native Perspectives on Thanksgiving. For some more extensive reading, including videos and classroom exercises to better teach and understand the origin of the national holiday, please click here. We encourage you to enjoy quality time with those you care about the most this week and are, of course, grateful for all of you!

Giving Tuesday

And remember, Giving Tuesday is on Tuesday, December 3rd! This will kick off a month of fundraising for Whose Land? as we work to raise money for our most under-resourced K-12 schools and community organizations to allow them to participate in the 250th project and other programs. To donate and to learn more, click here. 

We always want to hear from you. To get in touch with us, click here.

Thank you for Your Support

Thank you for subscribing to the Whose Land? newsletter. Your support allows Whose Land? to capture histories, produce stories, and facilitate creative, collaborative problem-solving around the legacies of land dispossession. 

Make sure you are subscribed to get the latest news. Missed our most recent newsletters? You can check them out here. Want to interact with Whose Land? on social media? You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. And remember, we want to hear from you! Don’t forget to share ideas and let us know about new partnership opportunities here. 

Whose Land? is a small non-profit organization dependent on grants and donations to stay afloat. All donations go toward Whose Land?’s projects. If you are interested in making a donation, you can do so here!

The Whose Land Team