Important and unique historical collections in the Chicago area are being made more widely accessible to researchers through UNCAP, the Uncovering Chicago Archives Project. UNCAP brings new visibility to archival collections held by a collaborative group of Chicago institutions: the Chicago Defender newspaper, the DuSable Museum of African-American History, the Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and Literature of the Chicago Public Library, Northwestern University, the South Side Community Art Center, and the University of Chicago.
UNCAP's unique institutional collaboration provides open public access to online finding aids for hundreds of archival collections documenting a wide range of topics, time periods, and geographical areas. Researchers can find primary archival sources on African American history and culture, theater, jazz, urban sociology, journalism, Native Americans, modern poetry, anthropology, African studies, literature, criminology and legal studies, art and photography, medical history, and the Manhattan Project, among many other subjects.
UNCAP builds and expands upon Mapping the Stacks, an archival project launched in 2005 by Jacqueline Goldsby, then Associate Professor in English Language & Literature and the College of the University of Chicago. In January 2007, Mapping the Stacks became part of UNCAP, which was funded through September 2010 by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Expansion and enhancement of the UNCAP website and database are being made possible through the joint efforts of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.