People have been recording scenes and events with hand-held cameras since the 1920s, leaving to posterity reels of "home movies" that offer a wealth of information about twentieth century American life. The Home Movie Archive at the University of Massachusetts Lowell was established to save these home movies for use by historians, artists, documentarians, students, and others, allowing them to access this largely untapped resource for their work.
The UMass Lowell Home Movie Archive houses home movies from over 100+ families from the Merrimack Valley or UMass Lowell community. Original 8mm and 16mm film footage has been converted to digital .mov video files as well as DVD.
The DVDs may be viewed onsite by making arrangements with the Center for Lowell History.
[Please NOTE: The Archives are no longer accepting new material. However, the complete Home Movie Archive is available and searchable online].
