Penn & Slavery Project's Augmented Reality Tour: Augmenting a Campus to Reveal a Hidden History

TL;DR

The Penn & Slavery Project developed an augmented reality tour to reveal and educate about the university's historical ties to slavery and ongoing inequalities, engaging the community in confronting historical injustices.

Contribution

This study introduces an augmented reality application to visualize Penn's history related to slavery and inequality, expanding traditional historical outreach methods.

Findings

Successfully designed an AR tour to educate about Penn's slavery history

Engaged community and activists through digital historical outreach

Faced and overcame delays caused by COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In 2006 and 2016, the University of Pennsylvania denied any ties to slavery. In 2017, a group of undergraduate researchers, led by Professor Kathleen Brown, investigated this claim. Initial research, focused on 18th century faculty and trustees who owned slaves, revealed deep connections between the university's history and the institution of slavery. These findings, and discussions amongst the researchers shaped the Penn and Slavery Project's goal of redefining complicity beyond ownership. Breanna Moore's contributions in PSP's second semester expanded the project's focus to include generational wealth gaps. In 2018, VanJessica Gladney served as the PSP's Public History Fellow and spread the project outreach in the greater Philadelphia area. That year, the PSP team began to design an augmented reality app as a Digital Interruption and an attempt to display the truth about Penn's history on its campus. Unfortunately, PSP faced delays due to COVID 19. Despite setbacks, the project persisted, engaging with activists and the wider community to confront historical injustices and modern inequalities.