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Keep the Home Fires Burning
by Rachel Dworkin, archivist One day in November 1915, Lena Gilbert Brown Ford received a phone call from the young composer Ivor Novello at her London home. World War I was raging across...
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The Philo National Poultry Institute and the Business of Birds
by Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorAs early as 1887, Edgar Woodruffe Philo attracted attention for his innovations in poultry keeping. That year the Troy Daily Times of Troy, NY reported that Philo...
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Remington Typewriters: "To Save Time is to Lengthen Life"
by Erin Doane, curatorThere is a lot of history in old typewriters. CCHS has a collection of nearly a dozen Remington typewriters spanning nearly three-quarters of a century of history. Remington...
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Convention City
by Rachel Dworkin, archivist From Sunday through Tuesday, my co-workers and I will be attending the Museum Association of New York annual conference in Corning. There we will attend (and...
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CCHS at the Museum Association of New York Conference
by Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorLast Sunday-Tuesday (April 12-14), most of the CCHS staff attended the annual Museum Association of New York (MANY) conference, held in Corning this year. In...
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Time Well Spent
by Emily Weise, Elmira College internDuring my time here at the Chemung County Historical Society, I have been lucky enough to experience a subject I truly love, but also to work with people I admire....
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The Ancient Order of Flat Tires
by Erin Doane, curatorThe archives here at CCHS are a treasure-trove of information. Every file, every box, is filled with information about Chemung County. For this blog post, I decided to just dive...
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Let There Be Light
by Rachel Dworkin, archivist Last week we replaced all the light bulbs in our galleries with new LED lights. It took us a good 4 hours of me up a ladder, but supposedly they last for years...
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Charles Bradley: Chemung County's (and the World's?) Tallest Man
by Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorAwhile ago, faithful CCHS volunteer Kristen (you can read about her awesome work here) told me about something interesting she found while working with our...
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Saving for the Future
by Erin Doane, curatorThe building that now houses the Chemung County Historical Society was once the original Chemung Canal bank. It opened in 1834 as the first bank in Elmira. Amman Beardsley...
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The Students Tell All
by the Elmira College "Doing Public History" ClassTime flew over our six weeks taking the course and our four weeks here at the museum. At the beginning of this experience, many of us were uncertain of...
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Make a Teen Movie!
by Linda Norris, museum consultantAre you a teenager (or know one) who’s interested in video production and/or history? This summer, CCHS is offering a great weekend opportunity to learn about video...
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A Man A Plan A Canal Panama
by Rachel Dworkin, archivist In 1907, Moses Goldstein got bored. The 22-year-old Elmiran was an active man, an athlete, who played football, boxed and was a member of the Kanaweola Bicycle...
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Gangs and Juvenile Delinquency in Elmira Parks in the Early 20th Century
by Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator"Kids these days are so violent/rude/illiterate/destructive/terrible!" “Things were so much better in the past than they are today.” As historians (and just in...
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Lubricators and Puns
by Erin Doane, curatorThe other day I came across an odd item in collections storage. That in itself is not unusual. With over 20,000 historic objects here at the museum, I’m bound to find things I...
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Farewell Archie Kieffer
by Rachel Dworkin, archivistBack when I first started working here, County Historian Archie Kieffer was the only man in an office full of women. None of us ladies were locals so any time we had a...
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Chemung County's Famous Train and Trolley-Riding Dogs
by Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorI spent part of this last week putting together a conference proposal about Railroad Jack, a train-riding dog based out of Albany, NY, who was nationally famous...
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How Did a Lake Disappear?
by Erin Doane, CuratorOn the morning of April 7, 1990, the Chemung County Sheriff’s Department received an odd telephone call. They were told that the lake behind the Sullivanville Dam had disappeared....
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Sue Your Way to Freedom
by Rachel Dworkin, archivistWhen the Fugitive Slave Act was signed into law in 1850 it angered many northerners. The law required that all law enforcement officials throughout the country (even in...
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That Time Theodore Roosevelt was Assaulted in Elmira
By Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorOn October 29, 1900, then New York State Governor Theodore Roosevelt was in Elmira on a stop on his Vice Presidential campaign. Roosevelt was the running mate of...
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