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200 Years in Time: The Lowman Family Clock
by Erin Doane, CuratorFor over two hundred years, the clock that now lives on the first floor of the museum near the admissions desk has ticked away the seconds of history. George Lauman acquired the...
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Well Done Sister Suffragettes
By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist2017 is the 100thanniversary of the passage of women’s suffrage in New York. It was passed as a ballot initiative on election day, November 6, 1917. It was the second time...
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A Real Dog and Pony Show
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator Whenever you call something a “dog and pony show” today, you’re probably not referencing a literal dog and pony show. But travel back in time a mere 1o0 years or...
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Dr. Truman H. Squire: Civil War Surgeon
by Erin Doane, CuratorThe Battle of Antietam took place on September 17, 1862. It is considered the bloodiest one-day battle of the Civil War with approximately 3,650 men killed and over 17,000...
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Marriage Search
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistYour ancestors were probably married but, if they did it in New York before 1880, you’re going to have a hard time proving it. New York State began statewide registration of...
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Interview with the Mammoth
By Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorHave you met our sixth staff member yet? The small, fuzzy, prehistoric, supposed-to-be-extinct one? I’m talking about our museum mascot, Mark the Mammoth. You can...
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Breaking the Law on Two Wheels
by Erin Doane, CuratorIn 1900, Elmira police made 1,438 arrests. The top three criminal offenses for which people were arrested were intoxication, vagrancy, and violating bicycle ordinance. 107 people...
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Birth of a Nation
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistD.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915) played an important role in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1910s and 20s. Based off of the 1905 novel The...
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Read All About It: The Elmira Newsboys Club
You probably know that September 4 is Labor Day this year, but did you know that it is also Newspaper Carrier Day? No? Well, now you do! This fact made me recall this great photograph in our...
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Fawn: An Excellent Sparkling Beverage
by Erin Doane, CuratorMany who grew up in this area remember Fawn sodas. Fawn Beverages operated as a company in Elmira Heights for forty years, producing a wide variety of fizzy soft drinks in bottles...
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Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight
by Rachel Dworkin, archivistBy the time March of 1863 rolled around, the American Civil War, a war which most had assumed would be over by Christmas, had been going on for nearly two years. At the...
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Gold Fever: Elmirans in the Klondike Gold Rush
By Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorThe California Gold Rush of 1849 gets more attention, but I personally find the Klondike Gold Rush a few decades later much more interesting. In August 1896,...
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Murder at the Glen
by Erin Doane, CuratorSometime ago, I came across a tale of murder told by Ausburn Towner in his history, Our County and Its People. While Towner was writing in the early 1890s, the story was from some...
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Just Phoning It In
By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist“What hath God wrought” were the first words transmitted across American telegraph lines in 1844. Twenty-two years later, the first words clearly transmitted across American...
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The Woman Candidate: Chemung County’s First Female Politicians
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator The other day, our curator Erin Doane commented how she always liked the photograph below, which depicts the 1920-1921 Chemung County Board of Supervisors. We...
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Just Passing Through: Eddie Bald in Elmira
by Erin Doane, CuratorUsually, we tell stories here of people who lived in the county or had some significant influence on the area. Every once in a while, however, we tell about those who just passed...
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Playing for the Company Team
by Rachel Dworkin, archivistLately a number of Silicon Valley tech companies have made a name for themselves offering gaming opportunities as one of the perks of working for them. When companies have...
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Death Rays: The Local X-Ray Murder Trial That Made International News
By Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorEarlier this year, I wrote a longer paper for the Empire State Library Network’s Researching the Empire State contest about a sensational local murder trial. You...
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Commemorative Quilts
by Erin Doane, curatorQuilts keep people warm and beautify their homes. They can also commemorate events. CCHS has a wonderful collection of quilts made to mark various happenings including weddings,...
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The Anchorage
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistOn May 4, 1890, Lillian became the first ward of the Anchorage. At age 18, she had been arrested for licentious behavior and spent a little under a year confined there....
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