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Elmira’s True Rival City
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator What town or city would you say is Elmira’s “rival”? You’d probably say Corning, right? Well, if you asked an Elmiran in the 19thand early 20th century, they...
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Frances Squire Potter and The Ballingtons
by Erin Doane, CuratorIn 1905, Little, Brown, and Company published The Ballingtons by Frances Squire Potter. The novel, a tale of love and relationships that dealt heavily with issues of finance and...
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You've Got Mail!
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistNotice anything funny about this envelope? Letter for William Beers, 1862Let me give you a clue: there’s no street address (and no zip code, but that’s another story). How...
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Eclipse Mania: Chemung County’s Moment in the Path of Totality
By Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorOn August 21, 2017, I stood in the parking lot of the museum with my coworkers staring up into the sky. “The Great American Eclipse,” as it was dubbed, was not as...
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A Rambling Man: Rufus Stanley
by Erin Doane, CuratorRufus Stanley moved to Elmira in June, 1886 to work as the Secretary of the Boys Department of the Y.M.C.A. On his first Saturday here, he borrowed a camera and took a hike up...
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Entering the New Digital Age
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistLike historical music? How about old radio broadcasts or oral histories? CCHS has them all. In fact, we have over 300 audio recordings in a number of formats including wax...
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A Universal Language: Volapük in Elmira
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator Can you read the following phrase and figure out what it means? Del binon jönikNo? It’s ok, neither can I nor most people. It’s not from a language that most of...
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Edwin Morris: Chemung County’s Last Civil War Veteran
by Erin Doane, CuratorIn May 1943, Edwin Morris gave the welcome address at the annual Memorial Sunday service of Baldwin Post 6 G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic) at the Centenary Methodist Church in...
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Spanish Flu
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistApparently, this year’s strain of flu is spreading faster than usual. Luckily for me, I’ve always made a point of getting a vaccine since I found out my maternal...
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Bad Meat: Elmira’s Time in "The Jungle"
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator I set out to write this week’s blog post about the history of vegetarianism in Chemung County, but I was having trouble finding a lot of sources that pointed me...
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Knapp School of Music
by Erin Doane, CuratorFor more than 110 years, Knapp School of Music has operated on College Avenue in Elmira. In all that time, the business has only had five different owners: Frederick H. Knapp and...
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Conspiracy in the Underground
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistDuring the 1850s, Elmira was home to a large criminal conspiracy known as the Underground Railroad. Conspirators used codes and railroad terms to describe their routes and...
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One-Room Schoolhouses in Veteran
by Erin Doane, CuratorIn 1876, the Town of Veteran had a population of around 2,300 and it had 15 schools. 15!? To modern eyes, that may seem like a lot, but the majority were small, one-room...
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The Nudes in the Directory
By Kelli Huggins, Education CoordinatorA couple years ago, one of my coworkers stumbled across an advertisement for Van Patten Plumbing and Heating Co. in a 1930s Elmira City Directory featuring a nude...
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A Cure for Criminality
By Rachel Dworkin, ArchivistThe Elmira Reformatory, opened in 1876, was founded based on the premise that criminality was a disease which could be cured through mental, moral, and manual training....
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Stormy Weather
by Erin Doane, CuratorThis winter, the region has been hit by wave after wave of winter storms. Elmira has been spared the worst of it (so far), but Chemung County has been hit by quite a few major...
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The Clown in the Free Ground
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator A homemade grave marker in the free groundOur 2016 Woodlawn Cemetery Ghost Walk ended in a little-known part of the cemetery: the free ground or Potter’s Field....
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Operation High Jump and the Very Cold War
By Rachel Dworkin, archivistOn August 26, 1946, Elmiran Richard A. Johnson sailed off to war. Again. Johnson had already fought in the Pacific with the Navy during World War II, but now he would be...
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At the Bur-le-que: Burlesque Shows in Elmira
by Erin Doane, CuratorBurlesque shows were a popular form of entertainment during the late 19th and early 20thcenturies. Today, people may think of burlesque as a glorified striptease but the shows...
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Vintage Viagra
By Kelli Huggins, Education Coordinator Elmira Daily Gazette and Free Press, December 31, 1894Newspapers from the late 19thcentury are full of advertisements for cures for a variety of “manhood”...
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