A Big Change Coming in the New Year

by Erin Doane, Curator

Nearly fifteen years ago the exhibit A Community Album opened here in the Museum’s main gallery. While the exhibit has seen updates over the years with additions of some new and different objects it is certainly time for a change.  With the generous support of the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes, Inc., that major change is about to take place.

A Community Album - on display through December

Over the past year we have been collecting information to help us redesign the gallery. (See how we collected some of that information here.)  We learned about what visitors like and don’t like in the current exhibit and about what they want to know more about.  Some of the old favorites will remain – everyone loves the tusk! – but the gallery will have an entirely different look when it reopens in early 2014.  The new exhibit will tell a general history of Chemung County from its earliest settlement to the end of the 20^th century.  We look forward to adding more personal quotes from those who actually lived the history and to offering more opportunities for visitors to interact with the history.  The portion of the exhibit dedicated to Mark Twain will be expanded slightly and will focus on the places and people he knew in Elmira. 

Mark Twain in A Community Album

We will be closing A Community Album to the public at the end of December in order to make these big changes.  The new exhibit will be unveiled just a couple short months later at an exclusive members only event.  If you are not already a member of CCHS this is the perfect time to join and be one of the first to see this new exhibit.

Don’t worry that there will be nothing else to see at the museum in January and February while this one gallery is closed.  ‘Til Death Do Us Part: Wedding and Funeral Traditions in Chemung County will still be on display in the Brick Barn Gallery and Civil War in the Attic: A Showcase of Local Civil War Collectors remains in the Howell Gallery.  In addition, we will be opening our newest exhibit Elmira Will See it Through! WWI Fundraising Posters in early January.

'Til Death Do Us Part and Civil War in the Attic

So, visit the Museum for one last look at A Community Album before the end of the year and then come back again and see what has changed in early spring 2014.