Behind the Scenes

 By Monica Groth, Curator

 

This year, the Chemung County Historical Society celebrates its 100^th anniversary. To kick off our commemorative year, we’ve opened the exhibit It’s About Time: Celebrating 100 Years of the Chemung County Historical Society.

This exhibit is truly special – it gives you, the viewer, a behind the scenes look into the sort of work the Historical Society does. What is it we’re up to all day? What’s the point of having us around? It also features some great objects, specifically a 1923 American LaFrance Brockway Torpedo Fire Engine, and photos and documents discovered in our institutional archives and displayed for the first time.

The gallery being prepared for installation

The exhibit endeavors to answer questions people might have about the purpose of a historical society:

How do we add new items to the collection?

·        Well, donated items are assigned special numbers, known as accession numbers, when they are accepted into our collection. In the exhibit, you can see examples of how we write that number on different materials – fabric, paper, earrings made of human hair…

How do we take care of the collection?

·        Keeping stuff in good shape for over a hundred years is no mean feat. In this section of the exhibit, we’ll explain how materials break down as they age. Temperature and humidity must be kept in check in all storage areas and galleries to prevent chemical reactions or mold growth from occurring. Check out the equipment we use to monitor the climate in our collections. Look through a microscope at an example of mold that can damage historic items. Check out the magnified verdigris forming on a 150-year-old mechanical pencil, and watch as light causes a modern newspaper to fade over time.

This case highlights how different materials, including wood, metal, glass, and cotton age.

A magnified view of the common mold of the genus Aspergillus seen through a microscope lens. Molds can cause great damage to museum collections if relative humidity (average moisture in the air) is not kept between 30-55%

How do we design exhibits?

·        It’s been a unique experience for me, the curator, to install an exhibit about exhibits. Exhibitions are planned months in advance and require the help of many collaborators. There are always engineering projects that I encounter when installing an exhibition. For example, the image below showcases a stained-glass window lit from behind by an array of lights constructed specifically for this display (many thanks to volunteer Kevin Wechtaluk for assisting me with its creation)!

These three objects simplify the exhibit process from research to completion

How do we recover from disaster?

·        Following the flood of 1972, nearly 60% of the Society’s library was damaged (or outright lost). Volunteers painstakingly worked to rescue items, freezing a lot of archival documents to slow their deterioration. Many items in our collection still bear signs of flood damage. Interestingly, a lot of our donation records were destroyed in the flood. When going through the institutional archives in researching this exhibit, we found far fewer records before that fateful year. On display, you can check out a severely waterlogged and muddy visitor register kept at the Museum (then located at 304 Williams St.) at the time of the flood.

 How do we help researchers?

·        As a society, we want to make our county’s history accessible to anyone interested in learning about it. Our Booth Library, named for our founder Arthur Booth (whose 1928 wool suit is also on display in the gallery), is open to researchers interested in looking through the maps, letters, books, and documents which comprise an archive of over 100,000 items.

Archivist Rachel Dworkin by the Library's shelf of Elmira City Directories

 How do we teach local history?

·        Since the society opened its first public museum in 1954, students have been welcomed into the Museum. Many county residents will recall their elementary school trips inside our doors to this day. Be sure to see our Educator Susan Zehnder’s June 12^th blog featuring our most recent visitors. Beyond school programs, we’ve hosted excursions to historic sites around the country (including up the Mississippi River), created escape rooms, and organized antique shows. Of course, our ever-popular GhostWalk remains a favorite October event. This year, we’ve invited you all to our Birthday Party on August 26, 2023!

 How else do we share stories?

·        How do we reach out to people who can’t visit the Museum? Well…this blog is one example of our growing reach! Since our first Journal was published in 1955, we’ve created a lot of literature from which people can learn. The internet allows us to reach a worldwide audience today and we hope you continue to keep up with us here on our blog and across our social medias!

 Whose history do we tell?

·        As a society which preserves our county’s history, it’s important to ensure we are including the stories of all. For example, our Black Oral History Project highlights black voices in Chemung County, our new gallery guide pamphlet series leads visitors through the museum by focusing on different perspectives, and our Heritage Exhibit Series focuses on the history of a different immigrant community every 6 months.

 

We also include Native American perspectives; this pair of beaded moccasins on display was made by the Seneca

Faces of Chemung County

by Monica Groth, Curator

The display surrounding Julia Stancliff Reynolds,
one of nine individuals featured in our newest exhibit

The Museum’s upcoming exhibit Faces of Chemung County features the portraits of nine distinct individuals. Each face has a unique past and story, and this exhibit invites you to step into the frame. A deeper look into the lives of those depicted reveals that in addition to great differences, our characters also share similarities across time and space. Viewing them side by side helps the visitor compare their contexts and contemplate the lives they lived in relation to each other – human lives filled with the same heartbreak, sacrifice, and perseverance present throughout all of history.

Julia Renolds (left) and Rachel Gleason (right):
notice their difference in dress as well as frame

Julia Reynolds (1836-1916) and Rachel Gleason (1820-1905) both led long lives. As women born in the early nineteenth century, they were subjected to many societal expectations –including the expectation to marry. Julia, born an Eldridge, married twice, experiencing a heartbreaking widowhood followed by a bitter separation from her second husband. She then lived independently abroad and in New York City for the last twenty-five years of her life. Julia was a wealthy woman and readers may remember that her mansion, nicknamed "Fascination" was mentioned in a previous blog of mine.  

Rachel’s husband, Silas, supported her desire to become a physician and encouraged her interest in medicine. Rachel became one of the first women in the United States to receive a medical degree, graduating from Central Medical College in Rochester, NY in 1851. Rachel knew that women not only experienced discrimination in what careers were open to them, but were also deprived of sound medical care. At the time, male doctors dismissed women as hysteric patients and many considered it “indecorous” to discuss female health problems. Rachel therefore specialized in treating women and educating them about their health. She lectured often and promoted her book Talks to my Patients, in which she wrote candidly about women’s health topics. She worked with Silas at Elmira’s Water Cure, established on the city’s East Hill in 1852, and even delivered Samuel Clemens’ (Mark Twain’s) daughters, being Livy Clemens’ personal physician. Both Julia and Rachel lived through Elmira’s Gilded Age, Rachel defying expectations on the city’s East Hill in order to reach success, and Julia fulfilling the responsibilities of a wealthy hostess downtown only to find it very lonely indeed.

Isaac Baldwin (left), Thomas Kane (middle), Colonel Liscum (right)

Beside each other in the exhibit are a young lad and an old gentleman – a 150 year old rocking horse, bedecked in a fine small saddle and bridle, within a few feet of a saddle blanket actually used in combat. Colonel Emerson Liscum (1841-1900), the owner of that saddle, died whilst leading a charge on the walled city of Tien-Tsin, China during the Boxer Rebellion. A career soldier who enlisted in the Union Army at only 19 years old, Emerson married Elmiran May Diven after the Civil War ended. May received a sorrowful letter accompanying the saddle blanket now in the Historical Society’s collection, expressing condolences over the loss of her husband. Known as Old White Whiskers, Liscum’s last words “Keep up the fire” became the motto of the 9^th US Infantry he commanded, and a monument and ornate silver bowl were commissioned in his honor. 

Young Isaac Baldwin (1869-1949), likely the proud rider of a rocking horse similar to that one on display, is only nine years old in his portrait. His childhood was comfortable, as his father was a wealthy real-estate mogul, and it is memorialized in the exhibit through toys from the 1870s-1880s. Among Baldwin’s associated objects are a toy cannon and game pieces from a political board game, reminding viewers of the irony of children playing at war and politics when soldiers like Liscum were in the midst of very real conflicts. 

Another veteran in this exhibit enlisted eighty years after Liscum at nearly the same age. Elmiran Pvt. Thomas Kane (1923-1978) was 20 years old when he joined up in WWII. USO artist Freda Reiter captured his likeness in a sketch while he was convalescing in a French military hospital a year later. His portrait, in between the innocent youth and the battle-hardened soldier, gives one a look into the eyes of a young man experiencing the trials of a very different war. Happily, Pvt. Kane survived his wounds and went on to a very successful career in the Postal Service.

Reverend Henry Hubbard (left); Harry York Iszard (right)

Kane may have known two figures who now make their entrances – Harry York Iszard (1893-1971) and Reverend Hubbard (1873-1957). The portraits of these two men were painted within two years of each other, the Reverend’s in 1953 and Harry’s in 1955. The 50’s were a time of great post-war growth in Chemung County, as citizens across the country recovered from the war. Harry Iszard inherited S.F. Iszard’s Department store upon his father’s death. He opened a new branch in the Arnot Mall and sponsored the annual holiday parade to increase business, a tradition which continues to this day. Hubbard served as rector of Trinity Episcopal Church from 1917-1953, retiring the year this portrait was painted. Archival documents reveal his congregation was very grateful for his leadership during both World Wars, and that he was a champion of programs for young people. Though one served the material needs of the community and the other its spiritual, these two be-speckled gentlemen had a great impact on their community.

Native American Woman tentatively identified as Sha-ko-ka of the Mandan tribe (left);
Black Woman tentatively identified as a member of the Williams and Underwood families (right)

It is equally important to draw attention to those individuals who are not always remembered by history – those who do not come from privileged backgrounds and are marginalized due to gender and race. The identities of two individuals in this exhibit have been lost to history. The first portrait is of a Native American Woman. Her portrait is thought to have been painted by the prolific western artist George Catlin. From 1830-1838 Catlin toured the native tribes of the American West, creating a portrait gallery.  In traveling up the Missouri River around his final years of work, he encountered the Mandan tribe of the Heart River area of North Dakota. There he painted a young woman named “Mint”, or Sha-ko-ka in her native language. This young woman bears some resemblance to the subject of the portrait we are now displaying and may be a rendition of her in different dress. Sha-ko-ka, like many Native Americans in the early 19^th century, were wrongly viewed as exotic people part of a romanticized past rather than as individuals with rights. Continued Westward Expansion, of which Colonel Liscum was later a part, pushed Mandan people from their ancestral lands and afflicted many with smallpox and disease. 

Another unidentified portrait in our collection is that of an African American woman, tentatively identified as Elmer Underwood’s mother and a member of the Williams extended family. The Black community in Chemung County faced much discrimination in housing, education, and employment throughout the late 1800s, the approximate date of this portrait. Yet, many political action groups fought against this injustice, including Colored Citizens of Elmira and the Elmira chapter of the NAACP. Five members of the Williams family were founding members of the city’s chapter of the NAACP, created in 1942, and worked to advance the status of the county's Black community. 

History is filled with unrecorded stories and the circumstances and biases which prioritize some lives whilst relegating others to footnotes. Both of these women’s portraits reveal unrecorded lives we must recognize in telling the county’s story and highlight our mission to turn historical omissions into learning experiences.

Faces of Chemung County is currently being installed. Visit the Museum to view the objects which accompany these portraits and see if you can identify more similarities and differences among them.

Curating Chemung County's Cool Collection

 By Monica Groth, Curator

The job of a Museum Curator is to safely handle, document, and house an institution’s object collection and design exhibits through which those objects can educate and inspire visitors. I am extremely excited to be joining the dedicated staff at the Chemung County Historical Society as I fulfill this role and I write now to introduce myself to you all!

I come to Chemung County from Aurora, New York, a small village in Cayuga County where I spent my summers finding shards of pottery, rusty nails, and fossils in the lake, gorges, and cemetery by my home. Many years ago, while thinking myself a true archaeologist and with treasures in hand, I visited my local Historical Society at a young age to proudly present my finds. This is when I discovered the purpose and promise of Historical Societies and Museums: to preserve the history of our lives and our homes—the everyday and the unique things that make us who we are and our county what it is to us.

One of my main tasks here at the Museum has been processing new donations whilst exploring the Museum collections. In doing this work I’ve discovered that much of the collection was donated by people very like the younger me. A 16-pound Civil War cannonball donated by Thomas Mallow was found by his father, Glenn Mallow Jr., while digging a WWII victory garden on the site of the Prison Camp. An Eagle Bottling Works Bottle, donated by Elaine Harrington, actually dates to the 1880’s and bears a newspaper clipping suggesting it was unearthed by a curious boy in the town of Chemung.

The donors to our Museum have given many fascinating objects that memorialize the lived experiences of themselves, their families, and their homes. Anne Beattie donated the clothes her parents wore on their wedding in 1939. Larry Bowman donated a collection of gifts received from Horsehead’s sister-city, Bato-Machi, Japan by the 1993 delegation. Betty Clauss donated her husband’s 1960-1964 US Air Force Uniform.

All these donations and more help the Historical Society fulfill its mission, and those donated in 2021 will be on display in the “New to the Vault” exhibit this summer!

A peek into the diverse collections: telephones, typewriters, assorted ladies' fan, shoes, and hats!

I love working as a curator because it allows me to get up close with these historical artifacts and the stories surrounding them. Before working here in Chemung County, I studied at the Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut and the National Museum of Bermuda. Some of the coolest maritime objects I studied at these Museums include a whaling harpoon-gun, used on the island of Bermuda; a 200-yr-old figurehead, once mounted on the bow of a ship; and a barometer which used shark liver oil to predict the weather!

I am looking forward to the many interesting objects and stories I’ll be showcasing here at the Chemung Valley History Museum. Visitors are always welcome and I’m eager to meet the community whose stories I’m now privileged to know. Keep exploring. And if you are willing to donate, come on down to the History Museum and add to the amazing collection!

This exhibit case, the newest addition to the Mark Twain's Elmira exhibit, features Mark Twain's quill pen, an c.1890 inkwell, and his thoughts on the area in his own words

People Actually Do That?

by Erin Doane, curator

Someone once asked me what I did as a curator. I gave the short answer that I create exhibits in a history museum. The person looked at me incredulously and said, “I didn’t know people actually did that.” My immediate thought was sarcastic. No, people don’t create exhibits. If you believe in history hard enough, exhibits just appear in museums. My actual reply was that yes, I made exhibits and I really enjoyed doing it.

Just this past Friday, we finished the installation of our newest exhibit Clean, which examines what cleanliness is on physical, social, and spiritual levels and how people work to become clean. I say “we” finished it because this exhibit, like all of them at the museum, was very much a group effort. I head the exhibit team that includes our education coordinator Kelli and archivist Rachel. We work together to create educational, entertaining, interactive exhibits. And I think we do a great job.

Our newest exhibit: Clean

So, how exactly is an exhibit created? The first step is picking a topic. Some exhibits are based on the types of objects that are in the museum’s collection. A couple years ago we did an exhibit on wedding traditions because we have a good collection of wedding-related objects. We also did an exhibit on World War I posters because we have so many wonderful examples in the archives. Other exhibits start with an idea and then we work out what to put on display from there. Clean is a good example of this.  We usually have our exhibit topics selected at least a year from the opening date. (We are always looking for suggestions of what people would like to see so if you have an idea, let us know!)

A view of 'Til Death Do Us Part - a previous exhibit on wedding traditions

Once we pick a topic, we start researching and writing. We split up this task among the three of us on the exhibit team. There are usually around 9 to 12 main text panels exploring different aspects of the topic. Each panel has up to 100 words each. After conducting hours of research, it can be a real challenge to boil all that information down to just 100 words but years of experience have made it a fairly painless process. Once we’ve all done our individual research and writing we get together to review and edit the text. This can be a harrowing process at times but better text is always the end result.

Text panel from Parks and Recreation

Once the main text is written a lot of things start happening all at once. We decide on the general style of the exhibit panels and I work on graphic design. Kelli designs and creates hands-on interactives for the exhibit. Rachel selects photographs and archival documents that will go on display while I select three-dimensional objects. I also work on the floor plan – where all the text panels, display cases, and interactives will go in the gallery. My favorite way to do this is with graph paper. I have scale drawings of all the galleries and little cutouts of display cases and other exhibit furniture. Moving things around on paper is a lot easier than moving them around in real life. I sometimes even dabble in Google SketchUp to get a 3-D view of my layout.

The Howell Gallery in SketchUp

Almost two years ago, we go a large scale printer through a grant from the Community Foundation of Elmira-Corning and the Finger Lakes. I love that printer! We can now produce our own graphics in-house. We can print up to 48” wide on various types of paper including satin photo paper and self-adhesive polypropylene. This has really streamlined the exhibit process. We no longer have to wait on graphics printed by an outside company and if I notice a typo that somehow slipped through our review I can instantly make a reprint. I have actually become quite adept at adhering large graphics onto foam board for display.

An example of a large (32"x60") text panel printed and mounted in-house

After months and months of planning, it’s finally time to install the exhibit. An installation usually takes one very long week to complete. It’s a tiring process to get everything precisely in place and ready for the public but I love doing it (despite the multiple bruises I get along the way). There is something very rewarding about pulling an idea out of the air and making it into a concrete visual experience. Creating exhibits is by far one of my favorite duties as a curator.

Housework-related artifacts in Clean

If anyone is interested in all the other stuff I do on a day-to-day basis as a curator, check out A Curator’s Day on tumblr.