Part of History

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

Can you identify this century old artifact from the CCHS collection?

It’s one of the objects I asked nine year old students to think about during this year’s Summer Cohesion Program from the Chemung County Youth Bureau. CCHS has participated in this program for several years, and though it had to go strictly online in summer of 2020, instead of bringing students to the museum, the Summer Cohesion staff were determined to carry on. We were proud to be involved, and we congratulate the program staff on receiving the Program of Merit Award by the Genesee Valley Recreation & Parks Society, and the Program of Merit by the New York State Recreation & Park Society.

Thankfully, this year’s visits resumed in person. However, instead of field trips out in the community, students stayed put and we visited them. To do this, I created a portable museum complete with artifacts, and an activity.

Sitting in a circle, the students put on curator’s gloves and passed around the mystery artifact. Its function isn’t obvious, and I asked them to share what they noticed about it. I wanted them to comment on things like the object's size, texture, weight, and materials - not what they thought it was. This exercise helps them look a little longer and avoid making conclusions or assumptions about an object. In the end, all the students were surprised when I revealed that the object was placed in a fire to absorb heat and used to keep people’s beds warm in the wintertime.

Then I shared another artifact - a diary written in the fall of 1918 by Clara Gilbert, a fourteen-year-old girl from Elmira.

Students talked about what a diary is and why people might keep a journal or diary.

If you follow our blogs, you’ll know in March 2020, when COVID-19 first started to shut down schools and businesses, our archivist shared some of Clara Gilbert’s diary entries in a post titled The First Quarantine. Clara writes about her school being closed, events cancelled, and having to stay home. She shares her excitement about school cancellation, then her boredom at home, then the strangeness of returning to school at last. Students talked about how Clara described much that was familiar to them, while other aspects of the time were very different.

Each student then received their own diary to keep and the students broke up into groups to interview each other. The idea was to come up with questions Clara might ask if she time-traveled to 2021. What would seem familiar to her and what would seem different. Students recorded their questions and answers to each other on small voice recorders which we purchased from a QuickArts grant for this project. (Parents gave us permission ahead of time to save student answers and images.)

Some students were surprised that someone from a century ago went through experiences similar to theirs. When they talked about their own experiences with the pandemic, many talked about how hard it was to wear masks. Some mentioned how much they missed their best friends and teachers when school went online. Others mentioned how their computers kept breaking which made learning online even harder for them. Some talked about how they got to play with their sister, brother or best friend.

My hope is that these students gained an inkling of their own place in history, although that isn’t something a nine-year-old is likely to articulate. I was delighted, though, that one student said she enjoyed the history program because through it she got to know her classmates better.

Spirits of the season...

By Susan Zehnder, Education Director.

For those of you able to make this year’s historic Ghost Walk, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. This was the 14^th year in a row the Chemung County Historical Society, the Friends of Woodlawn, Inc., and Elmira Little Theatre have offered a historic Ghost Walk at Woodlawn Cemetery. We worked with the Health Department to offer a safe experience for all and we know we had to turn away disappointed people when we sold all our tickets in record time. We were thrilled to be approved to offer this popular event despite things being so different right now. 

 

Alice Shaw, Lucius Robinson, Isaac R. Taylor

This year's version was different. For the first time, visitors began and ended their evenings entirely at the cemetery. 

Socially distant gathering

Masked guides from Friends of Woodlawn

We're encouraging everyone who attended and those that wanted to attend to visit the museum. Ask our receptionist about the scavenger hunt based on this year’s ghosts and enter into a raffle for an October surprise. (Hint to all: you can review the ghosts by reading the 2020 scripts now posted on our website.) Search above for 2020 Ghosts for some additional information on the ghosts including a link to a rare recording of Alice Shaw's whistling.

At the museum, you can also pick up a map of this year’s Ghost Walk route which you can use to walk the route again during the daytime, share it with others, or enjoy it yourself if you weren’t able to join us this year. At the bottom of the website's Ghost Walk page, you’ll find a family scavenger hunt for Woodlawn Cemetery. When everything shifted to online learning last spring, we developed this for elementary school students and their families. It connected with their learning about immigration and important people in Elmira’s past. If you are interested, download the map and plan on taking about 20-40 minutes to complete the walk. 

Last year we offered Ghostly Readings at the museum. This was an event where staff and Elmira’s Fire Marshall -  our celebrity guest -  read ghost walk scripts for those who were not able to navigate the nighttime walk. We don’t pretend to be actors, but were able to include some extras like images and fun facts about the ghosts. We look forward to offering this again in future years, while this year we have a special treat coming from Elmira College Theater students under the directorship of their Professor, Hannah Hammond. Watch for their short videos popping up on our Facebook page near the end of the month and into November.

Woodlawn Cemetery is a peaceful place to walk during the day, the winding paths through the trees pass a variety of grave sites and monuments. The cemetery was designed and influenced by the Rural Cemetery movement that was happening throughout the United States in the 19th century.

The first cemetery designed in this style was Mount Auburn located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Opened in 1831, it offered a sharp contrast to the existing overcrowded cemeteries in Boston. It was located on the outskirts of town and in addition to being a place to bury their dead, these cemeteries offered urban dwellers a respite from city living. The Rural Cemetery movement intended these places to be as much for the living as for those who had passed on. People were encouraged to visit, picnic and stroll among the grave sites. Designers used an English landscaping approach to highlight the outdoors, and give the impression that the cemetery was a part of wild nature when it was in fact really carefully planned. By providing this natural setting for people, it offered city dwellers the chance to stroll among trees to contemplate life, a very different experience than their daily lives existing in a quickly mechanized society.

A search for how many cemeteries are named Woodlawn brings up 336 throughout the USA and Canada. There are 17 alone in New York state. Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira was designed by architect Howard Daniels and chartered in 1858. It is spread over 184 scenic acres and over the years 80,000 people have been interred there. Today the cemetery is visited walkers, joggers, dogs on leash, and by those with loved ones buried on site. Everyone is welcome to visit as long as they show proper respect and follow the posted guidelines.

Look here to find more blog posts about Woodlawn Cemetery.

 

The Fierce Urgency of Now

by Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

By now, you may have noticed that we are living in unprecedented times. A global pandemic has killed more Americans in three months than died in the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined. That same pandemic has paralyzed our economy and caused record levels of unemployment not seen since the Great Depression. Citizens in every state in the nation, including right here in our community, are in the streets protesting the murder of Blacks by police and the president has threatened to use the military to put down those protests by force. We stand at the precipice of something. We are living history.

The mission of the Chemung County Historical Society is to collect, preserve, and share the history of our county, but history isn’t just the stuff in grandma’s attic. History is happening right now. In order to capture history in the making, we have launched the COVID Memory Project. We’re collecting oral histories, photographs, videos, diaries, and objects associated with the pandemic and protests. 

Here’s how you can get involved:

Oral Histories

So far, I have collected several oral histories including one from a high school senior and one from my religious leader. We’re hoping to get stories from health care workers, teachers, school administrators, grocery store and other essential retail workers, restaurant owners, someone working from home, someone laid off, someone who was sick, someone who lost someone, someone with small children, someone elderly, and anyone with a story to tell. If you fit into any of those categories and would like to participate, please contact me at archivist@chemungvalleymuseum.org or by phone at (607) 734-4167 ex. 207. Don’t worry about maintaining social distance. We’re set up to do interviews over Zoom or the phone. 

Patrick Hemenway, our first interviewee!

But wait, there’s more! If you’ve got a cell phone, microphone, or camcorder, you too can can be an oral historian. Interview your friends, neighbors, and relatives about their experiences. Contact me or check out StoryCorps (https://storycorps.org/participate/) for suggestions and recording apps. If you’re shy about doing interviews, we’re also looking for folks to listen to and help transcribe the ones that have already been collected. 

Photographs & Videos

In the first month of the pandemic, there were inspirational chalk drawings everywhere in my neighborhood. A man a few blocks over would practice his bagpipes in his driveway while people sat on their porches to listen. There are signs everywhere reminding people to wear masks, be hopeful, and stay strong. I’ve been going around with my camera to document it all the best I can, but I haven’t been able to catch everything. Bagpipe man, for example, keeps eluding me. 

Legion Park, Elmira Heights

We’re looking for a proactive team of historians willing to go out and take photos or videos around the community while keeping track of where and when those photos were taken. Please contact me for details and instructions if you’re interested. If you already have photographs or video footage of the things going on in your neighborhood, things you’ve been doing to stay sane, or the protests, we would love copies. 

Diaries

I’ve been keeping diaries for years, so you know I’ve been writing about what it’s like living under COVID. Come the end of the year, I will be donating a copy of my 2o20 diary to the museum and I plan on willing my entire diary collection to the museum after I die. If you too have been keeping a diary of this year’s goings on, please donate a copy. You don’t even have to make the copy yourself. Just plan on bringing your diary in during the first few weeks of 2021 and we’ll do it for free.

Objects

Do you have lawn signs, protest signs, or masks? We want them. Does your business have a special COVID menu, a reopening policy, or new employee guidelines? We’d like that too. 

Lawn sign, W. Church Street, Elmira

We’re smack in the middle of a pivotal moment in history. The staff at CCHS are doing all we can to document it, but we need your help to capture it all. I look forward to working with you. 

Posters Spread the Word

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

The Chemung County Historical Society is sponsoring a COVID19 Awareness Poster Contest for area students. Posters are due online by June 1^st and more details can be found on our Facebook page or this link at Poster Contest.

Our contest is open to all Chemung County students enrolled in public, private or homeschooled classes ranging from Kindergarten through 12^th grade. We’ve lined up a committee of local celebrities to judge the entries, and the posters they select will be put together as part of a CCHS online exhibit everyone can see. The overall winning poster will be professionally printed and distributed to schools and public buildings for display, and to remind us of good health practices. Our project is supported by a grant from the Arts Council and we thank them. Please share this contest information with any students you know.

Why Posters? Throughout history, posters have been an effective and eye-catching way for people to get their messages out. Early posters in America can be traced back to the late 18^th century and were mainly used for advertising. Most were lithographic prints created with a printing technique that uses a flat treated surface, often a stone. To make a print, the surface is treated to attract or repel ink in order to create the desired image. The word Lithography is derived from two ancient Greek words - stone or lithos and writing or graphy. This process was a big improvement over earlier printing practices, however it remained slow and labor-intensive because each image color required a new surface. By the end of the 19^th century printers had improved the process and could now create a rainbow of colors by only using three printing surfaces. Large-format printing became easier, cheaper, and more reliable.

Artists quickly adopted the process to create memorable posters. Design became more important and artists like Henri de Toulouse Lautrec used lithography to create distinctive posters we still recognize today.

His poster of dancer Jane Avril plays up her dramatic flair using that great swooping hat and ribbon snaking down her dress.

Posters were often bold, colorful and used image as much as text to get their message across. Not only used in advertising, they were often used to influence public opinion. As life moved faster and the 20^th century world headed towards war, posters advertised or promoted specific issues like this example from our collection. 

Dressed in an American flag, this farmer spreads victory across the land. While some posters promoted greater public knowledge and were based on facts, others were biased sharing very narrow viewpoints. These functioned as propaganda attempting to push false information or ideas. Either way, posters were an effective way using both image and text to spread messages to as many people as possible.

Poster contests don't span the same history. Locally, they show up in the Star-Gazette mid-20th century. In 1949 the Montour Falls School advertised a contest for 5th through 8th grade students to create posters on the Bill of Rights. Other contests and topics over the years were sponsored by the Civil Defense auxiliary guild, Family Doctors Preventative Health, Muscular Dystrophy, Red Cross preparedness, an anniversary of women's voting, fire safety, and racial equity.  

Posters can be serious, clever, funny, subtle or bold. Humor has made its inevitable dent in the COVID19 situation, with posters from the so-named ‘Coronavirus Tourism Bureau’ a clever hack by talented California graphic designer Jennifer Baer. She's made staying at home look exotic.

The world as we knew it before COVID19 has changed. The lives of our students have been changed forever. We want to see what Chemung County students have to say, we believe their voices are important for us to hear.

Encourage any students you know to participate and spread the word!
(For another blog on posters, see our blog Selling the War )