The History Center in Tompkins County

The History Center in Tompkins County will continue to require all visitors to wear masks in accordance with the building policies of the Tompkins Center for History & Culture. Because our museum is in a shared building with 12 other local non-profits, and our visitors include families with young children who do not yet qualify for the vaccine, and visitors who may be medically ineligible for the vaccine, we will continue to require masks inside the building for the continued... safety of all our visitors, volunteers, and staff. We will not be checking the vaccination status of visitors and appreciate the continued support of our community and out of town visitors in following our building guidelines by wearing their masks while visiting the museum. We are grateful that our organization was able to re-open the Exhibit Hall in August of 2020, and has been open to the public for over 10 months with strict safety measures in place to ensure safe and worry free visits for everyone! We are happy to announce that we are now accepting bookings for groups of up to 20 people, which can be reserved at thehistorycenter.net/schedule during any of our open appointment slots. Please review our up to date Health & Safety Protocols and practices at thehistorycenter.net/health. We will continue to monitor both state guidance and local practice and will evaluate and update policies as needed. Any questions may be directed to Ben Sandberg at [email protected]. Thank you for supporting The History Center and continuing to explore and engage in local history with us! [IMAGE DESCRIPTION] Square image with navy, light blue, and yellow frame. Text reads: Mask Update - Masks are still required inside the Tompkisn Center for History & Culture. Image of the Ithaca Kitty wearing a blue surgical mask with a speech bubble reads "Thank you for supporting worry free visits for everyone!" with a seven-toed pawprint. History Center and Tompkins Center for History & Culture logos in bottom right corner. . #TompkinsHistory #MuseumsforMasks #Covid19 #NYtough #IthacaisOpen #IthacaNY #IthacaCommons #DowntownIthaca #TompkinsCounty #NYhistory #NYmuseum

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is Giving is Gorges! All of us at The History Center; Ben, Donna, Cindy, Eve, Dave, and Zoë want to thank everyone who engages and learns #TompkinsHistory with us. If it's through our YouTube channel, social media posts, volunteering with us, monthly newsletter, Research Library, living history programs, visits to the Exhibit Hall, or taking the time for one of our hands on history workshops - We appreciate you exploring our community's past with us! The... History Center holds the collections of the community, constantly growing, expanding, and improving our understanding of this regions history and the many lives that have been lived here. We're very excited to share some of our most rare and unique collections with the lucky winners of tomorrows donation drawing (learn more at givingisgorges.org/organizations/tompkins-history), and are immensely grateful for everyone who supported our organization through this extraordinary year. Giving is Gorges. Connect with our shared past. Contribute to our shared future. The donation profile opens at midnight. . #TompkinsHistory #Smallmuseum #Charity #CommunitySupport #LocalHistory #TompkinsCounty #Ithaca #Trumansburg #Newfield #Groton #Lansing #Enfield #Danby #Freeville #CayugaHeights

Edward Rulloff first came to Tompkins County from Canada in 1842, settling in Dryden. In 1843 he married Harriet Schutt, and the following year she gave birth to a daughter, Charlotte. In 1844 Rulloff was seen driving a wagon containing a large wooden box, and his wife and daughter were never seen again. He was accused of killing them and much time and money were spent dragging Cayuga Lake, but their bodies were never found. So the charge against him was reduced to kidnapping... and Rulloff served ten years in Auburn Prison. He was later linked to a robbery in Binghamton that resulted in the death of a clerk, and for that he was convicted of murder and hanged in 1871. The public hanging, one of the last in New York State, attracted thousands of spectators. After Rulloff’s body was cut from the noose, sculptor C.V. Burton made a plaster cast of the face. One witness commented on being able to see the fibers of the rope used to hang Rulloff embedded in the mold after it was taken. The cast was brought back to Ithaca and displayed by local artist Jefferson Beardsley at the Cascadilla Art Gallery. It was donated to the DeWitt Historical Society, now The History Center in Tompkins County, in 1945. This year we've put together 3 unique, VIP Experiences for #GivingisGorges that offer you an up close and personal experience with our collections. Your gift of any amount to The History Center on Wednesday for "Giving is Gorges" is your chance to win! One of these experiences is a personalized tour of #EdwardRulloff's plaster death mask from our collections! Learn more about how to win this experience: www.givingisgorges.org/organizations/tompkins-history . #TompkinsHistory #HistoricCrime #TrueCrime #NYhistory #GhostWalk #HauntedHistory #SerialMurder #Rulloff #DeathMask #VictorianDeathMask #Murderer #DrydenNY #Dryden #NYhistory

It's Mural Monday! Every Monday we will highlight a mural in Tompkins County and explore some of the history pictured in it. Download the FREE PocketSights app to access the full History & Art tours of Tompkins County, and over 40 other local history tours. The Firehouse 5 Mural at 136 W. State St. was completed in 2017 by four artists, including members of the newly-formed Dripped on the Road traveling artist residency program. Each figure in the mural was designed and com...pleted by a different artist, in order from left to right: Ramiro Davaro, Jenna Garmhausen (formerly Jim Garmhausen), BelowKey, and Denton Burrows. The artists' different depictions of firemen honor the building's history as the Downtown Ithaca Torrent House No. 5, built in 1891. The building served as a volunteer firehouse through the 1970s, and from 19942002, it was the location of the Firehouse Theatre. The Firehouse Theatre was a beloved local performance venue, hosting year-round performances in an 85-seat black box auditorium for eight years. Following the closure of the theatre, the building was bought by Ralph Thorpe. Thorpe renovated the building, opening it as the Ithaca Calendar Clock Museum in 2003. On display were 150 original Ithaca calendar clocks from Thorpe's personal collection. The first calendar clock was invented in Ithaca, NY, in 1853 by J. H. Hawes. In 1854, William Atkins and Joseph C. Burritt, also of Ithaca, invented the first perpetual calendar mechanism. A patent was issued to Atkins and Joseph C. Burritt on September 19, 1854, for their improvement on the calendar clock concept. Learn more about this mural on #Pocketsights! https://pocketsights.com/tours/place/Firehouse-5-Mural-43903 . #IthacaisMurals #MuralMonday #IthacaMurals #StreetArt #PublicArt #HistoricArt #NYmural #TompkinsCounty #TompkinsHistory #FreeTour #SelfGuidedTour #VisitIthaca #VisitFLX #CalendarClock #IthacaCalendarClock

Our collections include over 100,000 photographs including collections from #TompkinsCounty photographers dating as early as 1865. Thanks to financial support and funding in 2020-2021 we were able to begin digitization and database processing for four of these collections and make them available on the New York Heritage Digital Collections database. The Tompkins County Schoolhouse Photos, Verne Morton Photograph Collection, and the Covid-19 Pandemic Photographs are now avail...able for educators and researchers to access freely. Photograph collections for David Marcham Railroad Collection, Residences, and the Southside Community Center are currently in progress. Your support helps us share our physical archives in new formats for local educators, community groups, and passionate locals to explore and engage with. Support the continued processing of these collections and learn about the VIP Experiences with our rare collections you could win when you donate to The History Center during @GivingisGorges: https://www.givingisgorges.org/organizatio/tompkins-history . #TompkinsHistory #VintagePhotographs #HistoricPhotographs #Covid19archives #VerneMorton #CentralNY #HistoricSchoolhouse #GivingisGorges #LocalHistory #NYhistory #Archives #Archival #Digitization #HistoricPreservation

Peter Wheeler was brought enslaved to Ludlowville in 1800, and after years of brutality, escaped to freedom in 1806 at the age of 17. His autobiography, which is one of the only known narratives of someone who was enslaved in #NewYorkState, "Chains and Freedom, or The Life and Adventures of Peter Wheeler" was published in 1839. This year thanks to the work of Autumn Leaves Used Books in republishing his manuscript, we were able to add a copy of his #autobiography to The Histo...ry Center in Tompkins County Archives & Research Library where it can be accessed by anyone who uses our library. This copy is one of over 3,500 books we have available exploring the history of #TompkinsCounty over the centuries. . #TompkinsHistory #Juneteenth #BlackHistory #BlackHistory365 #BlackHistoryMatters #Ludlowville #SlaveryinNY #SlaveryinNYS #Enslaved #TompkinsCounty #NYhistory #FLX #CNY See more

#HistoryForge is a unique digitization project that began in #IthacaNY in 2016. HistoryForge volunteers have spent thousands of hours under the supervision of History Center staff copying every line of census data from the early twentieth century into historyforge.net. This open source database can be accessed freely by anyone and allows researchers to explore #historicmaps overlaid with modern #GoogleMaps, discover the built history of every building in the #CityofIthaca, an...d search the #PlaceofBirth #Profession and #StreetAddress of every person in the census years from 1900-1940. Through this program we can explore how neighborhoods have changed, when buildings emerged, and professional industries changed in our community. Support the continued expansion of this innovative program (we hope to expand to more towns and hamlets in #TompkinsCounty very soon!) when you donate to #TompkinsHistory on June 23rd. Donate here: www.givingisgorges.org/organizations/tompkins-history . #TompkinsHistory #ExploreHistoryForge #Archives #Census #HistoricCensus #CensusRecords #DigitalDatabase #LoveArchives #WhoCanYouFind #HistoricResearch #PersonSearch #Geneaology #HistoryofaHouse #HomeHistory #FamilyGenealogy #FamilyResearch #ImmigrationResearch

From 1957 we see this great photo of a snowy day in the center of Newfield. This photo was taken across the street from where the Tioga State bank currently st...ands looking towards the corner of Main Street and Shaffer Road. Do you remember this winter? What do you enjoy doing on a snowy day? Photo credit: Newfield Historical Society Archives See more

Looking to bring more RBG Cornell University class of 1954 into your home? Look no further than Sunny Days of Ithaca! While you're downtown walk across the Commons and visit the Exhibit Hall at The History Center in Tompkins County. We're re-opening for the winter season on Thursday January 7th!

HistoryForge Reaches New Milestones in 2020 With continued funding the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) of the National Archives ...(NARA) and a dedicated group of amazing volunteers, HistoryForge reached new heights in 2020. When New York's lockdown began in May, HistoryForge's Bob Kibbee and Eve Snyder quickly transitioned the bi-monthly in-person transcription sessions to bi-monthly Zoom sessions. This transition allowed HistoryForge to increase its volunteer base, opening the door to more local participants, and to volunteers who live in parts of the state and country. Over the past year, HistoryForge volunteers completed transcribing the 1920 and 1930 US Census records for the City of Ithaca, and since August have transcribed over 5,500 records from the 1940 census. HistoryForge now contains 4 complete census datasets (1900-1930) and over 71,000 records. In addition, HistoryForge unveiled its new more user-friendly website in the spring and continues to update its data entry pages for easier and more accurate transcription and searches. The project also began the long awaited addition of digitizing photographs of houses and other local buildings from The History Center archives to add to the building records in HistoryForge. This aspect of the project is made possible through generous funding from the South Central Regional Library Council. HistoryForge will soon be partnering with the Seymour Library in Auburn, the Chemung Valley Historical Society in Elmira, and the Oberlin Heritage Center in Oberlin Ohio. Over the next year, these communities will begin to create their own versions of HistoryForge based on our model. Volunteers from each community will begin by transcribing the 1910 census from their city, create a historical map laper, and add digitized archival materials for their communities. It has been a goal of HistoryForge since it first began to expand to and include other communities, and we are eager for these partnerships to grow the awareness and access of this groundbreaking approach to accessing and visualizing local history. Bob and Eve would like to thank everyone who made all this possible, especially the hard work and intrepid puzzle-solving of HistoryForge volunteers!

2020 - What an extraordinary year! Historic national voter turnout for a presidential election (highest voter turnout in 120 years!), a census year that will inform the next decade of funding and provide a historic resource for future historians, national protests against racial injustice, and a global pandemic that continues to re-shape our community and global society. It was also an exceptional year for The History Center in Tompkins County. Staff can tell you that it wasn...'t until January of 2020 that we finally moved the last box out of our storage spaces in the Gateway Building and into their new homes at the Tompkins Center for History & Culture... Read more in our January 2021 newsletter. https://conta.cc/2LcwEzK

Never fear Tompkins County! This 50+ year tradition will continue! Look for the towers on New Years Eve. "An Ithaca College spokesperson tells 14850 Today that, because some rooms in the Towers are currently being used over the break, the lights won’t appear until New Year’s Eve Day." Learn more about the history of the tradition from this 2015 Ithaca Voice article: https://ithacavoice.com//behind-the-scences-of-a-50-year-/

Tompkins County has two historic opera houses listed on this map. Can you guess where they are? (no peeking!)

Now we know you’re familiar with the #ElfontheShelf who keeps a watchful eye on naughty or nice behaviors before the holidays; May we also present #CatontheMat who’s here to remind you of best safety practices in public spaces. Travel through #TompkinsHistory with the #IthacaKitty Keep your mask covering your nose and whiskers for the duration of your visit, keep 6ft distance between yourself and others, and please ask as many questions as you can! We look forward to seeing you! thehistorycenter.net/schedule #nytough #nymuseum #covidsafety #maskup #ithaca #downtownithaca #shoplocal

Looking for a gift for the local history buff in your life? Pick up a matted photo of Steamboat Landing in the 1930's, or a classic History Center stocking stuffer video cam (containing 12 archival images of Tompkins County!) for under $5 each! These items and books on local history can be purchased from the Downtown Visitor Center Thursday-Saturday 10-5pm. Every purchase supports the programming of The History Center in Tompkins County. . .... . #Shoplocal #Localhistory #GiveBigShopSmall #DowntownIthaca #TompkinsHistory See more

We promise there are huge smiles under those masks. We really miss being able to celebrate with all of our award winners in person, these videos however, have ...been a wonderful way to showcase all of the hard work that went into preserving our community. Today we are able to take a look into 308-310 West MLK Jr./State Street. Come join us on our YouTube Channel. While you are there be sure to subscribe and clock the notification bell so that you will be the first to know when we release a new video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L6DkiBpF-Y&feature=youtu.be

Ninety years ago in 1930 here is what the Ithaca Journal had to say about events in Newfield. Looks like there were several fun community events as well as upcoming Christmas programs at the town's churches. What December community events do you remember?

"Rapid-response collecting, as it’s called, is not new. For decades, the Smithsonian has dispatched curators to scour for memorabilia on Presidential campaign trails. In the days after September 11, 2001, the New-York Historical Society began collecting artifacts while the dust was literally still settling. " The History Center in Tompkins County has been collecting images, artifacts, and written submissions documenting the experiences of Tompkins County residents during covi...d-19 since early April. This collection will be used by future researchers seeking to understand how our community reacted, interacted, and experienced this period in our shared history. Contact our archivist at [email protected] to offer your own submissions or request more details about the collection. https://www.newyorker.com//how-will-we-tell-the-story-of-t