Our staff collaborate and work closely with students every term. Through work-study placements, fellowships, volunteering, internships, course credits and so much more we welcome students from middle school and above to develop their museum and archival skills with us. Over the decades we've had many students take the lessons they learned at The History Center to new museum communities, this is just to highlight a few of our more recent student workers and interns who have continued to pursue museum and archival studies beyond their time at The History Center.

Ian Donahue (Ithaca College, B.A. History 2024) joined The History Center as a student worker from Ithaca College this past spring. His main project was completing research for our Irish American Heritage Month web page and a public program highlighting Irish history and immigrant stories in Tompkins County. Ian was recently hired as the Visitor Services Coordinator for the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.

Melanie Jalbert (Cornell University, B.Sc. Information Science, Systems, and Technology exp. 2026) joined The History Center as a student worker in October 2022. Her first term with us she completed Spanish translations for a number of our youth activity booklets. Melanie later worked on a number of our Oral Histories through the 2022 Preserving Community Oral Histories grant from the American Historical Association, completed the Finding Aid for our Deaf History in Tompkins County collection, and in the past term has worked extensively to improve the accessibility of our website through writing alt-text for all images at thehistorycenter.net. After her first year working with us, Melanie accepted a second student worker position as a Document Conversion Assistant for Cornell University Student Disability Services. This summer Melanie is interning at the Smithsonian Office of the Under Secretary for Education as a Claudine K. Brown Education intern. These internships are intended to increase the participation of students who are under-represented in the education and museum leadership field. Interns experience opportunities in the central education office and collaborate with offices, museums, and research centers throughout the Smithsonian Institution where they help to create, develop, and disseminate innovative educational programs and resources at the Smithsonian, online, in the classroom, and in communities.

Claire Deng (Cornell University, B.A. English Language & Literature 2022) began volunteering at The History Center in January 2021 as an undergraduate at Cornell University. Over the following terms Claire dove headfirst into projects discovering, documenting, preserving early Asian and Asian American history in Ithaca and Tompkins County. Her collaborations with us culminated in the Asai Family exhibit, and the Cultural Fabric of Tompkins County: Where did families come from? Included as part of the 2022 reCOUNT: Facing our Census exhibit. She additionally accessioned two collections into our archives: the Tompkins County Asian Diaspora Collection , and the Tang Family Collection. Her research earned her Cornell's 2022 Campus-Community Leadership Award. Since graduation Claire completed a one-year curatorial research fellowship at the Imperial Valley Desert Museum in Ocotillo California, and returned to Ithaca last November to work as a Collections Survey Assistant in the Kheel Center in the ILR School at Cornell.

Rebecca Doyle (Cornell University, B.A. History 2022) worked at The History Center for the 2021-2022 academic year. Contributing written content and exhibit displays for multiple exhibits including: The Art of Wampum, reCount: Facing our Census, and Unfolding: A Timeline of Sexual Assault Activism in Tompkins County. Since graduating in 2022 Rebecca has completed two museum internships, one with the Daughters of the American Revolution, and one as a Collections Intern with the National Mall in Washington D.C.. Rebecca is now working as a full-time museum technician for the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Washington D.C..

Raia Gutman (Ithaca High School 2022) began with The History Center as one of our Youth Ambassadors in 2018, conducting interviews for the oral history project "HERstory" when they were in middle school. When the pandemic hit, Raia shifted into a volunteer role with us. Coming in weekly for their final two years of high school, also joining us for two summers as a Youth Employment Services paid worker. Working to process our oral history collections, and later shifting into the archives to work on finding aids in our archives with Donna. Raia graduated from Ithaca High School in 2022, and has since been a student at Smith College. While at Smith, Raia has been working as an Accessioning Assistant in the Smith College Archives, recently completing processing and finding aids for the B'Not Esh records documenting a group of Jewish feminists active in the 1980s; and the Jane Mead von Salis papers.

It brings our staff a lot of pride to see our former interns and student workers taking lessons and inspiration from the work they completed with us at The History Center to other museum and archival spaces across the country.

Last Month at The History Center

Our director Ben Sandberg traveled to Albany the first weekend of April for the annual Museum Association of New York conference - this year's theme "Giving Voice to Value". It is validating for our staff to see and experience museum staff from across New York working through and tackling similar questions and solution-seeking to the work we do here at home. The work of finding funding, meeting audience expectations and interests, and the long work of how museums can be part of historical repair, reparations, and community building. Ben came home full of new ideas! Even more exciting next year MANY's conference is being hosted IN ITHACA NY! Mark your calendars for April 5-8th 2025. 
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Our thanks to the organizers of Firebrand Books Historic Marker Fundraiser - their campaign was hugely successful! The funds raised over the amount to fund the installation of a permanent marker documenting the historic importance of Firebrand Books, has been promised to The History Center to help with our archival processing and preservation of LGBTQ histories in Tompkins County. If you want to further support these efforts, you can make additional donations at thehistorycenter.net/donate - just specify "Firebrand" in the submission notes. 
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Ushering in the New York State Parks Centennial anniversary celebration, a new exhibit honoring the legacy Robert H. Treman was unveiled in the Tompkins Center for History & Culture atrium tower. An important figure in the creation of our park and historic site system, Treman was a banker and conservationist who donated hundreds of acres of land for preservation. Ultimately serving as the very first Finger Lakes Regional Commissioner, he oversaw the creation of several state parks including Fillmore Glen, Cayuga Lake, and Fair Haven Beach.

This newsletter was researched and compiled by the staff of the Hangar Theatre and first shared to their email lists on March 19th 2024. It is shared here with their permission. The Hangar will be highlighting their storied history throughout 2024 and their "golden season". Follow along and tag them in your own Hangar memories on social media! 

This is PART II of the 'Countdown to 50' series!

On Monday April 8, North Americans will be treated to one of Nature's most dramatic spectacles, a total solar eclipse. Beginning over the South Pacific Ocean, the first place in continental North America that will experience totality is on Mexico's Pacific coast at around 11:00 AM PDT. It will be seen in the US first in Texas, and will work its way north east and will become visible here in upstate New York around 2:07 PM. Weather permitting, this exquisite cosmic phenomenon can take the breath away. As the disc of the moon gradually covers the disc of the sun, the day will darken into night, and some of the brightest stars may become visible to the naked eye. Sometimes during total solar eclipses nocturnal animals can be confused into waking up, and some flowers, like poppies that are typically open only during the daytime, will begin to close.

This sensational phenomenon has attracted nature photographers since the birth of photography in the 19th century. The earliest solar eclipse images in our collection date to the 1920s. On January 25th 1925 the East Coast including Ithaca experienced a total solar eclipse. Groton photographer Verne Morton and Ithaca photographer John Troy took exquisite shots of total solar eclipses. Morton's was taken near his home in Groton, and shows the sun emerging after totality with an eerie glow over the treeline; while Troy's was taken on the Cornell campus, showing silhouettes of people, possibly eager students, standing on top of the buildings.

[One hopes that they had safety glasses because looking directly at a solar eclipse is very dangerous and can permanently damage one's eyesight. A number of local establishments may have ISO Certified glasses for safely viewing the eclipse, including Visit Ithaca at the Tompkins Center for History and Culture on the Commons.]

ODAR: An Immigrant Story embedded in Ithaca History

Contact: Denice Peter Karamardian  607-227-3830

March 6, 2024…….Denice Peter Karamardian grew up in Ithaca, New York, thinking she was Syrian – part of the small Syrian community that co-mingled with Greek, Italian, and other 20^th century immigrant communities that helped to build the little city from the turn of the 20^th century. She was partly right. Both of her paternal grandparents came from Syria and spoke in Syrian. But at the age of 12, she learned that her grandfather was actually Armenian and certain mysteries and stories emerged upon his death. Denice spent a lifetime searching for answers and details.

The result is a trilogy, presented in a hybrid form as historical fiction and part memoire, based entirely upon the true story of the Karamardian family (known locally as the Peter family) across continents, wars, and generations. The series is called Odar, which means “other” in Armenian; sometimes it can mean “stranger” or “foreigner”. The author tracks a parallel narration of her own coming of age as it relates to the discoveries she makes in her search for identity.

Book One release: April 9^th, 2024

The first book is titled Jido (pronounced Jih’ doh), meaning grandfather in the Syrian/Lebanese dialect of the family, tells of Joe Peter, born Hovsep Bedros Karamardian. His journey from Kessab, Syria to the salt block in Myers, NY, by way of the Caribbean, rests longingly in the Ithaca community before following the immigrant wave to Detroit and the good paying wages of the auto industry. But back home, trouble is brewing for the Armenians of Kessab.

Book Two release: June 11, 2024

Book Two: Silence, a Journey to Resilience and Redemption sines a spotlight on two contrasting worlds while war gathers across the globe. Women of the family in Syria endure unspeakable events narrated in their own words as Joe and Helen Peter build their family in new communities. As the war recedes and a second sister is rescued, resettle among the Ithaca hills the young couple has so missed. In another century, the author meets and discovers family previously unknown to her Ithaca family.

Book Three release: August 20, 2024

Book Three: Amirkans. The next generation of the Peter clan thrive on a South Danby farm and face a new war, while a family branch in Syria is making a national impact on that country. With ultimate emigration, journeys converge across two American coasts. Meanwhile, the author grapples with myths and misinformation in pursuit of questions, but no less inspired with the wonder of resilience and triumph of mankind when nothing else will do.

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Press release shared here with permission of Denice Karamardian. Learn more at www.denicekaramardian.com

Spotlight on the Exhibit

Throughout the year we will include highlights from our current exhibit 'A Sporting Chance: On and Off the Field' to connect those readers who haven't gotten to visit in person yet! This Women's History Month we want to highlight the history of women and girls hockey in Tompkins County. 

We Broke the Ice: Girls & Women's Ice Hockey - A collaboration with Mary Grainger and the  Tompkins Girls Hockey Association

With the passing of Title IX in 1972, the Tompkins Girls Hockey Association became the first all-girls hockey program in New York State, and the third in the country. 

Ithaca High School sophomores Linda Dominick and Margaret Stanton got things started recruiting other girls for a June 1972 camp with Cornell Men’s Hockey Coach Dick Bertrand. Parents (including Ithaca Youth Bureau President Bruce Wilkins) worked to prepare for the first TGHA season with 60 participants. In 1973, the Ithaca Shooting Stars travel team was also offered but all participants practiced and played in the house league, too.

A school sponsored team was not available for girls hockey in Tompkins until the state-wide GREAT campiagn was launched during the 1998 Olympics. “Girls Really Expect A Team” founder Mitzi Witchger educated and inspired Ithaca decision-makers as well as those she met during her tour of NYS. Ithaca, Oswego, Canton and Saranac Lake school boards approved the first four teams. IHS proceeded to win the first three state titles in 2001, 2002 and 2003, and again in 2011.

Visit 'A Sporting Chance' now through December 2024 to learn more about TGHA and explore memorabilia from their first 50 years. 

Last Month at The History Center

‘A Sporting Chance: On and Off the Field’, opened Friday February 2nd at the Tompkins Center for History and Culture. We had a phenomenal crowd turn out during Gallery Night, with wonderful performances from the Vociferous Cruciferous Chorus, a ceremonial rutabaga curl by Mayor Rob Cantelmo following a heartening cheer performance from the Rutabaga Curl Girls. 

Our thanks to local news WBNG-12, The Ithaca Voice, Ithaca Times, ICTV, What's Hot NY, and WICB for helping spread the word about the new exhibit! You can find their coverage and insights on the displays at thehistorycenter.net/press. 

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Our director Ben Sandberg spent the weekend in #WashingtonDC with over 300 other  #museumprofessionals for #MuseumAdvocacyDay 2024 . Museum Advocacy Day is an annual event coordinated by @aamersofficial for museums workers to speak directly with legislators to communicate the value of museums and support their continued funding on the federal level.

The History Center has received major funding in recent years from federal legislation supporting the arts including major funds from National Endowment for the Humanities, American Historical Association, and Institute of Museum and Library Services. Learn about the #tompkinshistory projects and programming these funds supported at thehistorycenter.net/grants
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In our fourth year of the annual Douglass Day Transcribe-a-thon our 13 History Center volunteers contributed to digitizing over 100 pages from Frederick Douglass' General Correspondence Records held by the Library of Congress. At the start of the day there were 8,763 records to transcribe, over 7,800 of those now have transcriptions thanks to the work of volunteers (including ours!) across the country. 

Zoë Van Nostrand is transitioning out of her Community Engagement role at The History Center in Tompkins County at the end of March 2024.

Zoë joined The History Center team in November of 2019 as the Marketing & Visitor Experience Coordinator and after four and a half years is leaving behind a wealth of improved digital access, hands-on programming, strengthened community relations, and a revitalized volunteer and student worker program that stood the test of the early years of the pandemic. The History Center fully supports her in her transition and is deeply appreciative of all the projects she has taken on over her years here. Below are some highlights (but definitely not all) of her various projects and improvements she leaves behind for our local history community.

Whether you know it or not, Zoë has been the "voice" behind many of the communications you've seen, heard, or read from The History Center over the past 4+ years. She stewarded and grew our social media platforms on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter fully doubling our following and engagement numbers on each platform, as well as in general press coverage; and created from scratch active platforms on LinkedIn, a YouTube Channel with now over 80 local history videos and just shy of 200 followers; and a SoundCloud with playlists exploring oral history, local history radio segments, and local historic music performances. She has also written the majority of our monthly 'History Happenings' digital newsletters, and facilitated a lot of the press and articles about museum exhibits and public programs. As a new person takes over these digital spaces in the coming months expect that some of these communication practices will evolve to embrace the approach of our new marketing staff!

Zoë spearheaded the total re-design of our website thehistorycenter.net during the 2020 lock-down and has written and designed the content on at least 90% of the 100+ web pages we have available there in the four years since. The most elaborate of her projects has been the continued emphasis on telling historically  marginalized and underrepresented histories of our Tompkins County community across all our platforms. Since 2021 she facilitated student projects, co-researched, and co-wrote over a dozen history and heritage month web pages and corresponding social media posts. These women, Black, Asian, Filipino, Irish, Deaf, immigrant, Arab, disabled, LGBTQ+, and other often left-out histories are now more easily found. We hope that this effort will encourage more historically underrepresented communities to reach out to document their histories and donate materials to The History Center's archival collections supporting the institutions efforts in telling diverse and true histories of Tompkins County.

In addition Zoë spearheaded two major grants that completed the archival processing of over 230 interviews from our Oral Histories of Tompkins County Audio Archives, and the creation of seven identity-themed oral history collections.

She curated and co-designed two small-scale collaborative exhibits; Art of Wampum (November 2021), and Unfolding: A Timeline of Sexual Assault Activism in Tompkins County (May-June 2022), and supervised all public hours of the museum Exhibit Hall since we re-opened in August 2020.

Some of the projects that she's most proud to leave behind are the wealth of materials created through her supervision of dozens of docent, volunteer, and student workers and many community collaborations. The proof of which is present across every platform and aspect of our operations.  Especially her work with our volunteers and student workers on many accessibility and engagement initiatives. From the co-design of the 'Resources for Visitors on the Autism Spectrum' guides, completion of closed captions for 70+ videos on YouTube,

coordination of Spanish translations for four of our 'History at Home' children's activity booklets, coordination and promotion of 30+ audio versions of our self-guided walking and biking history tours, and finalizing over 200 transcripts for the Oral Histories of Tompkins County Collection. She is thrilled that each of these projects have the power to connect new audiences with our shared local history and archival materials. 

                

Keep in touch with Zoë's next pursuits on LinkedIn and wish her well in her new position (emails and snail-mailed messages of appreciation are welcome)!

Please offer The History Center a bit of grace as we get hire for the new position of Community Engagement Manager, and understand there may be a slow down in our public programs and collaborations as we get a new staff member up to speed.

This #BlackHistoryMonth we are very excited to share with you a wealth of newly digitized resources from our archival collections exploring and documenting Black history, individuals, and communities in #Ithaca and #TompkinsCounty. These six written works have been available in our archives for decades, and now are all fully digitized and available as PDFs for reading and downloading from The History Center website at thehistorycenter.net/black-history.

Our thanks to the New York State Council on the Artsfor funding the digitization of these materials and supporting #blackhistorydigitization efforts in #TompkinsCounty. We look forward to continuing the work to keep our archives accessible for our full community. Find the links to these documents always at thehistorycenter.net/black-history

• Early Slaves and Freemen of Tompkins County - by Sydney Gallwey (1962)
• Peter Webb: Slave-Freeman-Citizen of Tompkins County New York - by Sydney Gallwey (1960)
• THESIS - The Life and Times of Aunt Elsie Brooks - by Yvonne Singh (1990)
• THESIS - Without Struggle There is No Progress: An Ethnohistoric Study of Ithaca, New York's African American Community - by Deidre Hazel Pauline Hill (1994)
• THESIS - The Lore of the Negro in Central New York State - by Emma Corinne Brown Galvin (1943)
• THESIS - Practicing Neighborhood and Community - An Ethnographic History of African Americans and the Southside Neighborhood in Ithaca, New York - by Ingrid Bauer (2001)

Our thanks to the New York State Council on the Arts for supporting

the digitization of these materials through grant funds in 2023.

We are absolutely thrilled to share that through a collaboration with Pegasys Community Media Center last fall you can now watch nearly twenty programs and events hosted by The History Center over the last decade on our YouTube channel. These programs were recorded by Pegasys and aired on local news channels, but weren't previously available online. 

Now you can access vital past programs such as 'Getting Hitched: How Tompkins County Contributed to Winning Marriage Equality', and Saved From the Wrecking Ball - Community Panel, and over a dozen other programs. 

EXPLORE THE FULL PLAYLIST Local History Pegasys Community Media Center

We hope that this extensive addition to our online video materials provides opportunities for our audiences who can't always visit Tompkins County in-person more opportunities to learn about our history. Our thanks especially to Lauren Stefanelli for recording and editing these programs in the first place and collaborating with us again to bring them to new viewers. 

• Discover History - Episode 1 - A Conversation with Sachem Sam George & Intro to The History Center
• Discover History - Episode 2 - The Revival of the Ithaca Kitty w/ Phyllis Smith-Hansen
  
• Discover History - Episode 3 - The Founding of HistoryForge w/ Bob Kibbee
  
• Markers, Memorials, and Memories: Preserving Arlington National Cemetery - 10-17--2015
  
• Saved From the Wrecking Ball - Clinton House (Ithaca Urban Renewal Period)
  
• Entrepreneurs in Tompkins County: Then and Now - 1-14-2017
  
• Entrepreneurs in Tompkins County: A Sense of Place - 2-4-2017
  
• Screening of "Harvest" & Dialogs on our Local Connection to Agriculture, Land, and Community
  
• A History of Eating Local in Tompkins County with Michael Turback - 11-4-2016
  
• Vietnam War Perspectives - Panel Discussion - 11-11-2017
  
• Entrepreneurs in Tompkins County: A Community of Makers w/ Ithaca Generator
  
• Poetry and Place: Honoring Past and Present Local Poet Laureates Through Their Readings - 11-5-2015
  
• Pegasys Presents: In Memoriam: Cemeteries in Tompkins County - October 2015
  
• Pegasys Presents: The Eight Square Schoolhouse
• Pegasys Presents: Tommy Plane will land at the Tompkins Center!
  
• Pegasys Presents: We're Open! Meet the Tompkins Center - 2019