The History Center Blog

In appreciation of Gene Endres

Fri, November 04, 2022 5:37 PM | Anonymous

In appreciation of Gene Endres

It is with great sadness that we would like to honor Gene Endres, our long-time volunteer who died on October 3rd, 2022. Gene was a multi-

talented person; a writer, engineer, photographer, and historian who gave generously of his time and skills to any and all projects we asked of him. His primary work with The History Center was in the archives and research library where he helped us with collections processing and research, but he gladly threw himself into exhibit work, programming, and special projects whenever we asked. In 2018- 2019 Gene helped us with the monumental task of packing, moving, and unpacking our collections when we moved to our new home in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture. He was an essential contributor to the design and layout of our new Research Library and Archives, and his sure hand and engineer's eye helped us create our beautiful new research space. His great love for trains, embodied in his long association with the Cornell Railroad Historical Society, was another great asset for us in our frequent work on local railroads and general transportation topics.

The author of the long-running series "Postcards from the Finger Lakes" in the Ithaca Times, Gene also applied his writing skills to our Then & Now series for the Ithaca Journal, where he wrote engagingly on a wide variety of topics. He wrote exhibit text and special pieces for research projects, and his distinctive and clever style was a mainstay in our work. His photography skills were just as remarkable, and he generously gave us numerous images for exhibits and research work. They are all a part of our permanent photo collections now.

Gene was always genial and warm with everyone, and his Friday mornings in the Research Library usually began with a chat and a trip down an interesting conversational byway. He was a versatile thinker and always had something insightful to say on books or art or politics or the natural world, and conversation with him was as instructive as it was fun. Gene was a kind and generous friend to many of us as well as to the History Center itself, and he will be sorely missed. Our sympathies go out to his family and friends, especially Ashley Miller, his partner and long-time volunteer and friend of The History Center.

Gene's Ithaca Journal Obituary - A Tribute from 92 WICB

Lieutenant Colonel Lou Preston

Wed, November 02, 2022 6:16 PM | Anonymous

Dad arrived in Ithaca in Fall, 1939 to attend Cornell’s College of Agriculture. As the war in Europe had just begun with Germany’s invasion of Poland, and amidst growing concerns that America would be drawn into conflict, Dad, like several students at the time, took part in both basic and advanced Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) training at Cornell. Then with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, it was clear that Dad, alongside many classmates, as well as his two brothers, would soon be going off to war.

At his Cornell graduation in May 1943, graduates were asked to stand if they were headed off to war, and Dad reported that more than half the graduates stood. Dad left for Officer Candidate School (OCS), was then commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, and after extensive training was deployed overseas in August 1944, first to New Guinea as a Reconnaissance-Survey Officer, then on to combat in the Philippines. In July 1946 he was returned to the US and assigned to the Active Reserve as a Captain. Dad served several positions in the Reserves, with weekly meetings, and attended “army camp” every summer, which was when Sol Goldberg shot the photo. In October 1971, Dad was assigned to the Retired Reserve, as a Lieutenant Colonel, after 28 years with the US Army.
He received both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, as well as two Campaign Ribbons and two Battle Stars. He taught in the Ithaca City School District after the war, retiring in 1980.

In the words of my cousin Tim Marchell given as Dad’s eulogy: As Tom Brokaw wrote in his book, those who grew up in America during the deprivation of the Great Depression and who served in the military or worked on the home front during WWII, were known as members of “The Greatest Generation”…they gave new meaning to courage, sacrifice, and honor. They served their country with valor, then came home and transformed it. Lou Preston in his life within and beyond the Army, was a model member of the Greatest Generation.

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This article was written by Martha Preston in honor of her father Lou Preson, for the 2022 Tompkins County Veterans exhibit on display at The History Center.

Top Photo: Photograph by Sol Goldberg of Col. Louis Preston with family. The History Center in Tompkins County General Photograph Collections.

Bottom Photo: 1945 - Lou Preston and fellow solders pose for a picture while deployed in the Philippines. Preston is seated in the middle of the front row.

The History Center in Tompkins County Announces Upcoming Exhibit ‘Knot Sew Fast: Patchwork of Tompkins County’

Thu, October 20, 2022 8:31 PM | Anonymous

ITHACA NY –The History Center in Tompkins County announces their next major exhibit ‘Knot Sew Fast: Patchwork of Tompkins County’, to open on February 3rd 2023 at their Exhibit Hall on the Ithaca Commons. Knot Sew Fast pulls from the extensive textile and fabric arts collections held by The History Center to lay out the stories these functional artworks tell about Tompkins County history.

Piecing together the story of quilts encourages us to consider shifts in technology, industry, transportation, and materials over generations of local life. As we unravel (figuratively) each quilt we consider the hands that did the work, and the stories they captured in every knot and stitch. In addition to historic quilts displayed from four of the nine townships of Tompkins, there will be interactive patternmaking stations in the Exhibit Hall; an invitation for our modern audience to try their hand at replicating patterns from ancestral woven Haudenosaunee belts to modern-day art quilts.

Quilts are a unique measure to explore history as the practice of quilting was a skill developed and practiced equally by historic Ithacan city-dwellers, as well as our rural township communities of Trumansburg, Groton, Dryden, Lansing, Caroline, Newfield, and Danby. The merging of this functional skill, and the hundreds of hours and handwork displayed in each quilt shares narratives about community, history, home, and skilled labor.

Knot Sew Fast will encourage a slower recognition of the diversity of textiles and patterns, as well as the hands and minds that created them. The exhibit will be on display from February 3rd 2023 through mid-August 2023. Follow @TompkinsHistory and http:// thehistorycenter.net/knot-sew-fast for updates.

About The History Center: The History Center in Tompkins County is a generation-to-generation education and research center focused on engaging the public with the history of Tompkins County (located in the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ' Nation) and the Finger Lakes region. The History Center helps people use the tools of history to understand the past, gain perspective on the present, and play an informed role in shaping the future. The History Center is located within the Tompkins Center for History & Culture. Learn more at thehistorycenter.netand follow @TompkinsHistory on any platform.

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October is Filipino American History Month

Tue, October 18, 2022 7:08 PM | Anonymous

Learn more at thehistorycenter.net/Filipino-History

Tompkins County's first recorded residents of Asian descent date to the mid 1800's. Records for the City of Ithaca show small but increasing populations from Asian, Asian-Indian, and Pacific Islander (AAPI) nations from the 1890's into the twentieth century, although multi-generation AAPI immigrant families did not appear consistently until after the 1930's. These records can be explored at historyforge.net, please note that a category for "Filipino" was not in the U.S. Census until 1920.

Filipino students were attending Cornell University as early as the 19-teens. A 2021 article found that Cornell's third president Jacob Gould Schurman (President from 1892-1920) supported American imperialist control of the Philippines. Editorials published in the Ithaca Journal during the 1920's by Filipino students enrolled at Cornell demonstrate pushback against the paternalistic and imperialist views promoted by university staff and America at-large during the period.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Asian immigrant population of Tompkins County began to grow more expansively, with more people arriving from the Indian subcontinent as well as from Southeast Asian countries, especially Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia; learn more at thehistorycenter.net/AAPI-Heritage-Month.

Tompkins County's most notable Filipino-American resident of the last century is undoubtedly Florence Finch. Florence was awarded the Asiatic-Pacific campaign ribbon in 1945, the first woman to receive the honor, as well as the Medal of Freedom in 1947. In 1995 the Coast Guard named their Pacific headquarters building in Hawaii after her for her impressive efforts during WWII. Florence lived in Ithaca from 1955 until her death in 2016.

In 2017 long-time Ithacan and Filipino-American Mimi Melegrito accepted a Congressional Gold Medal for her late father, Greg Melegrito as part of a long overdue recognition for the efforts of Filipino Americans during WWII.

The History Center is actively seeking more local histories of Filipino-Americans from Tompkins County. Please connect with us to share more narratives.

The celebration of Filipino American History Month commemorates the first recorded presence of Filipinos in the continental United States, which occurred on October 18, 1587, when “Luzones Indios” came ashore from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza and landed at what is now Morro Bay, California. U.S. Congress formally recognized October as Filipino American History Month in 2009.

New & Noteworthy Collections - Margaret Feldman Scrapbooks

Tue, October 18, 2022 7:07 PM | Anonymous

Our scrapbook collection is one of our most popular collections, a diverse and sprawling assortment of thousands of newspaper clippings pasted into large blank books. Indexed by multiple useful topics, it's useful for researchers of all kinds. Some of our scrapbooks, however, are different: Personal collections compiled by individuals preserving treasured memorabilia, they contain photographs, dance cards, Valentine cards, and other items that tell stories of individual past lives. We received one such scrapbook recently that documents the history of Margaret Feldman, an ambitious and civic-minded woman who ran for Mayor of Ithaca in 1979. Composed of newspaper clippings, flyers, photographs, and media releases, these materials highlight the campaign of a candidate who would be "an aggressive, activist mayor," as she described herself. Feldman was an Ithaca College professor of psychology, and an advocate for women's rights, and for careful preservation of the environment. A registered Democrat, Feldman ran as an Independent and spoke forcefully on issues ranging from Route 96 development to government operations, She came in a disappointing fourth out of five candidates, but she was glad, she said, to have "brought together a coalition of ideas and people who should go on and work for the common good of Ithaca."

For more information about this trail-blazing candidate and her vibrant and forward-thinking campaign, email archives@thehistorycenter.net.

HistoryForge Completes Digitization of Clock System Rural Index Maps for 9 Towns of Tompkins County

Tue, October 18, 2022 7:07 PM | Anonymous

Part of the expansion of the HistoryForge project to include all of Tompkins County and not just the City of Ithaca, included solving the issue of finding early maps documenting the rural townships of Tompkins. A starting solution came in the form of the Clock & Compass Map system developed by John Byron Plato in the 1920's (learn more at Mark Monmoniers Book Talk on 10/8).

We recently completed the digitization of these materials and addition to the New York Heritage Digital Collections database as part of our ongoing partnership with the South Central Regional Library Council. We are thrilled to have the digitized "Clock System Rural Index" papers and maps for Groton Township, Caroline Township, Danby & Newfield Towns, Ithaca & Enfield Towns, Ulysses Township, Dryden Township, and Lansing Township now available to the public.

Learn more about this unique mapping system in Monmoniers new book 'Clock & Compass: How John Byron Plato Gave Farmers a Real Address' available through The History Center's online bookstore for $20.

If you are interested in joining the HistoryForge team as a volunteer, please reach out to Eve Snyder at historyforge@thehistorycenter.net

October is LGBT+ History Month

Sat, October 08, 2022 4:18 PM | Anonymous

LGBT+ History Month - October

Tompkins County and Ithaca has a longstanding history of being at the forefront of LGBTQ+ rights. A student led protest at Morrie's Bar in 1968 may have been the first gay student sit-in in the United States; and the Student Homophile League formed at Cornell University in 1969, was the second public gay student organization in the country.

The first formal statement about bisexuality made by any religious or political group in the United States happened in Ithaca in 1972. The General Conference for Friends, brought 1,400 members and friends of Quakerism to Ithaca College for their annual convention. Over 130 people showed up to the bisexuality workshop, and the statement was drafted over the following days.

Learn more at: https://thehistorycenter.net/LGBTQ-History

LGBT+ History Month originated in the United States as Lesbian and Gay History Month, and was first celebrated in October 1994. It was founded by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. Wilson, the first openly gay public school teacher in Missouri, originated the idea, served as founder on the first coordinating committee, and chose October as the month of celebration.

The History Center Completes Two-Year 'Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility Grant'

Wed, October 05, 2022 7:32 PM | Anonymous

In 2020 The History Center along with 98 other museum partners across New York State was selected for a unique grant program 'Building Capacity, Creating Sustainability, Growing Accessibility' coordinated by the Museum Association of New York with funds from the Institute of Museum & Library Services.

The History Center used the technology and support systems provided to pursue a long-overdue review and updating of our archival systems for our oral history collections. As of 2020 our oral history files included over 150 recorded interviews, that number has since grown to 205.

Under this grant we completed over 40 transcripts for interviews, developed Archival Finding Aids for 9 distinct oral history projects, created a physical Reference Catalog for the 200+ interview collection housed in the Research Library, and began an on-going archival oral history transcript collection. This thorough listing and review of our collections also inspired the creation of our identity themed sub-collections: Asian Diaspora, Black Voices, Gender & Sexuality, Indigenous Voices, Stories of Immigration, and Women's Voices as well as the Stop & Listen to HERstory Oral History Experience unveiled as part of the Breaking Barriers: Women's Lives & Livelihoods exhibit in 2021.

Our immense thanks to the volunteers and student workers who contributed to this project: Raia Gutman, Olivia Chaudhury, Sophia Shi, Kethry Larsen, and Lily Mueller.

The work begun under this grant is now continued through the one-year 'Preserving Community Oral Histories' grant provided by the American Historical Association. These archives are available by appointment in our Research Library, contact archives@thehistorycenter.net.

Details on all our current grant projects can be found at thehistorycenter.net/grants.

Traverse Tompkins: Facing Floods raises $13,368

Wed, October 05, 2022 7:30 PM | Anonymous

Completing just over 350 miles between Ben Sandberg's ride of 250.28 and History Center trustee Michael Smith's ride of 100 miles, Traverse Tompkins raised a phenomenal $13,368 in support of local history this year!

This was our third year of Traverse Tompkins, and for a fundraiser that was first implemented during the early years of the pandemic, it's been wonderful to watch it grow. This year we raised nearly $2,500 more than in 2021, and also grew significantly in our number of individual donors.

With an astonishing 19 plus hours spent cycling this year, Ben thinks that 250 miles might be his 24-hour limit, but we hope to bring more cyclists in next year to help us expand Traverse Tompkins local history exploration even more! We've already got ideas brewing for next year, please reach out to director@thehistorycenter.net if you'd like to join in (or even just send his your congratulations for a ride well done this year)!

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This article is from the October 2022 History Happenings Newsletter.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month - September 15th-October 15th

Thu, September 15, 2022 1:24 PM | Anonymous

Hispanic Heritage Month - September 15th - October 15th

There were students from Latin America at Cornell University from the

very beginning: a Brazilian student was part of the first group of students in 1868; Recruited by Geology Professor Charles Hartt, who traveled in Brazil, more Brazilian students arrived. In 1873 the Brazilian students published Aurora Brasileira a monthly newsletter written in Portuguese, and they established a Club Brasileiro.

HistoryForge Ithaca shows steadily growing numbers of immigration from twenty Central and South American countries throughout the twentieth century. By searching the database using the "Race", "Mother Tongue", and "Place of Birth" filters on different census years you can learn about Latinx residents in the City of Ithaca.

Hispanic Heritage Month first began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage week under President Lyndon Johnson. President Ronald Reagan expanded the celebration to a full month in 1988 spanning from September 15th (anniversary of independence for: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) to October 15th. According to the Library of Congress, “Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month* from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.”

Learn more Hispanic and Latinx local history at

thehistorycenter.net/hispanic-heritage-month. Our thanks to our spring 2022 Exhibit Hall volunteer, Luis Valderrama, for their work translating our 'History at Home' learning and activity booklets into Spanish! 'All About Tommy' and 'The Ithaca Kitty' are now available for download and use in Spanish-speaking households and learning spaces in Tompkins County!

Connect with our archivist to contribute to our collections documenting Hispanic and Latinx history in Tompkins County - archives@thehistorycenter.net.