The History Center in Tompkins County (THC) enjoys collaborating with Wharton Studio Museum (WSM), a local nonprofit dedicated to preserving and celebrating Ithaca’s moviemaking past, and to developing the original Wharton Studio building in Stewart Park — a bustling motion picture production center created by filmmaking brothers a Theodore and Leopold Wharton in the 19teens — into the Wharton Studio Museum and Park Center. 

WSM has designed and produced two permanent installations for the Tompkins Center for History & Culture.  A section of one of the exhibit towers and the opposing wall in the Exhibit Hall are dedicated to Ithaca’s role in early American filmmaking. And there is also an expansive “portrait gallery“ recognizing a number of the movie stars who worked for the Wharton brothers located on the walkway from the Atrium to the Cornell Local Research Library.

In 2009, Ithaca Motion Picture Project (as the organization was then called) incorporated as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit.  Four years later, wanting to include the word "museum" in its name, IMPP applied for and was granted a Provisional Museum Charter from the NYC Education Department’s Board of Regents and officially became Wharton Studio Museum (WSM).  Annually WSM produces Silent Movie Under the Stars; Silent Movie Month; a film festival for youth called Silents Roar! and collaborates on screenings, exhibits, presentations, workshops and educational outreach with Cornell Cinema, The History Center, Ithaca College’s Park School, Cornell Costume and textile Collections,Tompkins County Public Library, Cinemapolis and a host of other cultural and educational entities..  The Provisional Museum Charter will be renewed in this year -- 2018. 

Wharton Studio Museum is a founding partner of the Tompkins Center for History and Culture (TCHC), which opened in May 2019 on the Ithaca Commons in the historic Tompkins Trust Co. Building.  The opening of the TCHC marks the first time that WSM has its own dedicated exhibit space.