13 English Colonies: Home

Housed in the University Archives at Herrick Memorial Library, this collection of images (postcards) portrays various scenes and individuals related to the history of Alfred University as well as the town and village of Alfred, New York.

Bowers Collection at Broome County Historical Society

This extensive glass-plate collection contains the work of Franck Taylor Bowers (1875-1932) a Broome County artist and photographer. Bowers was the son of Lamont Bowers, the financial advisor to John D. Rockefeller, and grew up in a wealthy Victorian environment. The images depict the height of late nineteenth and early twentieth century life at home, on vacation, and with family and friends. Many of the images are local residents used as studies and models for a number of Bowers' paintings, which are located in several important regional and national museums.

The Family - This collection contains multiple images of The Family sculpture located on CCC’s Spencer Hill Campus. The Family sculpture was created in 1971 by Dale Drulis.

Brockway MotorTruck Company Collection
This collection contains a sampling from the thousands of Brockway Motor Truck Co. slides, photographs and negatives held at the Cortland County Historical Society.

William N. Brockway founded the Brockway Carriage Works in Homer, New York and incorporated the business in 1875. His son, George A. Brockway, assumed full control of the business in 1889. In 1912, G.A. Brockway and F.R. Thompson leased a building that was previously owned by The Ellis Omnibus and Cab Company in Cortland, New York. Brockway's beginning is widely recognized as the 1912 incorporation of the Brockway Motor Truck Company of Cortland, New York.

The first Brockway to roll out of the new Cortland factory was a model A, built for the Miller Corset Company of Cortland, New York. Brockway would build 95 trucks between 1912 and 1913.

A collection of photographs of Elmira College dating from the founding in 1855 through the mid-Twentieth century.

This collection consists of letters and marginalia of Samuel Clemens, artifacts associated with him and photos having to do with Clemens' time in Elmira and the family and friends that comprised his circle. The Mark Twain Archive is housed in the Gannett-Tripp Library at Elmira College and works in conjunction with the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Quarry Farm as a resource for those with an interest in Mark Twain's life and works, in particular the twenty productive summers he spent working at Quarry Farm on East Hill in Elmira.

This newspaper collection includes many papers that enjoyed short runs, some originating in the old village of Union that merged with Endicott in 1906. The major title is the Endicott Bulletin, which enjoyed a run from 1914 until its 1960 merger with the Binghamton paper.

The History Center in Tompkins County, in Ithaca, New York, has a small, rather choice painting collection that dates to the early 19th century. An eclectic mix of landscapes and portraits, oils,watercolors, lithographs, and prints; it’s a rich, colorful portrayal by mostly local artists of thelocal people and places. It includes works by such notables as Henry Walton, whose lithographsdepict mid-19th century life, and Alison Mason Kingsbury Bishop, an exemplar of a mid-twentiethcentury modernist style. From 2009 to early 2010 it was on display in a successful rotating exhibit“Historic Paintings Unwrapped” which featured different works each month.

This collection consists of almost 12,000 negatives, about half of which are glass plate. This gifted Groton photographer, Verne Morton, worked from 1895 to 1945 documenting rural life in upstate New York. A small sampling of the images from the early glass plate negatives is featured here.

The United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen Collection encompasses representative photographs and documentation, as well as the official program, of each of the 20 years of the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. This international competition was hosted by the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Corp. from 1961-1980. The IMRRC is an archival research library located in Watkins Glen, home of post-World War II American road racing and where cars have raced uninterrupted since 1948. The Racing Research Center opened in June 1999, dedicated to the preservation of the rich history of motorsports, of all series and all venues worldwide. The Center is open to everyone – from the casual race fan to the serious author and researcher. Its collections include thousands
of books, films and photographs, as well as periodicals, race pro- grams, fine art, memorabilia and documentation of the sport. The Racing Research Center is open year-round, Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free.

Images and documents form the downtown era of the College and its predecessors, Ithaca Conservatory of Music and the Ithaca Conservatory and Affiliated Schools. It provides a unique view of downtown Ithaca in the first half of the 20th century.

Ithaca College Photographs: C. Hadley Smith took photographs of Ithaca College from 1950 into the 1980's.

The Most Reverend Daniel J. Curley, D.D., Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse, purchased the Merritt J. Corbett mansion at 169 Riverside Drive on Nov. 5, 1924, in order to establish Our Lady of Lourdes Memorial Hospital. Three Daughters of Charity - Sr. Gertrude Eisele, Sr. Louise McParland and Sr. Martina Disney - arrived in August, 1925, with Sister Genevieve Rye and Sr. Roseanna Hastings arriving in October and November, to oversee renovation and furnishing of the hospital, a small private institution with 25 beds, an operating room, lab and kitchen.

Lourdes opened on October 25, 1925. Sister Gertrude served as the first administrator.Lourdes Hospital was incorporated in 1936; a Board of Directors was established with the hospital administrator, a Daughter of Charity, serving as Chair of the Board.

In March of 1940 the Diocese of Syracuse transferred ownership of the facility to the Daughters of Charity who had served at the hospital since its inception. When the first lay chief executive officer was appointed in 1990, the positions of CEO and Chair of the Board were separated. A Daughter of Charity has served as Chair since that time.

In 2010 the hospital celebrated its 85th anniversary. In those 85 years, 137 Daughters of Charity have fulfilled a variety of roles as living witnesses to their motto, The Charity of Jesus Christ Crucified Urges Us.

Items of interest relating to the history of the Village.

One of the nation's first institutes of higher education to accept students with no consideration to race or gender was open from 1849 to 1860.

Personal friend and secretary to NYS Governor Grover Cleveland. After Cleveland was elected President of the United States, Lamont was appointed his Secretary of War and close confidant.

The front covers of 124 of the approximately 400 pamphlets and monographs in this collection are shown in this section. The pamphlets range from publication dates in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century, with the bulk published in the 1800s. Many of the books and pamphlets in this collection are listed in The Annals of Murder: a bibliography of books and pamphlets on American murders from Colonial times to 1900, compiled by Thomas M. McDade.

Thirty-seven of the pamphlets from the Murder Pamphle Collection have been digitized and added to the NYSHA Collections.

The online Smith and Telfer photographic collection shows 300 of 500 printed images from a collection of over 53,750 glass plate negatives. The photographic work of Washington G. Smith (1828-1893) and Arthur J. Telfer (1859-1954) documents life in Otsego County, New York, for almost a century.

Contains selected images of photographs in the Octagon Houses Collection. The New York State octagon house files were gathered for use in "Octagon Buildings in New York State" compiled by Ruby M. Rounds of NYSHA. The original publication of this compilation was in "New York History" Vol. 33, nos. 2 and 3, April and July 1952, edited by Janet R. MacFarlane, Curator, NYSHA.

Theodore Burr (1771-1882), was one of America’s premier bridge engineers and designers. He is famous for designing and patenting a truss/arch combination that used a traditionally framed multiple kingpost truss to which a segmented timber arch was added. This is known today as the Burr truss. The Burr truss is one of the most widespread timber bridge designs that can still be seen in covered bridges today.

The Oxford Memorial Library is the former home of this illustrious covered bridge builder and the last known existing structure to be built by him. It was, therefore, the most logical location for a covered bridge resource center, and the Oxford Library included it in their Capital Campaign expansion and improvement project that began in 2005.

Completed during the summer of 2011, the Theodore Burr Covered Bridge Resource Center’s (TBCBRC) design was kept period appropriate with the Federal-style home in which Burr lived from 1811 – 1813. The Center is a modest room with two oak desks and a Federal blue upholstered chair and rug, with many oak bookshelves displaying covered bridge models and truss examples (such as Queenpost, Kingpost, Howe, Town, and Burr trusses).

As part of its permanent collection, the TBCBRC also hosts a vast library of covered bridge related books, magazines, and newsletters from all the bridge societies in existence today, as well as some that no longer exist. It also houses an extensive postcard, photograph, and slide collection dating back to the early 1950′s, much of which was donated as a gift of Sherburne residents Bob and Trish Kane. Thanks to a most generous donation by Terry and Sara Miller from Kent, Ohio, the Center now has several modern amenities, including computers and scanners, for the convenience of the patrons visiting the Center.

The Resource Center will be to researchers, covered bridge societies, and fans of covered bridges what Cooperstown is to baseball. There is no other covered bridge center like it – anywhere. The new research facility is available for serious scholars who are looking for covered bridge images (photos, post cards, or slides), researching bridge history and details, and other documentation on covered bridges worldwide. For covered bridge fans, just being able to sit in the house that Burr built will be extra inspirational.

The TBCBRC is open by appointment during Library hours.

Corning Flood of 1972

On June 23, 1972, Corning and surrounding communities were devastated by a major flood. At The Corning Museum of Glass, hundreds of objects were broken, more than half the Library materials were saturated with water and coated with mud, and the facility was covered with a thick layer of slime. These photographs chronicle the determination of Museum staff and illustrate the steps taken toward conservation of glass objects and the restoration of Library materials.

This collection contains bibliographic information on Victor Hammer, who fled Europe during the Second World War, coming to the United States with his first wife, Rosl. They moved to Aurora, NY where Victor Hammer taught art at Wells College and set up the Wells College Press and his personal Hammer Press. During his time in Aurora, he cut the Aurora and American Uncial typefaces. The collection contains information surrounding exhibitions of his work, photographs of Hammer, and information on and works from the Anvil Press. Tangential materials included in the collection are the products of the Wells College Press, which uses Hammer's Press, and information about the Wells College Books Arts Center.