Building the Past:
Celebrating Ithaca's Neighborhoods in Photographs
The Collections 

View The History Center's unique photo collections on New York Heritage, particularly Residence and Business Photographs of Tompkins County and The Southside Community Center Photo Collection. Check out their use in the innovative program HistoryForge, where images, maps, and census data merge to tell the story of Ithaca's built environment and the people who lived there.

What was the biggest challenge with digitizing the collections?

Donna: Digitizing projects are very time consuming, and for a small organization like ours finding staff/volunteer/intern time is always challenging. But the end result with digital collections is worth it!

Who has been using the collections?

Donna: I've noticed researchers pointing to them with questions: "I saw your photographs about..." Likewise we use them to point researchers to with specific questions on various topics.

Is there anything new you are working on with the HistoryForge project?

Eve: I'm currently working with The History Center's curator, Cindy Kjellander-Cantu, on an exhibit for The History Center, reCOUNT: Facing Our Census which will open on April 1st. This exhibit was inspired by The History Center's work on HistoryForge. The upcoming release of the 1950 Census records by the National Archives on April 1st provided us with a wonderful opportunity to create an exhibit on the history of the census. One display in particular will be a low-tech version of HistoryForge, called Around the Block. This exhibit will feature an enlarged 1910 Sanborn map sheet for one block of Ithaca, as well as photographs and information about the buildings and people that census enumerators would have encountered over the years as they enumerated that block. In April, The History Center will also offer a walking tour based on this exhibit which will take people further into the history of the block and how it changed over the decades.

Do you have a favorite photo amongst the collections?
Donna: I get that question a lot and it's always hard to answer, because there are so many amazing ones! As for my favorite among the digital collections on NY Heritage, I would say the Weavers Falls image in the Verne Morton Collection. If you ask me next year I'll probably have a different answer! :-)
For more information about the collections and the HistoryForge project, along with interesting stories about Ithaca history, check out the webinar below.
Thank you Donna and Eve for sharing your work on this project!
For more information about New York Heritage or digitizing your own collections, contact our Digital Services Librarian, Claire Lovell ([email protected])