-
October 2nd, 2020
Look back at Geneva’s controversial mayoral election of 1903.
-
September 4th, 2020
Brief biography of photojournalist PB Oakley.
-
August 14th, 2020
A brief biography of teacher and musician Alcott Beardsley
-
April 24th, 2020
Viacita Folwer and her work in Geneva
-
March 13th, 2020
Brief biography of cartoonist Mary Flanigan Gauerke.
-
February 21st, 2020
Emily Bancker's performances at the Smith Opera House in the 1890s.
-
February 7th, 2020
Brief biography of Edwin Becker
-
December 6th, 2019
How the term elopement has changed
-
April 12th, 2019
Local coaches Nan Demuth, Steve Muzzi, Carl Wenzel, Aliceann Wilber, and Mike Hanna share their earliest experiences with games and sports.
-
March 15th, 2019
An examination of Francis Marion Tuttle's landscape paintings.
-
February 15th, 2019
Recent additions to the Historical Society's collection help tell one family's connection to Geneva.
-
January 25th, 2019
The travels of Blanchard Bartlett Walker through her diaries and scrapbooks.
-
January 18th, 2019
The final part in a series about the World War I diary of Alice Seward
-
November 14th, 2018
Part two in a series about the World War I diary of Alice Seward
-
October 26th, 2018
The Smith family lived at Rose Hill from 1896 to 1912.
-
September 28th, 2018
The Geneva area served as a key embarkation point for John Butler's Loyalist Rangers during the American Revolution.
-
August 31st, 2018
The Plummers lived at Rose Hill from 1890 to 1893
-
July 27th, 2018
Brief biography of the Parker family including Ira, Stephen and Edgar Parker
-
July 20th, 2018
A look at Arthur Dove’s watercolors created in Geneva from 1933 to 1938.
-
May 25th, 2018
The third and final article in a series about Dan Deegan focuses on his business interests.
-
April 27th, 2018
The second article in a series about Dan Deegan focuses on the businessman interest in boxing.
-
April 20th, 2018
On the hunt for Irish history in Geneva, New York
-
April 13th, 2018
The Curator's latest find "Dr. Chase’s Third, Last and Complete Receipt Book and Household Physician. "
-
March 30th, 2018
The first in series about business man and sportsman Dan Deegan.
-
March 16th, 2018
Overview of notable Geneva women
-
February 16th, 2018
Notable people from Geneva's African American community
-
February 1st, 2018
Overview of some of Geneva's famous residents
-
November 3rd, 2017
Charles Dickens as seen through local newspapers.
-
April 14th, 2017
In our latest podcast David Brent Johnson, jazz director at WFIU public radio in Bloomington and musician Gap Mangione discuss jazz bassist Scott LaFaro.
-
January 27th, 2017
Brief biography of Belva Lockwood.
-
September 29th, 2016
The journey of a local group of men to the California gold fields chronicled through the newspaper
-
August 26th, 2016
The Geneva Gazette chronicles the journey of a local group of men to the California gold fields.
-
July 8th, 2016
Part two of the Geneva Gazette's chronicle of a local group of men's journey to the California gold fields.
-
July 1st, 2016
I have been researching music in Geneva for several years. If I found a newspaper article while searching for something else, I saved it. In this way I came across a number of unfamiliar names who performed in Geneva in the 19th century. The advertisements, previews, and reviews certainly made them sound important, but who were they?
-
March 4th, 2016
In the 1960s, a new phrase came into use: the generation gap. Genevans, like older Americans across the country worried about its young people, their clothes, their manners, and their attitude.
-
February 26th, 2016
As we at the Geneva Historical Society look back at the 1960s this year, we cannot ignore the protest movements that sprung out of that decade, particularly the Civil Rights Movement.
-
September 11th, 2015
The 1960s were a decade that encompassed some of the worst and best events of my young age. Born in 1952, the 1960s covered my life from the ages of 8 to 18. In that time I went from playing with toys to being interested in boys.
-
August 27th, 2015
From 1850 to 1889 Robert and Margaret Johnston Swan lived at Rose Hill on Seneca Lake. The couple had three girls and three boys. Unfortunately, five of their children died young – the boys in childhood, the eldest girl, Mary, in childbirth at 33, and the middle daughter, Maggie, of heart trouble at 44. Only the youngest daughter, Agnes, lived what we would today consider
More »
-
June 26th, 2015
Francis Marion Tuttle was a Geneva artist who lived from 1839 to 1911. He was well known for Seneca Lake views and portraits, and he also did some Biblical scenes. Instead of repeating Tuttle’s biography (for his biography visit dianrez.blogspot.com), I want to focus on one part of his life, namely, that he was deaf. His experiences bring up some interesting issues.
-
March 20th, 2015
The course of Lectures before the Young Men’s Association of Geneva, was inaugurated on Tuesday evening last by Chas. F. Brown, (Artemus Ward,) in the delivery of a humorous and characteristic production, denominated “the children in the wood.” Linden Hall was densely crowded by a highly appreciative audience, who appeared greatly to relish the eccentric drollery and humor of the entertainment. . . . From
More »
-
February 6th, 2015
The Corcoran family scrapbook documents one Geneva family's World War II experience from draft through marriage and life after the war.
-
January 23rd, 2015
My Little Golden Book memory were sparked by a recent traveling exhibit at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, Golden Legacy: 65 Years of Golden Books. During lectures that accompanied the exhibit, I discovered two things. First, Little Golden Books debuted during World War II. Second, illustrator Eloise Wilkin lived in Canandaigua.
-
January 16th, 2015
Family stories can still bring World War II to life and make history a personal thing.
-
December 5th, 2014
With World War II came the birth of the American teenager. While we tend to associate the flowering of teen culture with the baby boomers, it was actually their immediate predecessors, the so-called “Silent Generation” who were first referred to as teenagers. Then, as always, the older generation thought that the younger generation was at best misguided, at worst they were described as selfish, willful,
More »
-
October 13th, 2014
Since I was born in the early 1950s World War II was very fresh in the memories of my parents and their friends so by process of osmosis I became more familiar with that war than some of the more recent ones during my own life.
-
October 3rd, 2014
As we saw in a previous post about the Herendeen family, World War I came about so suddenly and unexpectedly that few people were prepared for it. As mobilization for war began across Europe, there were over 100,000 Americans visiting or living abroad who were unable to leave easily.
-
September 12th, 2014
Brief biography of landcape architect Marian Cruger Coffin
-
August 22nd, 2014
By John Marks, Curator of Collections and Exhibits Last month’s blog ended with Frank Herendeen’s entry from July 25, 1914, when Austria declared war. Hotel guests immediately began fleeing by auto and carriage. The Herendeens stayed put for almost a week. On July 31 “came a dispatch that the entire Austrian army was to mobilize, and immediately great excitement prevailed in the hotel.” The
More »
-
July 25th, 2014
Biography of John Delafield
-
July 18th, 2014
By John Marks, Curator of Collections and Exhibits A common quip in my profession is, “I’m a historian. I read dead people’s mail.” Even more revealing are the diaries and journals that have been given to the historical society. A particularly interesting collection is the diaries of Francis (Frank) Herendeen from 1914 to 1929. In 1868 the Herendeen family began making farm implements
More »
-
June 26th, 2014
By Alice Askins, Education Coordinator at Rose Hill At the end of December 1843 Herman Foster became engaged to Pauline Lentilhon. Pauline may have been related to the Smiths who appear so often in Herman’s diary. We first hear of Pauline when Augustus Smith was reading a letter from her in the cutter that spills Herman, Augustus, and William into a snow bank. After
More »
-
December 17th, 2013
How people and businesses got around the 18th Amendment and Volstead Act during the 1920s
-
October 10th, 2013
Biography of author Sarah Hopkins Bradford.
-
September 7th, 2013
Brief biography of architects Joseph Pierce and Hiriam Bickford.
-
August 27th, 2013
Biography of J. George Stacey.
-
July 31st, 2013
Geneva's African-American community hosted a number of emancipation celebrations in the 19th century to celebrate their freedoms while protesting slavery and racial inequality.
-
April 24th, 2013
Brief biography of the artist Arthur Dove
-
April 4th, 2013
Mark Twain's visit to Geneva, New York in 1871.
-
March 12th, 2013
Biography of educator and author Elizabeth Stryker Ricord
-
February 4th, 2013
The kidnapping of two African American men from Geneva, New York in 1857
-
January 22nd, 2013
General Tom Thumb visit to Geneva, New York in 1847