Cayuga Museum: Collecting Cayuga County history
Modern historians have a wide range of resources at their disposal. Books, newspaper s, digital media and more are easily accessible at the click of a button. Odds are, if you want to learn about a well-known historical event or topic, you can find hundreds, if not thousands of resources from the comfort of your own home. Despite this wealth of knowledge, there is one type of resource that is exceedingly valuable and often difficult to collect: oral history.
Oral history is a method of collecting and preserving historically important primary source material through recorded interviews. Many institutions are collecting these unique and personal accounts of history to enrich our understanding of past events. These events could have taken place last week, last year or 80 years ago, as long as there is someone alive to tell their story. Currently, the Cayuga Museum of History & Art and Seymour Library are working in partnership on the "Voices of Cayuga County" oral history collection project. A primary goal of this work is to highlight individuals from groups that have been historically underrepresented, such as our Black, Latino/a and LGBTQ+ communities. All completed interviews are available online on the New York Heritage Digital Collections website .
As part of the Cayuga Museum's ongoing work to create a permanent exhibit about the history of Cayuga County, we have also begun collecting oral histories specific to 20th and 21st century events. The types of questions we are asking include information about the interview subjects' town, home and ancestors, as well as their experiences living in the county during times of great change. A wonderful thing about this method of information collection is that each subject is unique in their recollection and has their own opinion on events that have occurred in the county. So far, the accounts we have collected include people who were born and have lived their whole lives in the county, as well as people who fell in love with the area and chose to live here. What do they have to tell us?
Pat Kimber, who lives in Union Springs and works at the Frontenac Museum, told us her story of moving to the county and finding a love for the area and the people here: "My husband and I moved here to Union Springs in 1990, we thought we might open a bed and breakfast and we found a historic home that spoke to us the second we drove up in front of it. ... It's a wonderful community for a family and the people are generous, caring, kind and very supportive." She also told us the story of Zobedia Alleman, who was a suffragist from Union Springs who lived to see the ratification of the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote. Pat's personal and historic recollections will continue to be heard and read for years to come thanks to this important work.
As we aspire to improve our understanding of Cayuga County's history, we hope to enhance it with your voice. Do you remember living in Auburn during urban renewal ? Did you or a family member serve in the military? What has changed in the county since you have lived here? If you have a story to tell, please consider setting up an interview to preserve and enhance our local history.
Ruth Bradley was organizing some photos at the Cayuga County Historian's Office when she saw a name that stumped her: "Nora."Haley Boothe is curator of the Cayuga Museum of History & Art and Case Research Lab at 203 Genesee St., Auburn. For more information, contact the museum at (315) 253-8051 or cayugamuseum.org .
