In 1904, the New York State legislature passed a bill to create the New York State College at Cornell. The bill created a land-grant college with an agriculture focus within Cornell and guaranteed fields of study related to agriculture would receive significant public funding.
The 1914 Smith-Lever Act provided federal funding for cooperation between agricultural colleges and area farmers; extension programs helped further Cornell’s mission as a land-grant agricultural college and allowed the university to spread information and research through county extension agents. Cornell University’s effectiveness and success made New York a leader in the cooperative extension programming.
In 1923, the New York State Agricultural Experimental Station in Geneva was rolled into Cornell University’s agriculture program and began incorporating the fields of bacteriology, plant disease, and pests to help farmers better understand production and threats to area crops.
Academic interest in increasing rural productivity wasn’t limited to crops and animal husbandry; home economics — the scientific study of domesticity — emerged as a course of instruction at the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1901, Cornell University’s College of Agriculture published Martha Van Rensselaer’s Saving Steps, a seminal work that suggested scientific principles could help make housework and domestic tasks more efficient. The college also offered reading courses, study clubs, residential courses and non-credit courses for women.
Faculty from Cornell’s Department of Home Economics, established in 1907 within the College of Agriculture, were the first women appointed to professorship at Cornell and made innovations in food conservation, housing design, home management and budgeting, and ideas about child development throughout the first four decades of the 20th century.
In 1925, Cornell moved the highly successful program into the newly created College of Home Economics, the first state-chartered school of its type in the country.
While New York State agricultural production remained strong, commercial viticulture struggled due to outside forces. The Finger Lakes continued lead the nation in sparkling wine production in 1900, but events of the first three decades of the 20th century stymied the region’s internationally known wine industry.
The ratification of the 18th Amendment and start of Prohibition in 1919 forced many 19th-century Finger Lakes wine producers out of business, although six of the area’s largest wineries were able to continue production of primarily native North American grapes by shifting their focus to sacramental wine, wine flavorings, and grape juice.
When the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition in 1933, Finger Lakes grape growers struggled to reestablish the industry in the middle of the Great Depression.
Sailing, fishing, auto touring, and sightseeing continued to draw visitors to the Finger Lakes, and the 20th century brought new recreational opportunities and industries to the area. During the 1910s, advances by the Eastman Company (Rochester) made photography widely accessible and the company’s development of flexible film ushered in the era of motion pictures.
Ithaca became a center of silent movies during the1910s. The small town’s mix of collegiate buildings, natural beauty, and urban setting attracted silent filmmakers Theodore and Leopold Wharton. The brothers leased 45 acres in what is now Stewart Park in downtown Ithaca and created the Wharton Studio in 1912.
The studio hired young talent from locals for set builders, costuming, and cinematography and young acting talent from New York City to create dramas, comedies, mysteries, World War I propaganda, and popular serials between 1912 and 1919, the year the studio relocated to Santa Fe.
At the same time the Wharton’s were popularizing silent films, the father and son duo of Willard and Theodore Case started a scientific laboratory focused on electricity on in the Willard estate’s greenhouse in Auburn (Cayuga County).
During the 1920s, the Case Research Lab developed a sound film and, through a partnership with William Fox of Fox Studios, commercialized the “Movietone” system that allowed film to simultaneously capture moving images and sound.
By the end of the decade, movie theaters across the United States showed talking news reels and films with synchronized music and effects that showcased the potential of the Movietone camera and film system.
Non-motorized flight first became popular in Germany following World War I after powered flight was limited under the Treaty of Versailles. It gained popularity in the United States during the late 1920s as more Americans wanted to fly but did not have the money to invest in an airplane.
The National Glider Association, founded in 1929, selected the community of Elmira (Chemung County) to host the first national soaring competition in 1930.
Identified as a potential gliding destination because of its physical similarities to Wasserkuppe, the mountain that was Germany’s soaring center during the sport’s early years after World War I, Elmira embraced the early American soaring community, hosting the next 12 national soaring contests as well.
During the 1930s, Works Project Administration crews constructed the first permanent site for soaring contests in America at Harris Hill Park, which was completed in 1938.
The Schweizer Aircraft Corporation, incorporated in Horseheads in 1939, became a major manufacturer of sailplanes and gliders, producing more than half of all 20th century American-built sailplanes.
Elmira was home to the Soaring Society of America headquarters at various points throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s and was the first site chosen for American glider pilot training during World War II.
Automobile road racing grew in popularity in the region after World War II as Schuyler County promoters and civic leaders searched for ways to extend the tourist season.
The Village of Watkins Glen and the Sports Car Club of America staged the first Watkins Glen Grand Prix on October 2, 1948. For the first several years, the road course snaked through the village of Watkins Glen and the surrounding areas on 6.6 miles of existing road before a spectator’s death in 1952 moved the race onto country roads outside the village of Dix; a permanent circuit track was constructed in 1956.
Starting in 1961, Watkins Glen International hosted the Formula One United State Grand Prix for 20 consecutive years and continues to host road races across racing classes and series.
Illustrations, from above: Stone Hall, Roberts Hall, and East Roberts Hall, the first buildings of the New York State College of Agriculture, now Cornell University (1905 postcard); 2006 aerial photograph of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva; Taylor Wine Company in Hammondsport, NY; Case Research Lab in Auburn, NY, ca. 1920; and the 1948 Watkins Glen Grand Prix.
This essay is drawn from the National Park Service’s Finger Lakes National Heritage Area Feasibility Study. You can read about the study and the Finger Lakes National Heritage Area here.
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