We’ve earlier reported on places named for Steuben County; naval vessels with Steuben County names; and Curtiss airplanes on U.S. postage stamps. But there’s a “grab bag” of other worldwide recognitions – stamps and otherwise — of Steuben County.
CURTISS IN THE WORLD
*Wow, are Curtiss airplanes popular on world stamps! Here’s a listing as I’ve been able to find them – and it’s no doubt short!
*The June Bug: San Marino. Curtiss Museum has a flying reproduction of this 1908 airplane.
*The Silver Dart: Canada (two stamp designs).
*Curtiss Jenny: Micronesia (with a portrait of Glenn), Vietnam, Anguilla (the inverted Jenny), Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, Paraguay (inverted Jenny), Canada (the Canadian “Canuck” model), Bermuda (Jenny on floats), Liberia (two stamps). You can see an original Jenny at Curtiss Museum.
*Navy-Curtiss NC-4 (first aircraft to fly across the Atlantic): Hungary, Grenada, Portugal, Marshall Islands, Antigua-Barbuda.
* Model MF “Seagull” flying boat: Papua New Guinea There’s an original Seagull at Curtiss Museum.
*Model HS-2L flying boat: Canada.
*Hydroaeroplane (float plane): Cuba (three stamps, all featuring pioneer pilot Agustin Parla). Curtiss Museum has a flying reproduction.
*Curtiss Condor II airliner: Honduras.
*F8C Helldiver: Marshall Islands.
*The June Bug, the Silver Dart, most of the hydroaeroplanes, and some of the Jennys were made in Hammondsport. After Glenn’s death the Curtiss Buffalo plant made 14,000 P-40 “Warhawk” fighter planes (with components from Mercury Aircraft, in Hammondsport). The P-40 is an excitingly visual aircraft, bursting from stamps made for Cuba, Mozambique, Fiji, Liberia (three stamp designs), Guyana, Guinea-Bissau, Marshall Islands (three stamp designs), New Zealand, Palau, Central African Republic, Norfolk Island, Congo, Tuvalu, Canada, Papua New Guinea, Somaliland, Taiwan. Curtiss Museum has two original P-40s.
*Two more World War II airplanes made the stamps: the SOC3 Seagull (Kiribati), and the SB2C Helldiver (Vanuatu, Marshall Islands), also with components from Mercury Aircraft.
*MORE STEUBEN STAMPS
*Curtiss is not the only Steuben figure who has helped to move the mails.
*A Micronesian stamp shows Thomas J. Watson of Campbell in the famous “Think” photograph. (Palau and the Marshall Islands each have stamps honoring Thomas J. Watson, Jr. but as far as we know he never lived in Steuben.)
*The first non-Curtiss stamp with a Steuben connection came in 1948, when the Mount Palomar Observatory opened. A 3-cent U.S. stamp shows the dome of the observatory, and a glimpse of the Hale Telescope with its 200-inch reflector made at Corning Glass Works.
*The Hale Telescope has also been commemorated in stamps from Ascension, Hungary, and Nicaragua.
*A 1999 four-stamp U.S. set of commemorative “Glassmaking in America” U.S. stamps had its first day of issue at Corning Museum of Glass. Each stamp displays a different type of glass, in each case with four representative objects.
*The objects on the Art Glass stamp and on the Free Glass stamp all came from Corning Museum of Glass. Jane Shadel Spillman guided the selection process, and Nicholas Williams handled photography.
*And one of the objects (on the Art Glass stamp) was made in Steuben County: a Steuben Glass Aurene vase, made by Frederick Carder about 1917.
*AT SEA
*A staggering accomplishment of American industry was the Liberty Ship – 2710 World War II cargo ships, all based on a single design, and all made within four years.
*With nearly 3000 units at sea, the Liberty Ships were voracious for names. Hull 547, S.S. Marcus Whitman, honored the explorer/doctor/missionary who practiced in the Wheeler/Prattsburgh area. Launched in 1942, it was torpedoed and sunk off Brazil that same year.
*Hull 2293, S.S. Alanson B. Houghton (launched 1944, scrapped 1972), honored the glassmaking industrialist from Corning. Hull 2574, S.S. Narcissa Prentiss (launched 1943, scrapped 1961) memorialized Marcus Whitman’s Prattsburgh-born wife and colleague.
*HEAVENS ABOVE
*Minor Planet 34419, “Corning,” honors the city where the 200-inch mirror for the Hale Telescope at Mount Palomar was crafted. And while there’s a crater “Sanger” on the planet Venus, we imagine that “Corning” is generally the most distant use of a Steuben name… and we imagine it’s likely to stay that way!
Tag Archives: Corning Museum of Glass
Four-Month Canal Journey Climaxes at Watkins Glen
Darn that busybody DeWitt Clinton! His Erie Canal was one of the most spectacular successes of the age, but it was a disaster for the Southern Tier.
*Up until then the Chemung-Susquehanna River system was the great highway of western New York, with its connections to the Tidewater, Baltimore, and Chesapeake Bay. Bath, with its green squares and broad boulevards, was laid out to be the region’s great metropolis.
*That all slammed to a halt when the great canal opened in 1825. There were conventions and mob actions down here as crop prices and land values crashed instantly, leaving people with mortgages they could never pay off. The Land Office finally negotiated a revaluation.
*Meanwhile, little no-account shanty towns like Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester started to boom.
*Things improved for us when the Crooked Lake Canal opened in 1831, making Hammondsport a true port and putting Steuben-area farmers back into the game with a connection to the Erie system. Two years later Chemung Canal opened, eventually linking Corning and Elmira with Watkins Glen and Seneca Lake.
*All of that helped, but completion of the Erie Railroad in 1851 linked the Southern Tier with New York, Lake Erie, and Rochester. At that point, business truly started to revive.
*By 1868 those railroads had caught the attention of officials at the Brooklyn Flint Glass Works. The Erie gave Corning a major east-west mainline, and a major branch up to Rochester. The Fall Brook brought up coal, wood, sand, and charcoal from Pennsylvania. Raw materials could come in by rail, and finished products go out, and many costs were lower than they would be in Brooklyn. Corning could be a VERY attractive spot for relocation, and the decision was soon made.
*But while the railroads were a major consideration, another key factor was the canal. The Glass Works would lose some time, but save a good deal of money, shipping their factory equipment by canal.
*Barges loaded up at Brooklyn were towed up the Hudson to Albany, then transitioned into the Erie Canal as far as Montezuma, and junction with the Cayuga and Seneca Canal. Thence they made their way to Geneva and up Seneca Lake to Watkins, into the Chemung Canal, then a few rods on the Chemung River itself to Monkey Run and their new home along the waterfront of the Southside… just where so many of us recall the Glass Works always being.
*And that was in 1868 – exactly 150 years ago! Brooklyn Flint Glass Works became Corning Flint Glass Works, then Corning Glass Works, the Corning Incorporated (but still CGW on the stock exchange).
*To celebrate the sesquicentennial, GlassBarge (from Corning Musuem of Glass) and canal schooner Lois McClure (from Lake Champlain Maritime Museum) set out from Brooklyn back in May, accompanied by 1930 tug W. O. Ecker and 1964 tug C. L. Churchill. Like their predecessors they traveled up to Albany, but this time went the enture length of the Erie Canal to Buffalo, before reversing course to pick up the Cayuga-Seneca Canal, heading for Geneva, Seneca Lake, and Watkins Glen – as far as you can get, nowadays, by barge – to complete their odyssey.
*Art Cohn of Lake Champlain Maritime Museum observes that the new company’s arrival by a line of barges apparently didn’t attract much attention in Corning, though of course we now know that it was a historical thunderbolt. But this year’s little flotilla should get more notice as it opens to the public, at Watkins, from 11 to 6 on Friday through Sunday, September 14-16. I wouldn’t miss it. Maybe I’ll see you there.
Corning Museum of Glass — Again
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Well, a little while ago we both had some time off during the week, so we committed ourselves to do something that’s been on our list for quite a while, and we drove over to Corning Museum of Glass.
*Of course we’ve visited CMOG multiple times, but as it happens we haven’t been since the new wing was opened over a year ago. And after the entrance cash registers, that’s where our visit started.
*This new wing is a very large space for contemporary glass art. There’s lots of light, and the colors are very light, or even white — walls, ceilings, I think even floors. That’s the memory I take away, at least.
*AND… there’s lots of space – half the space of the Curtiss Museum. Space is always at a premium in museums, so maybe this will change over time, but for right now most of the pieces have a cushion of solitude in a space at once stark and inviting. It doesn’t distract you, and the pieces on exhibit easily draw your eye.
*When you talk about contemporary, you’re wondering what comes next. Just as your feet and your eye are free to wander, the mind’s free to wander too, just as each artist’s mind did. Some museums take a “cattle chute” approach, herding the visitor onto and along a chosen path. Not the Glass Museum, which encourages the visitor to craft his or her own experience. There are, it seems from the website, thematic arrangements in this huge new space, but I confess that I missed them. I just wandered, following my attention.
*One thing you’ve got to admire about contemporary artists… they’ve got courage. They’re willing to take a chance, investing lots of time, materials, money, and studio space into a vision that could well be greeted with confusion, indifference, or disdain.
*The museum itself is investing heavily in contemporary glass art… this new space is dedicated to art and design of the past 25 years, while the “old” contemporary gallery, on the other end of the building, is now for glass from 1975 to 2000.
*In the galleries dedicated to historical works (35 Centuries of Glass) we also wandered, enjoying the geometric designs from the Muslim world and exuberant Renaissance pieces, along with tiny items from ancient times. We spent a while studying the Crystal City Gallery, telling the story of Corning and its growth, in step with the growth of the Glass Works.
*We were thrilled to explore the Changing Exhibitions Gallery, with its special show “Fragile Legacy: The Marine Invertebrate Glass Models of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka.” You might be surprised by our excitement, but these are hundreds of exquisitely-fashioned teaching tools… models used in the classroom, acquainting the student with a world that was out of reach back in the 19th century.
*This set is on loan from Cornell, which we did not attend, but we are just old enough to remember when such items, by then often gathering dust in closets, were part of the ambiance of schools. These tiny artworks, with their breathtaking craftsmanship, belong to the world of art, and the world of science, and the world of social and educational history.
*In a lot of ways we had a light visit… there were many things on our mind, and we’d been there numerous times before. Maybe you have too. But you know, there’s always something new. And even if there weren’t, I’ll bet you haven’t got every single item memorized. There’s always something to experience that you haven’t experienced before.
*Having been in museum and tourism work for quite a while, I roll my eyes when someone enthuses over their WORLD-CLASS! attraction. Usually that just means that they’re excited, and have high (often unrealistic) hopes.
*To me, being world-class means that it’s the only one of its type in the world, and/or that people come in substantial numbers from around the world in order to see it. The Glass Museum qualifies. We have a world-class attraction in our back yard, and it’s worth repeat visits.
*Being a student of the history of technology, I always spend some time in the Innovation Center area. Besides enjoying the history, I unfailingly take time to listen to Joe Litttleton on video, telling the tale of his dad the scientist and his mom the housewife, and how they collaborated in bringing Pyrex to our kitchens. It’s always great to visit, once again, with Joe.
What I Did Next Summer
It’s a joke or a stereotype… the September back-to-school assignment for an essay on What I Did Last Summer.
Well, I have some thoughts on what I want to do THIS summer. Some of them have actually been on the list for quite a while. But it seems like whenever I’m about to get started, some family member winds up in the hospital. Still, a man can dream… and try… so, what I’d like to do not just SOME summer, but THIS summer….
Visit Genesee Country Village. I’ve been there several times before, but not for quite a few years. In particular I want to walk the nature trails. I want to see the gallery of outdoor and wildlife art. And I want to see their reproduction Civil War observation balloon.
Two out of three of those are going to be weather dependent, of course. If weather permits, maybe I can squeeze in watching a game of “town ball,” that very early version of baseball.
Hike the Letchworth Trail. This is 26 miles along the east rim of the gorge, in Letchworth State Park. Had I been on my own theoretical schedule, I’d have finished two years ago. As it is, I haven’t yet started. Onward!
While I’m over thataway, visit the early 19th-century Mills Mansion in Mount Morris. Each year some of my American History students visit for one of their required projects, but I’ve yet to be in town and available at a time when it’s open. I’ve got to plan ahead and do that.
Tour the new wing at Corning Museum of Glass. I’ve had several invitations, but schedule hasn’t permitted. This summer I hope to make it happen.
Walk and bird-watch frequently in Mossy Bank Park, above Bath. My wife and I were just there this morning, now that it’s reopened for the season. An 1851 diarist wrote of how it had become a Bath fad to go up to Mossy Bank for picnics and rambling. And we’re still at it! Most seasons lately, we even have eagles and osprey.
Hit Cruisin’ Night in Penn Yan. That’s loads of fun with the crowds, the old cars, the open library, stores and restaurants. We miss it about as often as we hit it, mostly through inattention, but this year we’re trying to schedule it in. (June 19th!)
Play some miniature golf. At least as of last season there were courses in Bath, Penn Yan, Harris Hill, Corning, Wellsboro, and Watkins Glen. We still haven’t covered them all.
Spend a day at the Windmill. With all that hospitalization, we’ve missed the past two years. But wait till this year!
Walk in to Taughannock Falls. Mrs. Window on the West hasn’t had a chance to do that, but now we’ve actually got it in the calendar! (Weather permitting.)
Go to Steuben County Fair in Bath. I’ll probably wind up volunteering at the one-room school, so that should make it easy.
Get the bike tuned up, and start cycling to work. It’s a catch-22 with Addison’s disease – you need the exercise, but you pretty much start the day already tired. Still, except for emotional inertia (and bad weather), there’s really nothing to stop me.
Do some hiking on the main Finger Lakes Trail in the Burdett-Watkins Glen area, linking up stretches that I’ve already hiked.
Visit Record Archive (a cool place) in Rochester, and pick up some more music CDs to listen to while I’m driving.
Well, all that should keep me busy. Maybe it’s too much for a single summer, but we live in an area with lots of great stuff to do. And without some planning ahead, the whole summer will just turn into work and grocery shopping. Summer in the Finger Lakes should be much more than that.