Written by Madeline Mecca, Ithaca College
The importance of artifacts and historical locations cannot be overstated, especially for small museums. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of touring the original Wharton Studio, a large pavilion building in Stewart Park, a lakefront park in Ithaca, New York. This building, once home to the Wharton brothers’ movie making empire, is currently occupied by City of Ithaca’s public works department’s park and landscaping equipment. But with a goal of celebrating the past and a commitment to the future, Wharton Studio Museum and Friends of Stewart Park are working in partnership with the City of Ithaca to revitalize the building and highlight its history and the movie production that took place in the early part of the 20th century. The future Wharton Studio & Cafe will include exhibit space and a small café with terraces facing Cayuga Lake. My tour of the building was a surreal experience for me. The studio’s history nearly echoes against its walls. The back part still has the same tall ceilings with original metal tracks that were used to move backdrops. I could just imagine the hustle and bustle that once took place there: set lights catching the shimmer of sequins on a starlet’s dress, yells back and forth between crew members, the whirring of blocky cameras capturing the magic, actors and actresses dashing across painted scenery. This building, one of the only silent movie studios still standing in the United States, is a testament to the rarity of places and things that stand the test of time, and just how astonishing that is.
I also visited the Wharton Studio Museum’s exhibit located in the Tompkins Center for History and Culture. The exhibit contains ephemera from Ithaca’s silent movie heyday and footage from the Whartons’ surviving films. Within The History Center’s Cornell Local History Research Library and Archives on the first floor, is a table from the Whartons’ studio, which was used as a prop in films like Beatrix Fairfax. It was donated by Frank Howe, who inherited it from his grandmother. She obtained it when the studio held a yard sale of sorts in 1919 after declaring bankruptcy. The table — a large, ornate piece crafted from luxurious wood — carries its history in a stoic way. Standing so close to it enchanted me. I wondered about the woodworker who made the table and if he or she knew who would be using it. Was it custom made for the Whartons? Did the Whartons have any input in its design? Was it locally made? There are so many unanswered questions. But it seems to me that pondering the possibilities of such an old object helps to keep its legacy intact, in a way. The mystery surrounding it takes on a life of its own.
The Wharton Studio Museum exhibit is also home to a small collection of fashion accessories, all made between 1915–1930, on loan from the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection. Once again, my mind was alight with the history standing so close to me. Glimmering shoe buckles and delicate hair combs glowed under the overhead lights. Much like when I was in the studio building, images flashed through my mind: dressing rooms filled with a persistent haze of cigarette smoke, meticulously chosen costumes, flickering black-and-white scenes of women with bobbed hair and fresh self-assuredness.
The history of artifacts, known or unknown, is a priceless thing. Even without tangible facts and records accompanying them, objects still paint a picture of who and what came before us. This is true for even the most mundane of things from the past, say the autumn-hued cookware sets of the 1970’s or the valentines with big-eyed anthropomorphic animals of the 1950’s. There is so much to be discovered in intricate details that once decorated people’s lives, especially for young people like me. History is kept alive not only through something magnificent like a silent film studio building, but also through small things. Perhaps the not-knowing of specific details makes it all the more magical.
