Glenn Curtiss beat even the Wright brothers (who sued him bitterly) to get pilot's license No. 1 in America. He teamed with Alexander Graham Bell, helped develop the moving wing part known as the aileron, introduced tricycle landing gear, made the first airplane sales, and turned aeronautics into a multimillion dollar business. His innovations ranged from the Curtiss Pusher to the hydroaeroplane, the flying boat, and the Curtiss Jenny. Curtiss, his engines, and his airplanes dominated the world of early aviation on this side of the Atlantic. Glenn H. Curtiss: Aviation Pioneer charts Curtiss's...

Long ago, visitors reached Watkins Glen by railroad, steamboat, and horse-drawn wagon. They came to stay in the grand resorts, watch automobile racing in the streets, stroll through the countryside, attend Grange fairs, and ride an early trolley. Today the grand resorts are gone, but millions still come seeking spectacular gorges, the inland sea of Seneca Lake, vast vineyards, fine wineries, and Grand Prix racing.

Erwin and Painted Post are home to major facilities of Corning, Inc., formerly known as Corning Glass Works, a company that made a powerful impact on Erwin's history. In Erwin, folks poured steel, tried out the exotic 1920s military vehicle seen on the cover, and attended family Christmas parties at Ingersoll-Rand. Many of these photographs come from before those high-tech and heavy-industry days, when men rafted lumber down to Gang Mills and farmers relied on equipment that required more horses than men. Over 200 years, Painted Post folks erected four figures of Native Americans. They all...

Around Hornell tells the tale of western New York's "Maple City" and its neighbors, the rural towns of Canisteo, Dansville, Fremont, Hartsville, Hornellsville, and Howard. The region is set in the dramatic countryside between the Finger Lakes and the Appalachian Mountains, home to the deep gorges of Stony Brook State Park. Great arks floated down the Canisteo River to markets in Baltimore, and for more than a century, Hornell roared with round-the-clock work in the Erie Railroad shops. Hornell is a musical city of community bands, high-school operettas, and barbershop quartets, and its famous...

Through the centuries, Richmond soil has supported everything from forest to farms to fairways. Long ago, textile mills were strung along the waterways and more than a dozen one-room schools dotted the landscape. In Richmond, rediscover those bygone places and other cherished scenes: country churches, farm boys, mill employees, state road crews with their horses, ladies in elegant hats, small-town doctors hurrying out in early automobiles, and Richmond boys in baseball and army uniforms. Meet schoolteacher Florence Richmond, legislator Lucy Rawlings Tootel, Civil War veteran David Kenyon,...

In the beginning of the twentieth century, women were
demanding more freedom. What could bring more freedom
than a chance to fly? Women went up in those early wire-andfabric contraptions to gain independence, to make money, or to make their names as pilots. They sought to prove that women pilots could do just as well as men--and some did far better. Flying High: Pioneer Women in American Aviation tells the story of Blanche Stuart Scott, who made $5,000 a week and
broke forty-one bones; of Harriet Quimby, who flew the English Channel handily and then fell to her death in five feet...

Hopkinton has always been a rural town, but it grew up on pioneer industry. The mills on Wood River and other waterways form only part of this collection of Hopkinton images. You will also see town residents putting on plays, going to Camp Yawgoog by wagon, and fishing on Yawgoog Pond. Here is Hopkinton from the dawn of photography to the middle of the twentieth century: stone walls and farmsteads, horse-drawn buggies and early autos, and the fondly remembered Wood River Branch Railroad.

In June 1972, Hurricane Agnes hit the East Coast with a monstrous and devastating force, bringing a deluge across multiple states and slamming four counties in the Southern Tier: Steuben, Chemung, Tioga, and Broome. Dozens died and property damage ran into the millions as Corning, Elmira, Owego, Binghamton, and other communities suddenly found themselves under water. The flood destroyed the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, staggered the Penn Central, shut down Corning Glass Works for weeks, and devastated the Corning Museum of Glass--a major cultural resource. Lives and landscapes were forever...