TV crew plays detective at center

By Linda Stout
Journal Staff

ITHACA — Archivist Donna Eschenbrenner and her crew at The History Center of Tompkins County treated an inquiry about a book on a Mormon settler with Ithaca ties she received a few months ago like any other.

She didn't know the question would get selected for an episode of the PBS television series “History Detectives.” A Lion TV crew went to work Friday at The History Center with History Detective Tukufu Zuberi, also of the Center for Africana Studies and a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

The production involved some local talent like Carole West, who donned the 1800s garb she wears as the school marm for the center's Eight Square schoolhouse living history program held at an octagonal former schoolhouse on Upper Hanshaw Road near the airport.

The crew needed such a 19th-century depiction for an upcoming episode about the 1856 book, “Female Life Among the Mormons; a Narrative of Many Years' Personal Experience by the Wife of a Mormon Elder, Recently from Utah.” It's an apparently autobiographical account of a woman from here who left New York to accompany her Mormon husband to Utah, Eschenbrenner said in a news release.

Historians have suggested that the author, (whose pen-name was Maria Ward) was really Cornelia Ferris, and her husband was Benjamin G. Ferris, once a secretary of the Utah Territory, Eschenbrenner said.

Benjamin G. Ferris was a lawyer, a district attorney and president of the Village of Ithaca before it became a city, Eschenbrenner said.

The production company is not revealing details about the episode, Chris Bryson of Lion TV said Friday.

This topic, only one of the 10 selected from 3,000 nominations, was spurred by Dutchess County collector Marcie Waterman Murray's purchase of a $50 batch of books that included “Female Life Among the Mormons.” Murray, who is from Stanfordville, asked the History Detectives to investigate the book.

The six-person crew came to study some of the History Center's collections for a portion of the show. They interviewed Eschenbrenner, who said she'd done local television on behalf of The History Center but nothing like this. She was a little nervous, but the crew made it fun, she said.

Mormon expert Terryl Givens of the University of Richmond was also interviewed for this episode at The History Center.

The Ithaca collections were helpful, said producer Peter Van Pelt, who came with the Lion TV crew from New York City.

“This is a great resource. I was surprised at what a tremendous amount of information we found,” he said.

They used a variety of documents like obituaries, newspaper clippings, letters and photographs, he said.

Interest in The History Center's collections and information has grown, thanks to the Internet, Eschenbrenner said.

“We're available to more people than we ever were,” she said.

This was not the only “History Detective” inquiries to The History Center this fall. The other one about was about Thomas-Morse Airplanes, although filming didn't come to Ithaca, Eschenbrenner said.

Eschenbrenner said the research that got PBS involved was a team effort. Mary White, her assistant and a librarian at The History Center, and one of the center's many volunteer research assistants, Mari Tijari, helped with the research request that led the spotlight.

 

Home | Exhibits & Programs | Collections | What's New? | Education
Research Library | Eight Square Schoolhouse | Gift Shop

Ó 2006 The History Center in Tompkins County