While grape growing and winemaking have been a major agricultural draw since the 1800s, much of the county’s acclaim over the past century-and-a-half has to do with innovations resulting from Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

You might say Steuben was built on the principles of STEM and a lot of hard work.

Not all of the actions that change the world happen in big city boardrooms with fanfare and pomp, but in quiet little towns like those dotting the Finger Lakes, sparked by people you’ve probably never even heard of.

Steuben County has a long history of innovators and world-changers, visionaries, inventors, scientists, and people who simply wouldn’t take no for an answer.

A visit to this off-the-beaten-path Destination of Innovation offers you the perfect opportunity to uncover hidden gems and make new discoveries along the way.

Hot Stuff! Or the Science of Being Different!

Scientifically speaking, Glass is a paradox. For this ubiquitous material is neither a liquid nor a solid, existing instead in a state somewhere in between.

Glass is an anomaly! Unusual. An “amorphous solid,” which is a supercool way to say that even when supercooled it defies the typical “molecular order” of a true solid. Yet “its irregular structure is too rigid for it to qualify as a liquid” (New Scientist).

For some materials, this could lead to an identity crisis. But in the case of glass, the very thing that makes the material so different is what also allows for seemingly unlimited possibilities.

And nowhere is that more evident than in Corning, America’s Crystal City!

“Glass helped to accelerate the amazing acquisition of knowledge about the natural and physical worlds by providing new scientific instruments: microscopes, telescopes, barometers, thermometers, vacuum flasks, retort flasks, and many others. Glass literally opened people’s eyes and minds to new possibilities and turned western civilization from an aural to a visual mode of interpreting experience” — (Science Magazine)

From Art to Technology, The Many Faces of Glass

Once upon a time, Corning, NY, which is known around the world as a Mecca for Glass (it’s where winners of the Netflix show Blown Away get to come for a residency), was a lumber town. But once the forests were cleared away, people who lived here needed another line of work.

In 1868, a small glass company from Brooklyn, pulled up roots (and its machinery) and moved to the small town upstate forever changing the trajectory of the community, the people, and the culture.

While starting out specializing in the creation of clear glass blanks primarily used by cutters to carve exquisite collectible artisan items like vases and chandeliers, Corning struggled to make ends meet. But in 1877, the Glass Works came to the aid of the railroad thanks to a new signal lens they designed with the optical aid of scientists from nearby Cornell. Three years later, inventor Thomas Edison needed special containers to house the filaments for his incandescence lamps.

Science Question – What special traits would the glass for light bulbs have needed back in 1879 and 1880 when Corning Glass Works began making the special containers for Edison’s incandescent lamps?

Hint: think about what a light bulb actually does and how it achieves such a feat. What traits might be essential?

While those first glass bubbles were handblown, in 1926 a Corning engineer and a former glass-blower invented the Ribbon Machine which allowed bulbs to be mass-produced and, as a result, accessible to nearly everyone.

Challenge: Think about every aspect of your life (from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed every night). How many different types of glass do you encounter throughout the day? Is it all the same type of glass? How many ways are light bulbs used in your daily life? Imagine what a day would be like without immediate access to all that light?

Did you know Corning Glass Works was one of the first companies to create its own internal Science and Research Department in the United States?

Wanna Play With Molten Glass?

One way to get an idea for just how unusual glass can be is by watching master artists transform it before your eyes. The other way is by shaping it yourself.

In Corning, you can do both!

Sure, there’s an element of danger when it comes to glassblowing. But that risk is the price you’re willing to pay for the incredible feeling that comes from creating something spectacular from an amorphous gob of blazing goo.

After all, glass artists start by gathering that fiery molten glass (the furnace which gathers are drawn from are kept at over 2,100° F) at the end of their metal blowpipe. That glob resembles a glowing orangey honey-like goop.

Drop a piece of paper on that gather (the official term, by the way) and it’ll quickly burn away.

Watch a glassblowing demo at the world’s largest museum devoted to glass. As the artists start to shape an object, the glass is already cooling rapidly and is soon closer to one-thousand degrees. Hot enough to burn flesh, malleable enough to continue shaping. Yet if the artist taps the glass with one of the metal tools, you’ll hear that distinctive clink sound. If glass cools too quickly, it will shatter and break, so the artist is constantly doing a dance with the material.

Of course, the best way to get a feel for the multifarious nature of glass is by taking a hands-on workshop and creating your own keepsake. That’s right, when you visit the museum, or nearby Hands-on Glass Studio, you are invited to work with a material as hot as lava.

Glass Workshops

Hands-on Glass (pull, shape, or blow glass and make your own glass keepsake)

The Studio (choose from several activities and make your own glass souvenir)

It’s Everywhere!

Glass is ever-present and we often take it for granted. New uses and applications are being developed for this versatile material all the time.

Maybe one day you will be creating the next great glass milestone.

A number of them have already taken place in the small town of Corning. You know, things like those incandescent lamps, fiber optics, Gorilla glass.

Not all glass is created equal. Some functions require special glass.

Formulas or recipes for glass (the chemistry behind which ingredients are used and how they’re combined) effect things like color and clarity. Glass artists and designers like Frederick Carder used science to concoct just the right recipes “inventing” remarkable colors of iridescent glass for Steuben Glass Works in the early 1900s.

Recipes also impact glass strength and functional uses.

You couldn’t use the same glass found in your living room window for the things below:

• Light Bulbs
• Space Shuttle Windows
• Pyrex

Gorilla Glass was developed to some degree in 1960s, but it seems they didn’t have useful applications for it until 21st century. Although it seems an accidental glass discovery in 1953 might have played a role in its development.

Now you’ll find the nearly unbreakable glass keeping priceless objects safe at The Corning Museum of Glass. You probably also interact with it daily when you text your friends or take a photo with your cell phone.

From Soaring to Space Exploration

Imagine a space shuttle with no windows. No way for the astronauts to see where they were going. But the engineers for a space shuttle couldn’t just use the same glass as your car windows. How would it hold up to the intense heat from re-entry?

Bonus Experience

When you visit The Corning Museum of Glass, you can learn about space shuttle windows, fiber optics, and other glass innovations. But did you know just 15 minutes from Corning, you can also visit the National Soaring Museum and learn about local astronaut Colonel Eileen Collins, the very first female space shuttle pilot in American history? You can also learn about the wonders of motorless flight (talk about blending science, technology, engineering and math).

No Motor! No Problem! Between April and November, you can enjoy the quiet serenity of soaring like an eagle over the valley on a glider ride. Elmira is the Soaring Capital of America.

Talk about a Bucket List experience and proof of the wonders of engineering.

Flight, Or the Science of Hurling Yourself Into the Sky!

Aviation Trivia

• Know who received the first pilot’s license in the United States?
• Who taught the first female pilot in America?
• Who invented the flying boat?
• Who is known as the Father of Naval Aviation?

Glenn Curtiss! And that’s not even scratching the surface of his accomplishments.

While some people had set out to conquer the mysteries of flight, others just wanted to go fast.

As a boy, Glenn Curtiss loved to race bicycles which were still a relatively young invention. But the faster Curtiss got, winning races and turning heads, it seemed the further he got from being satisfied. His legs could only take him so fast.

Cycling Enthusiasts: Every year, cyclists from around the country come to Hammondsport for the Keuka Gravel Classic and race on country roads around Keuka Lake not unlike what Curtiss did all those years ago. There are several ways to enjoy cycling in the area.

With only an eighth grade education, Curtiss had a gift for the mechanical and soon he was building motors to make his bicycles speedier. He entered races and did well, even took a few motorcycles to speed trials setting the land speed record.

Then in 1907, after being asked to build an engine to power an airship, Curtiss decided to test his motor by putting it on an altered bicycle frame and riding the beast of a machine on a Florida beach.

Curtiss went so fast he became “fastest man on earth,” propelling himself into the annals of history (though you probably have never read about him).

Motorcycles and Aviation

If it wasn’t for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering there would be no motorcycles, airplanes, helicopters, space ships.

Around 1902 Glenn Curtiss developed a motorized bicycle under the Hercules brand. He later changed the name to Curtiss (as he discovered another company had the name Hercules). He started competing in motorcycle races.

It seems “his first engine wasn’t powerful enough. His second engine was too powerful and too heavy.” So he kept “experimenting until he created a successful motorcycle with a lightweight and powerful engine.” He competed in a race in Brooklyn, NY in 1902 and won 3rd place. Afterwards he “began receiving calls from all over the world from people who wanted to purchase his engines and motorcycles including California, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa! He continued to work towards his goal of creating an engine that was light-weight, but powerful, so he could produce an incredibly fast motorcycle.” (National Air and Space Museum)

Then in 1907, he went so fast that it took him a mile just to stop, setting a motorcycle land speed record that stood until 1930. His engines were so good that they also catapulted him from racing on a beach to flying among the clouds.

Early Aviation Pioneer

Everyone wanted his motors.

Soon Curtiss drew aeronauts, balloonists, and inventors like Alexander Graham Bell to the small town of Hammondsport in the early 1900s making it the “Cradle of Aviation,” for it was there that most of the experimentation and advancements in aviation prior to WWI took place.

Aeronautics is the science of creating machines that fly. Of course, doing so relies on a number of sciences, as well as engineering, design, and math. Make a plane’s wings too long or too short and vastly change the ability to lift off or to remain aloft.

It seems the day before Curtiss made the first pre-announced flight in America and won the country’s first aeronautical prize, he crashed the June Bug and he and his team worked feverishly to make repairs. Some of the repairs required adjustments to the original design (they only had so much material left to work with). It also seems that some of those necessary adjustments ended up, inadvertently, aiding in the flight and making for a better plane.   

“Glenn Curtiss pushed the limits of flight and plane design.” – Samantha Feuss, Daily Item

Aviation and Ailerons

Curtiss is credited with developing ailerons which are still used today on aircraft.

“Over his career he produced and sold the first private airplane, received pilot’s license #1, designed and constructed the first successful pontoon aircraft in America, invented dual pilot control, and designed retractable landing gear.” (National Aviation Hall of Fame)

Also in Hammondsport, in May of 1908, the first vertical flight in America took place in Kingsley Flats by John Newton Williams.

In 2025, the Curtiss Museum will have on display one of only 12 CV2 Cargo Air Vehicle Drones ever made (Drone #1). The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will also have Drone #10 on display making the two museums the only places you can see these remarkable machines in person.

The drones use the same principals for vertical lift as Williams had in 1908. John Newton Williams was an engineer, entrepreneur, and inventor who engineered the first coaxial rotor Helicopter to fly. The Williams helicopter used the same V-8 engine Glenn Curtiss and the Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) was using in their aircraft (the Red Wing, the White Wing and finally the June Bug).

More Math and Engineering

In March 1908, Casey Baldwin piloted the “Red Wing” off frozen Keuka Lake for 20 seconds before it crashed, covering nearly 319 feet in the process. Two months later, Glenn Curtiss piloted the “White Wing” covering a distance of 1,017 feet in controlled flight.

On July 4, Curtiss piloted the “June Bug” across Pleasant Valley for a distance of 5,090 feet. It was the first officially-recognized, pre-announced and publicly-observed flight in America. It won Curtiss the first leg of the Scientific American trophy and established him as America’s foremost aviation pioneer.

“On May 29, 1910, Glenn Curtiss completed a 150–mile public flight along the Hudson from Albany, NY, to Manhattan. Curtiss’s feat – the first true cross-country flight in the United States – was a technological tour de force.” (Glenn H. Curtiss Museum)

“Flying from Albany to New York was unthinkable, out of the question; no man could do that. Curtiss almost didn’t. Battered by winds high above the Hudson, plunging like a stone in the Highlands downdrafts, Curtiss gulped as his oil pressure finally dropped to nothing and his motor coughed blue smoke. He came down just inside the city limits, barely clearing a creek bank. He had won the prize only technically. Eighteen thrilling minutes after he took off again, he won it publicly, emphatically and eternally.” – Jay Maeder, New York Daily News

At the museum you can see replicas, reproductions, or restored vintage aircraft like the June Bug, Albany Flyer and Curtiss JN-HN (aka “The Jenny”) which was used as a military training plane for pilots and after the war became the iconic image associated with barnstormers and daredevil feats.

“If any airplane can be singled out as having made the greatest over-all contribution to early aviation, it probably would the Curtiss JN-4. Although designed and built as a military trainer for American pilots during the First World War. The famous “Jenny” distinguished itself even more during the post-war years. It was the plane that introduced flying to the American public and popularized aviation. It was the “Model T Ford” of the air. The role the Jenny played in promoting aviation was a vital one, but it was mostly accidental” (read more about The Jenny Display Story)

Glenn Curtiss and his remarkable innovations (he held over 90 patents) at the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum which houses an exceptional collection of vintage airplanes, hydro-airplanes, motorcycles and automobiles.

In September, you can experience the excitement of a seaplane competition at the annual Wings & Wheels event which is part seaplane homecoming, part car show.

Curtiss and others aviators, including Ruth Law, used Keuka Lake as an airstrip (often in the winter months), and it was there that he developed seaplanes and invented the flying boat.

Though aviation advancements in Hammondsport are mostly historic in nature, the Curtiss Museum continues to make that rich and compelling history accessible in real time keeping those aspects of STEM relevant to visitors today.

And other areas in Steuben continue to rely on (and contribute to) various aspects of STEM. With their teams of scientists and engineers, companies like Corning Incorporated continue to create new and exciting technological breakthroughs that impact our lives in various ways, often without us thinking much about how they do it. Keep your eyes out for new glass applications like Willow Glass, OLED Lighting, Ribbon Ceramics, Advanced-Flow Reactors and more as they continue to bring the world into “The Glass Age.”

It’s not surprising to learn that Corning Incorporated also continues to invest in area youth providing them opportunities to learn and apply the principles of STEM as part of the Team Tardis and other Corning Area Robotics teams, not only designing and building their own robots, but taking part in various state and national competitions.

Team TARDIS is active in the community “sharing STEM and their love of robotics with the area’s youth — encouraging kids to get into robotics, join a local team, and ‘think like an engineer!’”

If you’re interested in watching a competition, you’re in luck. Every winter (usually in January or February), Teams from around the state descend on the Crystal City  as Corning is a location for one of The NY Excelsior FIRST Tech Challenge qualifier competitions.

Photo Credits:

McCauley and Hostetter Standing in Front of 200-Inch Glass Disk, Molten Glass at The Studio, Innovation Center, Glassblowing Demo by a Master, and Color Secrets of Steuben all courtesy The Corning Museum of Glass; Corning Glass Works courtesy Corning-Painted Post Historical Society; Edison’s Menlo Park Lab 1880 courtesy National Museum of American History; Hands-on Glass Studio Workshop Cagwin Photography; Crow Chandelier at CMoG courtesy Stu Gallagher; Curtiss Flying Baldwin Airship, Curtiss on Motorcycle, June Bug Flight July 4th 1908, and John Newton Williams Vertical Lift in Hammondsport 1908 all courtesy Glenn H. Curtiss Museum, Wings and Wheels Hammondsport courtesy Bonnie Gustin, Team TARDIS