Palmer Falls Hotel (n.d.)

The Hudson River Mill played a pivotal role in Corinth's economic, political and social history. The Mill became the community's largest employer as the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company expanded operations in the late 19th century to become one of the largest paper mills in the United States. The earliest influences of the Mill on the community were primarily economic. Salaries paid to workers, the Mill's purchase of local goods and services, and the Company's annual contribution to the local tax base all helped to create an economic vitality in the community. The formation of International Paper in 1898, however, brought to Corinth a company whose position as the largest company in the pulp and paper industry would have an expansive and lasting impact in the community.

As the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company grew and prospered in the 1870's and 1880's, its employees built housing in a largely undeveloped area of Jessup's Landing near the Mill. A residential plan that originally had been created by the Palmer Water Power Company in 1858 served as the model for the layout of the new community streets in what would become known as the "Palmer' section of the community. Economic development of the eastern end of the village followed the expansion of the Hudson River Mill and the construction of worker residences. The Palmer Falls Hotel, constructed in 1874 at the corner of Palmer Avenue and Sixth Street near the original entrance to the Mill, was an enterprise that benefitted directly from the economic activity that the paper industry brought to town.

Warren Curtis (1906)

The personnel at the Hudson River Mill played an important contributing role to the community's welfare. Warren Curtis, who arrived in Corinth in 1871 to manage the day-to-day operations of the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company, was often called "the founder of modern Corinth." His service as first President of the newly incorporated Village in 1888, leadership in organizing the Corinth Union School, role as the first President of the Union's School Board, and his election to two terms as Supervisor of the Town of Corinth, exemplified the idea that businessmen should also be civic leaders.

Warren Curtis also was instrumental in the movement to incorporate the Village of Corinth. The incorporation in 1888 - which resulted in the use of name "Corinth" instead of Jessup's Landing as the proper name for the Village - was a means to make municipal services more easily attainable for the most densely populated section of the Town of Corinth, particularly to the fast-growing neighborhood of the Hudson River Mill which itself lay just inside the new Village's eastern boundary. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the incorporation of Corinth Village in 1888 occurred the same year that the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company completed a major expansion of its physical plant that reportedly made it the largest paper mill in North America.

The Curtis family might even be considered as Corinth's "first family" for their long service as benefactors to the community. Warren Curtis married Margaret Parmenter, a Corinth native and school teacher who gave birth to eight children, three of whom died as infants. They were best known for providing the funds to build a stately new Baptist Church in 1898 after the original one was destroyed by fire. Margaret served as the church organist and Sunday school teacher and, after Warren died in 1913, she provided the Baptist minister with a new parsonage in honor of her husband.

Curtis Family Summer Home on Palmer Avenue (n.d.)

The Corinth Electric Light and Power Company, which was organized by the eldest Curtis son, Warren Curtis, Jr., provided Corinth with its first surge of electricity in 1896. Warren Jr. returned home to Corinth after graduating from Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, serving as an assistant to his father after Warren Sr. had become International Paper's principal engineer and one of its Directors. Before Warren Jr. struck out on his own in 1915 to build two paper mills in the Niagra Falls area, he started the Curtis Manufacturing Company in 1913 on the Hudson's upper falls in Corinth to manufacture wood pulp for International Paper. Warren Jr. also fulfilled his civic duties just as his father did by serving two terms as Corinth's Village President. After Warren Sr., his wife and two sons died, the surviving Curtis daughters in 1937 donated the family's summer home on lower Palmer Avenue to serve as Corinth's hospital.

International Paper made a symbolic statement of the importance of the Hudson River Mill to the Corinth community when it built a new corporate headquarters on Pine Street in 1905. By relocating the main entrance to the Mill from 6th Street to Pine Street, and reconstructing the street and sidewalks that led to the new building, the Company seemed to be designating its headquarters an important civic structure within the community.

The building's smooth brick upper story where Company management was located, and the rough textured granite lower level where workers entered to punch their time cards and collect their pay, served as an symbolic expression of the subordinate relationship between management and labor that was common to the era. For several decades the building also received the Company's directors who arrived in Corinth by a special train each August to attend International Paper's annual stockholder's meeting that was held at the Hudson River Mill.

Hudson River Mill Baseball Team (ca.1920)

The 1921 Paper Strike, which had such a divisive impact on both paperworkers and citizens, ironically set in motion events that would produce positive community benefits for three generations of Corinthians. The employee welfare program that International Paper Company initiated in 1924 that was intended to diminish worker interest in rejoining labor unions included the establishment of local Employee Mutual Benefit Associations (EMBA) that were managed by dues-paying Company employees to offer community social and recreational activities.

Hudson River Mill Basketball Team (1929)

Among the social activities that were organized by the early Hudson River Mill EMBA were semi-pro baseball and basketball teams that wore the IPCO uniform and played in regional industrial leagues from the 1920's to the early 1950's. Vendome Ticknor, who as young man left Michigan for Corinth to find work at the Hudson River Mill during the 1921 Strike, recalled that it was his skills on the baseball diamond as a member of the IPCO team that contributed to his acceptance within a community that was still hostile to strikebreakers.

The EMBA played an active and important role in the lives of Hudson River Mill workers and their families. Members paid dues and contributed their time to managing EMBA programs, but International Paper also provided considerable financial and material resources in support of organization-sponsored activities. Company backing was critical to providing and maintaining the Community Building, the Curtis Field, and Brookhaven Golf Course, sites that served as venues for many EMBA programs. The fact that these programs were open to all residents of Corinth, particularly its children, insured that International Paper's support of the EMBA impacted the entire community.

Community Building Dance (1957)

The Company-built structure that became known as the Community Building - despite its notorious origin as housing for strikebreakers during the 1921 Paper Strike - emerged under the EMBA as a center of social activity in Corinth. Its gymnasium was used for EMBA sponsored roller-skating, social dances, basketball, and banquets, while other areas in the building housed bowling lanes, a cafeteria, a shooting range, and the Youth Boxing Program. The Curtis Field on Palmer Avenue, which had served as the site for EMBA baseball and softball league play, by the early 1960's had also become home to an outdoor ice skating rink.

The EMBA Sports Banquet that was held in the Community Building each winter was a ritual event that celebrated the achievements of the men and boys who participated in EMBA programs. Trophies were given to team members in basketball, softball, bowling, darts, shooting, and golf, while individual trophies were presented for hunting and fishing. A regional or national sports figure often appeared as a guest speaker. First held in 1950, the banquet was typically attended by over 200 men and boys, plus town officials, clergymen, school administrators, and Company officers. The sports banquet was just one way that the EMBA served as the principal social force in Corinth that developed and extended the bonds connecting mill and community from the 1920's to the 1970's.

The Hudson River Mill EMBA expanded its role and influence in Corinth when it published its first EMBA News in 1942. Conceived as a way to communicate hometown news to local men in military service during World War II, the EMBA News was a publishing idea that was eventually copied by the EMBA's at other International Paper Company mills throughout the Northeast.

Deer Hunters on Main Street (1957)

By the 1950's the EMBA News had become an important means of communication within the greater Corinth community. Company, employee and community activities of all kinds were covered monthly in its pages. The News also featured numerous articles on technical issues about paper production, new product development, and International Paper's corporate expansion efforts. By 1960, the EMBA News consistently reported on community events and employee achievements, while it also increasingly served International Paper's greater public relations objectives. Mill employees who were successful in seasonal sporting activities like hunting and fishing were regularly featured in the News.

Catholic Daughters of American Minstrel (1956)

The EMBA News and the photographs that filled its pages provide insight both to the expansion of EMBA activities after World War II and to International Paper's growing influence in Corinth's civic life. Photographs that appeared in the EMBA News in the period 1942-1976 are particularly revealing of the relationship that developed between International Paper and Corinth in this period. The Company exerted a strong influence within the community through its economic presence, its active benevolence, and its public relations activities. George Holland, editor and photographer of the News, seemed to attend and document nearly all of Corinth social and recreational events. The EMBA News provides compelling evidence of International Paper's determination to become fully engaged in the life of the community, from the late 1950's to the early 1970's.

Knights of Columbus Parade (1957)

Children in Corinth were exposed early to the role that the Hudson River Mill played in the community. Many people who grew up in Corinth can recall the elementary classroom where they first learned how paper is made. Shredded tissues and water were mixed with an eggbeater to create a pulp that was then poured onto small, wood-framed screens. After drying, small sheets of finished paper would be peeled away. This project explained to Corinth children - albeit on a small scale - the industrial paper making process that went on at the Hudson River Mill.

EMBA Christmas Party (1957)

Papermaking impacted the lives of Corinth children in other ways. Elementary age children often received their initial glimpse of the Hudson River Mill during a tour with classmates. If a child belonged to the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, they might have gone on a second tour of the mill, or perhaps completed a Scout project about papermaking. Depending on their particular social and family situation, children growing up in Corinth might have toured the Hudson River Mill several times while still in elementary school.

The Hudson River Mill had an impact on the community's children when they participated in activities that were sponsored by the EMBA and supported with Company funds or facilities, like the annual Christmas party held at the Community Building. On this occasion as many as 500 children would sit on Santa's lap and receive small gifts.

Corinth children engaged in other activities that were supported by the Hudson River Mill. International Paper's Pure-Pak Division donated the UNICEF collection cartons that were distributed annually at Halloween, and primary grade children also attended programs at the Corinth School Forest that were created with funds provided by the International Paper Company Foundation.

Students in IP Funded Reading Program (1963)

Corinth youth in grades 7-12 were also likely to have their formal education enriched by International Paper. In 1956 the International Paper Company Foundation began a program of aid to secondary schools in the communities where its mills were located. Coordinated by the Teachers College at Columbia University, the IP Foundation offered schools financial grants to support the development of innovative educational programs. School districts in IP mill towns, who were expected to assume future program costs if they were continued beyond the trial period, received over 13,000,000 dollars from the Foundation between 1956 and 1974.

The IP Foundation provided support for a variety of secondary school initiatives, including programs promoting good citizenship, the teaching of "new" or modern math, remedial reading, library enhancement, cultural enrichment, aesthetic awareness, faculty development, and curriculum expansion. Each spring a group of Corinth teachers and administrators traveled to New York City to meet with Columbia University faculty and IP Foundation officials in a discussion of current and proposed projects.

Projects developed in Corinth with IP Foundation funds included the Corinth School Forest, a developmental reading program for 7th graders, 12th grade courses in economics and culture designed to simulate college seminars, the creation of a personal typing course, school-year and summer workshops for teachers, and financial support for the creation of new staff positions.

Girls At EMBA Skating Rink (1959)

International Paper's commitment to education provided a context for other cooperative projects between the Corinth Schools and the Hudson River Mill. These included a 1963 program to reduce the high school drop-out rate, the creation in 1965 of educational programs held at the Corinth School Forest, the first Corinth Student Day at the Mill in 1964 with an expansion in 1970 to Student Week at the Mill. The latter two programs were intended to demonstrate to high school seniors the application of their studies to industrial operations at the Mill.