Explore the birthplace of Talking Movies and the history of Cayuga County at the Cayuga Museum/Case Research Lab.


The Cayuga Museum presents changing exhibitions, public programs and serves hundreds of researchers annually on three floors of the historic Willard-Case Mansion. The Case Research Laboratory is where Theodore Case invented the process of putting sound on film in the early 1920’s.


Exhibits include the working spaces of the darkroom, chemistry lab, and recording studio; the first sound camera; experimental recording equipment; and a history of the commercialization of sound film including such ventures as Phonofilms, Fox-Case Movietone, and Fox Films (now 20th Century Fox).