The Hodorowicz  Photo Collection was the  work of Matthew Hodorowicz of Dunkirk, who used a 4×5 field camera to capture scenes that were part of a series of seven architectural studies accomplished between 1971 and 1976 under the sponsorship of the Lakeshore Association of the Arts (later the Arts Council fo Chautauqua County). Funding initially came from the New York State Council for the Arts, and later Access to the Arts, Inc., spearheaded the actual publication of the Dunkirk survey and mounting of an exhibit of the photographs. The Dunkirk study was undertaken in the summer of 1975 by graduate student J.A. Chewning of Cornell University, who would later become a Kress Fellow at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and receive his PhD from MIT.

The booklet “Dunkirk, New York: Its Architectural and Urban Development” can be found in the museum. Its completion was assisted by Daniel D. Reiff, who served as Project Directors and Editor, and the museum, which provided a number of historic photographs.