Reflections on Erie’s Waters – The Erie Canal in New York State’s History and Future, a collaborative project of the Erie Canal Museum and the Canal Society of New York State, commemorates the bicentennial of the Erie Canal which begins in 2017 and lasts through 2025. Reflections on Erie’s Waters is a multifaceted program that includes exhibits, a statewide lecture series, and artist-led workshops that examine the Canal’s history and impact through a variety of perspectives.
2017 State-Wide Lecture Series
The Erie Canal Museum hosted five lectures at locations around the state: the Hudson River Maritime Museum in Kingston, Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site in Fort Hunter, the Erie Canal Discovery Center in Lockport, Skä•noñh – Great Law of Peace Center in Liverpool, and Fairport Public Library.
Becoming Second Nature: The Erie Canal’s Early History
Lecturer: Carol Sheriff
Saturday, July 22 at 1:00 PM at the Hudson River Maritime Museum [50 Rondout Landing, Kingston, NY 12401]
As New York and the nation mark the Erie Canal’s bicentennial, Carol Sheriff explores the waterway’s early history, from 1817 to the 1860s. In our own era of instant communications, the Erie Canal has become an icon of a quieter, simpler era. Yet in its own day, it symbolized the young republic’s technological and economic progress, even the nation’s realization of a divinely ordained mission. Professor Sheriff will introduce the contested, often ambivalent ways in which New Yorkers grappled with the new waterway’s remapping of their region’s physical and human geography. As they redefined their daily routines, livelihoods, and values for the Canal Era, New Yorkers helped turn the extraordinary into second nature.
Carol Sheriff is the William E. Pullen Professor of History at the College of William and Mary and the author of The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862,which won the New York State Historical Association’s Dixon Ryan Fox Prize in 1996. With Scott Reynolds Nelson, she wrote A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War, 1854-1877, and she is a co-author of A People and A Nation, an American history textbook that will soon be released in its eleventh edition. She is currently working on a book tentatively entitled ‘Not a brother’s war’: America’s Embattled Textbooks, which examines controversies over how state-history textbooks have portrayed historical events from the 1860s through the present.
Becoming Second Nature: The Erie Canal’s Early History
Lecturer: Carol Sheriff
Sunday, July 23 at 4:00 PM at Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site [129 Schoharie Street, Fort Hunter, NY 12069]
As New York and the nation mark the Erie Canal’s bicentennial, Carol Sheriff explores the waterway’s early history, from 1817 to the 1860s. In our own era of instant communications, the Erie Canal has become an icon of a quieter, simpler era. Yet in its own day, it symbolized the young republic’s technological and economic progress, even the nation’s realization of a divinely ordained mission. Professor Sheriff will introduce the contested, often ambivalent ways in which New Yorkers grappled with the new waterway’s remapping of their region’s physical and human geography. As they redefined their daily routines, livelihoods, and values for the Canal Era, New Yorkers helped turn the extraordinary into second nature.
Carol Sheriff is the William E. Pullen Professor of History at the College of William and Mary and the author of The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862,which won the New York State Historical Association’s Dixon Ryan Fox Prize in 1996. With Scott Reynolds Nelson, she wrote A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America’s Civil War, 1854-1877, and she is a co-author of A People and A Nation, an American history textbook that will soon be released in its eleventh edition. She is currently working on a book tentatively entitled ‘Not a brother’s war’: America’s Embattled Textbooks, which examines controversies over how state-history textbooks have portrayed historical events from the 1860s through the present.
Lockport’s Religious Foundations
Lecturer: Dr. Kathleen Riley
Wednesday, October 18 at 2:00 PM at the Erie Canal Discovery Center [24 Church Street, Lockport, NY 14094]
Lockport was the center of both technological triumphs and the persistent social tensions which followed the path of the Erie Canal. In this lecture Dr. Kathleen Riley, professor of history at Ohio Dominican University, will discuss the central importance of religion in the history of Lockport, a western New York city that developed around the Erie Canal. Numerous denominations had roles in constructing Lockport’s Canal and its famed five-tiered locks. The speaker will share insights into their story, which is one of both conflict and cooperation.
Kathleen Riley is the author of Lockport: Historic Jewel of the Erie Canal and Fulton J. Sheen: An American Catholic Response to the Twentieth Century. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Nazareth College of Rochester and her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Notre Dame. Her teaching and research interests include American Religious History, especially Catholicism; American Intellectual History; American Political History, with an emphasis on the Presidency; and Local History, including the Erie Canal and Lockport, New York. Riley is a Lockport native and visits the area frequently.
The Sacred Waters of the Haudenosaunee and the Trauma of the Erie Canal
Lecturers: Philip P. Arnold and Chief Jake Edwards
Saturday, October 21 at 1:00 PM at the Skä•noñh- Great Law of Peace Center [6680 Onondaga Lake Pkwy, Liverpool, NY 13088]
For millennia, waterways in Haudenosaunee territories have been profoundly important. In the Haudenosaunee cosmology, water is sacred as fundamental to all life. Therefore, while waterways were used for transportation, as food resources, and as locations for settlement, it was widely agreed among Indigenous that they also be protected. The Erie Canal disrupted the natural flow of water, essentially damning watersheds so as to flow in an east-west direction. As Laurence Hauptman has discussed in Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State, the creation of the Erie Canal corresponded with the dispossession of the Haudenosaunee. Transformation of the landscape throughout the 19th century had profound environmental effects and traumatic consequences on Haudenosaunee relationships to their lands.
Jake Edwards is a citizen on the Onondaga Nation and sits on the Council of Chiefs. He has extensive knowledges of Haudenosaunee environmental history and often speaks throughout the world on Haudenosaunee values. A sovereign nation on 7,300 acres south of Syracuse, Onondaga is a proud member of the Haudenosaunee (“People of the Long House”), an alliance of six Native American nations sometimes referred to as the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations. Other members include the Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations.
Philip P. Arnold is Associate Professor and Chair of Religion Department at Syracuse University as well as core faculty in Native American and Indigenous Studies. He is the Founding Director of the Skä·noñh—Great Law of Peace Center (www.skanonhcenter.org/). His books are Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan (1999); Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics: Planting a Tree (2001); The Gift of Sports: Indigenous Ceremonial Dimensions of the Games We Love (2012) and Urgency of Indigenous Religions (University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming). He is a founding member of Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON), (www.peacecouncil.net/NOON/index.html) and established the Doctrine of Discovery Study Group (www.doctrineofdiscovery.org) He is the President of the Indigenous Values Initiative(www.indigenousvalues.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to articulating, disseminating and promoting values expressed by the leadership of the Onondaga Nation, the Central Fire (or Capital) of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (made up of the Seneca, Tuscarora, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk nations).
The Sacred Waters of the Haudenosaunee and the Trauma of the Erie Canal
Lecturers: Philip P. Arnold and Chief Jake Edwards
Saturday, October 28 at 1:00 PM the Fairport Public Library [1 Fairport Village Landing, Fairport, NY 14450]
For millennia, waterways in Haudenosaunee territories have been profoundly important. In the Haudenosaunee cosmology, water is sacred as fundamental to all life. Therefore, while waterways were used for transportation, as food resources, and as locations for settlement, it was widely agreed among Indigenous that they also be protected. The Erie Canal disrupted the natural flow of water, essentially damning watersheds so as to flow in an east-west direction. As Laurence Hauptman has discussed in Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State, the creation of the Erie Canal corresponded with the dispossession of the Haudenosaunee. Transformation of the landscape throughout the 19th century had profound environmental effects and traumatic consequences on Haudenosaunee relationships to their lands.
Jake Edwards is a citizen on the Onondaga Nation and sits on the Council of Chiefs. He has extensive knowledges of Haudenosaunee environmental history and often speaks throughout the world on Haudenosaunee values. A sovereign nation on 7,300 acres south of Syracuse, Onondaga is a proud member of the Haudenosaunee (“People of the Long House”), an alliance of six Native American nations sometimes referred to as the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations. Other members include the Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations.
Philip P. Arnold is Associate Professor and Chair of Religion Department at Syracuse University as well as core faculty in Native American and Indigenous Studies. He is the Founding Director of the Skä·noñh—Great Law of Peace Center (www.skanonhcenter.org/). His books are Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan (1999); Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics: Planting a Tree (2001); The Gift of Sports: Indigenous Ceremonial Dimensions of the Games We Love (2012) and Urgency of Indigenous Religions (University of New Mexico Press, forthcoming). He is a founding member of Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON), (www.peacecouncil.net/NOON/index.html) and established the Doctrine of Discovery Study Group (www.doctrineofdiscovery.org) He is the President of the Indigenous Values Initiative(www.indigenousvalues.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to articulating, disseminating and promoting values expressed by the leadership of the Onondaga Nation, the Central Fire (or Capital) of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (made up of the Seneca, Tuscarora, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida and Mohawk nations).
2017 Artist-Led Workshops
The Erie Canal Museum hosted five artist-led workshops in the areas of poetry, photography, music, storytelling, and painting.
The Erie Canal: A Pathway for Poetry Workshop with Ellen Agnew
Saturday, May 20 and Saturday, June 3 from 10am – 1pm at the Erie Canal Museum
This two-session workshop provided an introduction to five different forms of poetry and strategies for composing poetry, as well as an opportunity to write and share poems inspired by various perspective of the Erie Canal, past and present.
Reflecting with Song: Music Workshop with Dave Ruch
Thursday, June 15 from 7pm – 9pm at the Erie Canal Museum
Syracuse New York is home to an active community of folk musicians, fiddlers, bluegrass bands, and singers and players of Irish traditional music. The local and regional “heritage” repertoire of canal music shares lots of common musical ground with these genres, and yet, seems to be under-represented at local jam sessions and musical events. This workshop with musician and canal music researcher Dave Ruch (www.daveruch.com), with Dick Ford of Signature Music, introduced songs and instrumental pieces from canal days, passing along to area musicians some truly regional folk music while inviting reflections and comparisons with their current repertory.
Reflecting on the Historic Erie Canal Photography Workshop with Willson Cummer
Saturday, July 15 from 10am – 2pm at the Erie Canal Museum
In this workshop, participants will explored the area of downtown Syracuse that was once occupied by the Erie Canal and utilize their cameras to create their own visions of history. The workshop will included an introduction to basic photography and end with a supportive critique.
Collecting Reflections Storytelling Workshop with Sean Kirst
Saturday, July 29 from 11am – 2pm at the Erie Canal Museum
Participants learned storytelling techniques based on their impressions of the Erie Canal’s history, impact, and relevance to their lives built around one famous incident in Canal history; and develop creative ideas for spoken word tales that build on these impressions.
Drawing from History, Painting Erie’s Landscape Workshop with Reina Apraez
Wednesday, September 13 from 5pm – 8:00pm at the Erie Canal Museum & Clinton Square
Even at its bicentennial, the Erie Canal has informed city planners and developers of the possibilities for a new Syracuse. This is a landscape drawing and painting workshop in structure, and is also an opportunity to learn about the possibilities that exist in our changing City through creativity and experimentation. This is a workshop for all levels, and a great opportunity for young artists to develop portfolio pieces. The workshop will begin at the Erie Canal Museum with a discussion of the Erie Canal and how the city developed around it, looking at pictures of Clinton Square as a reference. Participants will then walk down to Clinton Square for a plein air creative session during the golden hour before sunset.
Reflections on Erie’s Waters is made possible with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
