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Join us for our new Arts & Culture Series!
This series takes an in-depth dive into the values, customs, ideas, and creativity that were sparked by the opening of the Erie Canal and the impact this waterway had on the individual and on the collective society of upstate NY and beyond. We will have educational presentations along with hands on art cruises to create a better understanding of what canallers did during long days traveling along the canal.
Through a collaboration with the Erie Canal Museum’s Education Department, we will have presentations given on the following topics starting at 4pm on Sam Patch:
June 19- Pathway of Resistance: The Erie Canal and the Underground Railroad
This constantly evolving talk examines the experience of African-Americans along the Erie Canal Corridor, with a particular focus on the struggle for abolition. While parts of this story are unpleasant, slavery, racism, and resistance are critical to understanding our society today
July 17- The Beer-ie Canal Was A-Risin’: Brewing on the Erie Canal
The Erie Canal was a transformative waterway for various industries along its route, including brewing, which flourished from Albany to Buffalo. This discussion examines the Canal’s beer boom in the 19th century and its new one in the 21st.
August 14- Erie Eats: The Erie Canal Foodways Project
Food is the most basic building block of human life. We all need it to survive and thrive. But where does our food come from? How does it get to where we can eat it? Who decides what products will be available to us to eat? The answers to all of these questions, for people in Upstate New York and throughout the United States, were radically transformed by the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 and continued to change dramatically over the next 200 years as the Canal itself changed.
September 11- The Center of it All: Baseball on the Erie Canal
Discover the Erie Canal’s many connections to the earliest days of professional baseball, told through the stories of some of the game’s biggest stars and others long forgotten.
October 16- Waterway of Change: Women and the Erie Canal
The Erie Canal revolutionized Upstate New York, bringing new ideas, people, and industries to the region, sparking a firestorm of change. This presentation will cover how the fight for women’s rights grew out of the changes brought about by the Erie Canal and the movement’s dependence on networks that the Canal facilitated.
