An exhibition in the Nott Memorial this fall will celebrate an important anniversary for the Erie Canal, one of the greatest engineering feats of American history.
Completed in 1825, the 363 miles of the Erie Canal connected Buffalo to Albany, traveling through the heart of Schenectady on the way. The canal spurred the first great westward movement of American settlers, made New York the preeminent commercial city in the United States, and helped colleges such as Union by bringing students from the west.
Union's tribute to the canal celebrates its 175th anniversary with an exhibition that explores the magnitude of its impact. Titled “A Monument of Progress: The 175th Anniversary of the Erie Canal,” the exhibit will open Sept. 4 and includes both a study of the Erie Canal as an inspiration for artistic expression and a look at the design of this engineering masterpiece.
The art exhibition in the Mandeville Gallery will feature nineteenth-century art inspired by the canal and reflecting the large cultural impact the canal had on this region during that century. It will include paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, stoneware, and other decorative art. A second exhibit, located in Dyson Hall, will tell the story of the construction through original engineering drawings and working models of locks.
Rachel Seligman, curator of the Mandeville Gallery, says the Erie Canal is a perfect subject for the College. “The canal touches so many aspects of American culture — science and engineering, art, literature, music, politics, economics, history — that it has turned out be an ideal subject to bridge the different disciplines of the College.
“With this exhibit, the imaginative visitor will experience what it was like to travel the length of the Erie Canal, viewing its vistas, marveling at its construction feats, meeting its people, and absorbing its culture,” she continues. “I hope that visitors to this exhibit will take from it an understanding of the most impressive North American engineering feat of the first half of the nineteenth century.”
Supplementing the exhibit will be a series of programs designed to delve more deeply into the issues raised by the exhibit, such as concerts of canal music; lectures on the history, economics, geology, and politics of the canal; discussions of the cultural and environmental impact of the canal; discussions of the engineering used to create the canal; and a possible reenactment of the debate in the New York State Assembly over the merits of the canal (derisively called “Clinton's Folly” after Gov. DeWitt Clinton).
The exhibit will run from through Oct. 29. The Mandeville Gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 10 p.m. when the College is in session. Summer hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. A complementary exhibit at the Schenectady Museum showing prints from the Canal Society of New York collection will run from Sept. 9 to Oct. 29. For more information about Union's exhibition, call 518-388-6004.