The College's exhibition “A Monument of Progress: The 175th Anniversary of the Erie Canal” was a huge hit this fall, drawing more than 10,000 visitors to the Nott Memorial.
Canal buffs from as far as Boston and New York came to the three-part exhibition, which featured a behind-the-scenes look at how the canal was constructed; an exploration of the canal through nineteenth-century paintings, drawings, and artifacts; and a view of life on the Erie Canal through prints and photographs.
A $72,600 grant from Gov. George Pataki (announced by Mike Elmendorf '96, special assistant to the governor), will enable the exhibition to become a traveling one, bringing the history of the canal to historical societies, museums, and schools across the state.
The exhibition included more than 100 items, many of them on loan from the New York State Archives. Included were thirty original hand-drawn survey maps and engineering plans; the maps are so delicate that the College built special display cases to protect the drawings from humidity and light. Models of a lock, two bridges, and an aqueduct were created by four Union students and twelve Schenectady High School students. Led by civil engineering professor Andrew Wolfe, the team worked from the original drawings, carefully determining how to cut the parts and fit them together.
The high school students' participation was funded by New York State's Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP), which encourages minority and disadvantaged students to enter careers in math, science, and technology. Chandra Datt, one of the high school students involved in the project, said that she learned a great deal about the canal — and brushed up her algebra as she figured out how to build the models to scale. Union students involved were Andrew Clark '01, Jennifer Comerford '01, Nathan Duell '02, and Jeané Whittington '02.
The exhibition also offered a look at the words and images recorded by travelers and artists who portrayed not only the beauty of the canal and the Mohawk Valley but also their impact on society as images found their way to plates, bowls, wallpaper, clothing, and more. One of the most popular pieces in the exhibition was a 1,200-pound marble tombstone with an intricate carving of a packet boat on the canal. It once marked the grave of Luke Hitchcock, a stonemason who worked on the canal, but was loaned to the College for the exhibition by the Madison County Historical Society.
The third part of the exhibition was on display at the Schenectady Museum, just a short walk from the College. Offering a look at the development of the cities and towns along the canal, the exhibition included numerous photos and prints of early canal life — from Sunday on the Canal, an 1873 engraving from Harper's Weekly, to a group of hand-colored photographs of the canal from the early twentieth century.
Hundreds of visitors, including several school groups, took guided tours of the exhibition, including three day-long trolley tours led by Wolfe and Professor of Political Science Clifford Brown to several historic Erie Canal sites in the Capital District.
Nine public events accompanied the exhibition. Included were an evening of Erie Canal songs and interpretations by George Ward '60; a symposium on the engineering and construction of the canal; a discussion of the antecedents and origins of the canal; a symposium on the social, cultural, spatial, and economic impact of the canal; an evening of canal folklore and humor; a lecture on New York waterways as seen by nineteenth-century American artists; a talk on the geology of the Erie Canal and the upstate region; a symposium on the Erie Canal Corridor as an economic development engine; and a lecture featuring canal photographs and images.
The symposium on the Erie Canal Corridor as an economic development engine drew leaders from across the state. (In 1996, the state introduced a five-year, $100 million program to revitalize the canal corridor; Gov. Pataki has since proposed spending $120 million more.) Speakers discussed ideas ranging from luxury houseboats cruising the canal to introducing Internet-based technology along the canal as a “Digital Towpath.”
The symposium was followed by a gala dinner celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Erie Canal and honoring the mayors of the cities and towns along the canal. Held 175 years to the day after the canal was officially opened, the dinner recreated the celebratory dinner held in New York City in 1825. Old Chapel was decorated in “exuberant Federal style” with red, white, and blue bunting; golden eagles; sheaves of wheat; and American flags. Callie Stacy, director of catering services and resident dining, and Will Roy, executive chef, combed historical menus of the period to create a menu that reflected the Federal style. They chose to serve butternut squash soup, spinach salad, cornbread and wheat rolls, Cornish game hens with a maple-mustard glaze, wild rice stuffing, root vegetables, and apple pie with cheddar cheese slices. Centerpieces featured arrangements of salt, apples, maple candy, and cheese — all transported on the Erie Canal — as well as chocolate medallions that replicated medals originally created to commemorate the canal and a magnificent ice sculpture of a bald eagle carved by George Ferro, manager of dining services. Janice Coppola, lead cook of dining services, contributed a cheddar cheese aqueduct and three maple sugar canal boats.
Erie Canal exhibition made news
Union's Erie Canal exhibition attracted thousands of visitors and tremendous media attention. Some of the attention included:
– A New York Times story on the front page of the Metro section about the exhibition;
– A segment on the History Channel's program “Modern Marvels: the Erie Canal;”
– Stories about the exhibition in the Boston Globe travel section, the Daily Gazette, the Times Union, the Troy Record, WAMC (the local National Public Radio affiliate), and several local television stations;
– Coverage of the canal gala dinner in the Daily Gazette and the Times Union;
– A Daily Gazette article on the model-building project for the exhibition;
– A story in the Times Union about the College's involvement in the restoration of the Erie Canal at Lock 1 in Albany and Lock 23 in Rotterdam;
– Several articles in Concordiensis;
– Coverage by local television stations and newspapers of the archaeological dig for Lock 1 in Albany by two Union faculty members.