Risk, Boom and Rebirth: 200 Years on the Eire Canal — A SUNY Niagara Faculty Conference

Persistence, Innovation and Audacity: Creation of the Great Western Canal

Dr. Matthew Clarcq

9:00 am – E-142

Opening the West to water transport was a long-held dream, that most people thought impossible. Building the Erie Canal is a tale of political tenacity, engineering invention and creative boldness that transformed New York into the Empire State.

Canal at Canalside- Heart of Buffalo’s Waterfront

Bonnie Waterman and Dr. Katherine Johnson

10:00 am – E-142 

Located at the 1825 terminus of the Erie Canal, the waterfront was the center of Buffalo’s and the nation’s- economy, before rail lines came in and the canal traffic began to wane.  Today, transforming with multiple locations for people to access and enjoy, Canalside as it is now known, is at the heart of Buffalo’s waterfront revitalization.

Rugged Reality: Mark Twain Punctures Mythification While Elevating the Real Canal

Dr. Elizabeth Sachs

11:00 am – E-142

With typical finesse, Mark Twain took swipes at American mythologizing in his poem “The Aged Pilot Man,” about the Erie Canal. Simultaneously, and with humor, he elevated the kind of down-to-earth, rugged heroics of the canal’s Reality. Western New Yorkers will recognize, and enjoy, an examination of this poem’s hymn to a deflated–but authentic–American identity: much better for having been brought “down to earth.” And more heroic (?) therefore. 

Pathways to Progress

Dr. Adelle Cerreta  

1:00pm E-140

This talk will focus on the influence of the Erie Canal on the Women’s Rights Movement in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Learn how canal campaigns helped bring currents of change to this civic cause.

The Erie Canal and New York Landscape

Professor Nancy Knechtel

2:00 pm E-140

 A look at how paintings and photographs have illustrated the landscape and towns along the Erie Canal.  We will look at the creation, heyday and revitalization of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.

Keynote: Lockport’s Erie Canal Flight of Five Locks & The Erie Canal’s Bicentennial

Mr. David Kinyon, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Lockport Locks Heritage District

3:00 pm E-140

David Kinyon will present an update on the rehabilitation of Lockport’s Erie Canal Flight of Five Locks and an overview of some of the preparations underway in Lockport to celebrate the 200^th Anniversary of the Erie Canal.

Kinyon will relate how the Flight of Five was considered to be one of the engineering marvels of the early 19^th Century, and will also share the successive evolution of the Lockport Locks from the original ‘Clinton’s Ditch’ Locks to the Enlarged Erie Canal Locks and, finally, the Erie Barge Canal Locks. He will explain the efforts to preserve the historic Flight of Five Locks and to return them to working condition. Kinyon will also present the highly acclaimed Lock Tenders Tribute Project, which has become the thematic centerpiece of the revitalization of the Lockport Locks.

Finally, Kinyon will share plans for the production of America’s Stairway, a documentary intended for national distribution and which dramatically portrays the Erie Canal Flight of Five as the catalyst for westward expansion in the nation in the 19^th Century and as a catalyst for community revitalization in the 21^st. Century. With a look ahead to the Erie Canal’s 200^th anniversary, Kinyon will provide an overview of how the region is preparing to welcome the 2025 World Canals Conference to Buffalo and some of the related developments underway.