A yearlong schedule of events commemorating the Erie Canal Bicentennial kicks off on January 15
The Erie Canal Museum is commemorating the final year of the Erie Canal Bicentennial in 2025 and has an exciting year of programming on the horizon that will explore the last two-hundred years of Erie Canal history and look towards the next two-hundred years.
Connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie, the 363-mile long historic Erie Canal radically transformed the social and economic landscape of New York State. The Erie Canal Museum revealed last month that their guiding theme for 2025 will be titled “(Re)volutions”. “The story of the Erie Canal is one of both gradual and radical change,” the Museum announced, “this year’s theme will examine both the revolutionary and evolutionary aspects of the Canal’s past, present, and potential future.”
“The opening of the Erie Canal two hundred years ago was in many ways a revolutionary event,” says Derrick Pratt, Director of of Education at the Museum, “It shaped our communities, the state, and nation in so many different ways, from opening up trade between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic to helping spark the abolition and women’s rights movements plus it lead to a lot of smaller developments that we take for granted or don’t hear much about today. We’re excited to be highlighting a lot of these transformations this year in our programs, and I’m especially excited for our lecture series, which is going to feature some top of the line historians, artists, and community leaders.”
The Erie Canal Museum’s 2025 Sloan Lecture Series kicks off on Wednesday, January 15 at 7 p.m. with a virtual talk presented by Brooklyn-based historian and author, Hugh Ryan, titled “How the Erie Canal Created Queer Life in Brooklyn”. Ryan will discuss how 363 miles of canal turned Brooklyn from a collection of sleepy hamlets out on Long Island into an urban mecca for LGBTQ+ life. All are welcome to participate in this and registration is now open through this link. Registration is free with a suggested donation of $15 and a Zoom link will be provided before the evening of the lecture. In addition to their talks, the Museum also has planned a series of guided historical bike rides throughout the state, a series of workshops aimed at teaching the community practical canal related skills, and a series of events to welcome the Seneca Chief, a full sized canal boat replica built in Buffalo, to Syracuse in October.
Support for the Erie Canal Museum’s 2025 Lecture Series is provided by the Winifred and DeVillo Sloan Jr. Charitable Fund. The Erie Canal Museum is located at 318 Erie Blvd E, Syracuse, NY 13210 and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.. For more information, call (315) 471-0593.
