CAZENOVIA — The Cazenovia Public Library & Museum will welcome educator Derrick Pratt to the Community Room on Monday, May 5, at 6 p.m. to deliver a presentation celebrating the bicentennial of the Erie Canal.
Built between 1817 and 1825, the original Erie Canal traversed 363 miles from Albany on the Hudson River to Buffalo on Lake Erie. According to the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, it was the longest artificial waterway and the greatest public works project in North America.
Pratt is the director of education & public programming at Syracuse’s Erie Canal Museum, where he has worked for over five years.
His lecture, “Bicentennial Basics of the Erie Canal,” will provide a crash course on “Clinton’s Ditch,” covering why the Erie Canal was built, how it was constructed, what happened with it once it was built, and where it is now.
“The presentation will feature a PowerPoint and last about 45 minutes to an hour with Q&A at the end,” said Pratt. “The talk will cover the last 200 years of the Erie Canal and many of the ways in which it was transformative for the state and the nation, economically, socially, and culturally. . . . People gained access to goods that they had never been able to before. For instance, oysters became a huge fad along the canal route, as they had never been able to be transported into western New York before without spoiling. Also, the speed with which information could travel was revolutionized. This resulted in a number of different impacts, including the creation of new religions like Mormonism and the Oneida Community, the spread of major reform movements, most notably abolition and women’s rights, and the creation of new companies that used these revolutionary new forms of transportation and communication to great effect, with American Express being perhaps the most well-known example today.”
A native of Chittenango, NY, Pratt received a bachelor of arts in social studies education from the State University of New York at Cortland and a master of arts in museum studies from Syracuse University.
Before joining the staff of the Erie Canal Museum, he served as director of programs at the Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum (CLCBM) for three years.
“I started volunteering at CLCBM, and once I learned more about the canal, I realized that it has fundamentally shaped pretty much everywhere I’ve lived [in] Central New York,” Pratt said. “I don’t think you can understand the history of New York State without the Erie Canal; its transformative impact has shaped pretty much every aspect of New York life in one way or another in ways that still can be felt today.”
“Bicentennial Basics of the Erie Canal” is free and open to the public. For more information on this and other upcoming library events, visit cazenoviapubliclibrary.org or call (315) 655-9322.
To learn more about the Erie Canal Museum, visit eriecanalmuseum.org. For more information on the CLCBM, visit chittenangolanding.org.
