Expanding Narratives: The Erie Canal and Beyond
This panel used the iconic Erie Canal as a starting point for a conversation about how organizations can be better about sharing complicated histories, touching on issues related to environmental justice, urban renewal, disinvestment, segregation, and displacement. There is no single narrative about any history or historic place — the realities are often complicated, messy, and worth spending time thinking critically about. History is constantly being written and rewritten and we are all active participants in that process.
During the panel, Danielle Nagle put this thought forward:
It’s important to recognize that the stories we tell about the Erie Canal aren’t neutral. We need complex, more holistic stories that break beyond positive/negative binaries. Have your organization ask: what is being ignored, how is it being invisibilized, what aspects of history are being erased in favor of preserving others, and what are the implications?
This panel focused on the Erie Canal, but the topics covered can be easily applied to anyone working in historic preservation or public history.
Resources mentioned during the webinar
The American Association for State & Local History’s Reframing History Toolkit
The Erie Canal's Bicentennial will be marked in 2025. You can find more information courtesy of The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.
Learn a little bit more about the urban renewal that displaced roughly 5% of Albany’s population in the 1970s to create the Empire State Plaza: “In Albany, the Cost of a "Modern" Plaza” published by Architect Magazine in 2019
An audience member asked, “Where can we find more information about the history of the Buffalo Creek Native Americans?” Alyssa Mt. Pleasant shared this article from the Buffalo News and linked to a talk she will be giving about her research on Buffalo Creek in late April as part of the Erie Canal Museum’s A Deeper Dive series.
Click here for Danielle Nagle’s access copy.
About the Panel
Renée Barry is the 2021-2023 Erie Canal Research Fellow at the Erie Canal Museum. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Environmental Humanities and a Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies. Renée recently published original research entitled “Visualizing Heritage: A critical discourse analysis of place, race, and nationhood along the Erie Canal” with Dr. Lemir Teron in Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. Her work critically examines the ongoing environmental inequalities of the “Empire” State.
Alyssa Mt. Pleasant is a scholar whose research focuses on Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) history during the Revolutionary War era. She holds a PhD in History from Cornell University and has been a faculty member in History, American Studies, and interdisciplinary Ethnic Studies departments at Yale University and the University at Buffalo (SUNY). Dr. Mt. Pleasant served as founding Program Director of the Native American Scholars Initiative at the American Philosophical Society, connecting campus- and community-based Indigenous researchers with archival collections. In 2022, she was elected Secretary of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. That same year Dr. Mt. Pleasant established ATW Research + Consulting to focus on projects at the intersection of History and Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) that include public-facing scholarship, archival research initiatives connecting Indigenous researchers with collections, and workshops for educators and other professionals that draw on the sources, methods, and scholarship of NAIS.
Danielle Nagle holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and works as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her current research utilizes sensory and arts-based approaches to help expand and deepen capacities for promoting more compassionate engagements with the interconnected material, discursive, political, relational, and affective complexities and contradictions of (un)sustainability and (in)justice in outdoor recreation and tourism landscapes. Her doctoral work on the outdoor and hunting industries has been published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and Geoforum.
Dana Olesch is a doctoral candidate in the Anthropology Department at Syracuse University. Trained as a historical archaeologist, she now researches cultural and structural violence that creates the palimpsest landscape of Syracuse, New York. Her research reveals how the identities of marginalized populations become historically and socially embedded and intertwined with water-saturated spaces such as swamps, open-air sewers, and the Erie Canal. She is currently visualizing the residential patterns and the spatial organization of the former Fifteenth Ward using GIS mapping, Sanborn Maps, and census schedules.
Beyond her academic research, Olesch has several ongoing community-based projects. Olesch regularly volunteers as a docent at the local Erie Canal Museum, allowing her to collaboratively develop her understanding of Syracuse and New York history with national and international visitors. She regularly contributes to exhibition design and research for small and large exhibits at the museum. Contributing to discussions of the implications of the creation of the I-81 Corridor, Olesch has given several academic and public lectures about the history of the former Fifteenth Ward. Continuing work that she began as an HNY Public Humanities Fellow, Olesch is creating an interactive online platform documenting the history of the Fifteenth Ward.
Lacey Wilson is the Public Historian of the Albany African American History Project at the Albany Institute of History and Art. Her area of focus is 20th and 21st century Albany Black history. She is currently working, in partnership with community stakeholders, to curate an exhibition on black creative performance in Albany. Recently, she spearheaded a project that brought middle-school and high school photography students, from Youth FX, to respond to Gordon Parks: I, too am America. In a previous role as a historic interpreter at the Owen-Thomas House and Slave Quarters, She was featured in the New York Times article “Enslaved People Lived Here: These Museums Want You to Know. “
She received her bachelor’s in history from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and her master’s in history with a concentration in museum studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. While at UNCG, she collaborated on “Etched in Stone? Governor Charles Aycock and the Power of Commemoration,” awarded the 2019 Award of Excellence and 2019 HIP (History in Progress) award winner by American Association for State and Local History ( AASLH). Additionally, she developed “Voices from the Cells,” an exhibit for GrowingChange from oral interviews on incarceration in North Carolina 1980s to 2000s.
This event was part of the League's Future of Preservation webinar series. Thanks to our sponsor, the Peggy N. & Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust.