Rivers, Roads, & Rails

Thoughts on Pred Essay

Again, I am posting a colleague's email: this is from Jann. Very insightful. My comments will be below (and via email.)

Hey! Mark!

I forgot to mention that I'd read the Allan Pred article.  I think it goes well with May workshop Day 2.. especially since we will be walking around the Boston Mills...imagining life as it was.  I think the Pred article is a good comparison between established Boston and life in Ohio.

I especially liked the idea of the merchant shopping for the food for the day...oh, and all that attention to what he wore!  I liked that, too.

I was taken by the idea of Harvard....did all the merchants go to Harvard? and the need for connections.  There's something appealing to me about the feeling of responsibility to help someone get a foothold in your chosen vocation.

I wanted to ask you about the presentation of the text on page 67.  It looks almost poem-like, and I wondered about the text on page 68....projects/paths.  Why did Pred do that?  Did I miss something?  Can you help me understand what is going on there?

You know, it might be an idea to give the participants the Pred article on day 1 as preparation or background for Day 2...I think it feeds nicely into that creative activity in the afternoon of Day 2.  Is that what you were thinking?

Jann

Planning May 4 & 5

As we continue workshop planning, I think this blog is a useful place to accumulate our work. Before everyone is up and running with everybody involved.

So here are Rich's thoughts (and I paste as a quotation, to avoid the horrendous Huffington fiasco: click here for link.)

Steve and I have been trying to sort out all the stuff we got from the meeting to put together a final agenda for the May workshop. We have taken all the input from the meeting and the subsequent e-mailed information, and we need your help to clarify our direction.

We had intended this workshop to be an introduction to life along the canal in preparation for the in-depth summer workshops. We envisioned the components of the workshop to be:

1. Use of original documents from “Visions…” and song lyrics

2. Use of first person and third person interpretation with Mrs. Gleason and Canal Cecil to facilitate understanding of life along the canal

3. Academic historical input on politics and economics of the era

4. Use of all information to create two pieces that would reflect the life and times of the canal era

From the feedback and the subsequent information from you, Mark, it appears that you want this to me much more of a academic, content focused session, i.e. lots of reading and lecture. We do not feel that a 33 page essay is a “short” document to use in such an introductory workshop; plus adding a lot of archeological readings. 

So, how do you envision this workshop? Are we to do more of a college lecture type program with time set aside for lots of reading? (This would take a minimum of 1 hour to read and maybe digest these documents). Are we to use excepts from the documents along with the lyrics and “Visions..”? If so, who will put together the excerpts?

We really need some guidance at this point before we put much more energy into trying to create the final agenda. Thank you for you help.

 

Sincerely,
Rich Horton

Bernstein's Wedding of the Waters

Obviously this cover pix is taken from an Amazon.com, but I want to recommend Peter Bernstien's Wedding of the Waters. Bernstein is a marvelous writer; his earlier book Against the Gods is thoroughly brilliant. Though less trenchant, Wedding of the Waters is a great overview of the Erie Canal's impact, especially its economic importance, to the United States' development.