Join the Erie Canal Museum for three fun and informative nights exploring the Erie Canal’s rich history with hands-on activities throughout the Museum, music, refreshments, and educational talks from award winning historians Ernest Freeberg and Jessica Lepler.
This event is funded in part with support from the NYS Canal Corporation and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.
August 19 @ 5PM
2026 Sloan Lecture Series Event at 6PM-8PM
Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions
In the 1820s, there was a little-known quest to unite the world by building a waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Central American isthmus. As Spanish American nations declared independence and new canals intensified US expansion and British industrialization, many imagined the construction of an interoceanic canal as predestined. For example, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton envisioned himself presiding over a project even more significant than the newly opened Erie Canal. With dreams substituting for data, he joined an international cast of politicians, lawyers, philosophers, and capitalists who sent competing agents on a race to transform Lake Nicaragua, the San Juan River, and the terra incognita of Central American forests into the world’s first global waterway. Although the idea of literally changing the world by connecting the oceans proved too revolutionary for the Age of Revolutions, the quest itself changed history. Jessica M. Lepler tells the captivating story of this global journey in her new book, Canal Dreamers: The Epic Quest to Connect the Atlantic and Pacific in the Age of Revolutions.
**Registering for History at the Weighlock on 8/19 includes registration for Sloan Lecture Series**
Keep an eye on our page for more details!
This event is funded in part with support from the NYS Canal Corporation and the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.
The Erie Canal Museum, located in Downtown Syracuse, NY, engages the public in the story of the Erie Canal’s transformative impacts on peoples and places in the past, present, and future. We are stewards and interpreters of Erie Canal related materials and heritage. The Museum is housed in the 1850 National Register Weighlock Building, the last remaining structure of its kind. Visit us for exhibits with interactive displays and original artifacts, and engaging programs. The Erie Canal Museum is a must-see for adults and children of all ages.
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