SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16 at 1:00 PM

THE ERIE CANAL AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN RELIGION

Brent Rodriguez-Plate explores the religious life established by the Erie Canal, and the ways it influenced religiosity across the continent, and across the globe. Within 25 years of its opening, the Erie Canal cultivated extraordinary experimental spiritual groups including the Mormons, the Adventists, Spiritualism, a revived Apocalypticism, utopian communal societies such as the Oneida Community, with the Amana Colony and Shakers passing through, as well as the emotion-laden revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The Canal also engendered the religiously infused social movements of abolition, women’s suffrage, and temperance. And because of its key location and function as the link between East and West, the repercussions of canal-formed spiritual experiments rippled across the continent with westward expansion, creating unique currents of religion in the United States into the present day.

Brent Rodriguez-Plate’s teachings and writings explore relations between sensual life and spiritual life. He is a writer, editor, public speaker, and visiting associate professor of religious studies at Hamilton College. He has authored or edited fifteen books, and his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Christian Century, The Islamic Monthly, America, Los Angeles Review of Books, Religion Dispatches, and other places.

This program takes place in the center’s main gallery on Saturday, December 16 starting at 1:00 PM.

The Oneida County History Center, formerly the Oneida County Historical Society, is a private 501(c) (3) not-for-profit educational institution and is dedicated to preserving history and promoting the culture of the Greater Mohawk Valley. Admission to this program is free for the general public; donations are encouraged. Please contact the center at 315-735-3642 or visit the OCHC website (www.oneidacountyhistory.org) or Facebook.com page for additional information.