Customer Reviews

The Erie Canal Reader, 1790-1950

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This is a title that could've and should've been a major delight for readers. It should have contained all sorts of items connected with the canal---copies of old engravings, bills of lading, average citizen letters, cartoons and engineering drawings, a review of the source of canal workers, how land sales were stimulated and other economic impacts, an image of the state bond that funded it, a look at political impacts, business news/businesses that used it, a usable distance chart, an idea of how its active life came to an end, etc. This could have been an appealing potpourri, but it doesn't even contain the words to that song about the Erie Canal.

Instead, it's just a few items judged to have high literary merit and is only about 176 pages long. This is a disappointment; the author had a subject and title that could have been built into something much more substantial and valuable. I feel Syracuse University Press should give me a refund.

Compiled, edited, and featuring an Introduction by Roger W. Hecht (Ithaca College), The Erie Canal Reader 1790-1950 is a compendium of poems, essays, travelogues, and fiction drawn from American and British writers and which offer a pristine picture of the New York frontier. The words and writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, and many more offer a lively and inspirational portrait of canal life, early tourist resorts, religious movements, as well as a simple sense and sensibility concerning the area and the people who lived and worked in it. An excellent leisure read or vacation souvenir book, The Erie Canal Reader 1790-1950 is very highly recommended for academic and community library American Regional History & Literature collections and reading lists.