Abolition

Event highlights Lucretia Mott, 19th Century Activist

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Lucretia Coffin Mott was one of the most famous and controversial women in nineteenth-century America. Mott was viewed in her time as a dominant figure in the dual struggles for racial and sexual equality. In the first biography of Mott in thirty years, historian Carol Faulkner reveals the motivations of Mott’s activism and interest in peace, temperance, prison reform, religious freedom, and Native American rights. Mott was among the first white Americans to call for an immediate end to slavery. Her long-term collaboration with white and black women in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society was remarkable. Mott was known as the &#8220moving spirit&#8221 of the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. She envisioned women’s rights not as a new and separate movement, but rather as an extension of the universal principles of liberty and equality.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, August 28, Carol Faulkner Ph.D. will discuss her new biography Lucretia Mott’s Heresy: Abolition and Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America and sign books at the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY. Mott was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005 in the first group to be honored.

Dr. Faulkner is Associate Professor of History at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, and author of Women’s Radical Reconstruction: The Freedmen’s Aid Movement. Attention to Mott grew out of Faulkner’s interest in the anti-slavery and women’s rights movements and she became even more interested in Mott when she won a National Historical Publications and Records Commission fellowship to work on Mott’s letters. Faulkner is also a member of the Cabinet of Freedom for the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Mott program is the second of two Peterboro programs observing Equality Day. At 2 p.m. on Saturday, August 27 Penny Colman will discuss her new book Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship that Changed the World at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro.

Admission to both programs is two dollars. Stewards and students are free. The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum are open from 1 – 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from May 14 to October 23 in 2011.

Event Marks 1850 Fugitive Slave Act Protest

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In August 1850 Gerrit Smith and Frederick Douglass organized a two day convention of abolitionists to protest Congressional debate on the proposed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. 2,000 people attended the meeting in Cazenovia which Ezra Greenleaf Weld captured in the famous daguerreotype image owned by the Madison County Historical Society in Oneida NY. At 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 21, the 151st anniversary of the first day of that Cazenovia Convention, Norman K. Dann Ph.D. and W. Edward Edmonston Ph.D. will present Protest to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

Norm Dann, professor emeritus Morrisville State College, will provide a brief chronology of the events that led to the second of two laws to return escaped slaves, and outline the horrendous intent and the dreadful impact of the law on slaves and free citizens. Dann is the author of Practical Dreamer: Gerrit Smith and the Crusade for Social Reform (2009), a Steward at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, and a founder and member of the Cabinet of Freedom for the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum.

Bill Edmonston holds Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and taught for four years in the School of Medicine, Washington University (St. Louis) before coming to Colgate University where he taught Neuroscience/Psychology for 29 years. While at Colgate he was named New York Professor of the Year and a National Gold Medalist in the CASE Professor of the Year Awards program (1988). Edmonston also held a Fulbright teaching fellowship (1982) at the University of Erlangen, Germany.

Edmonston has published three professional books, one book on the American Civil War, and two mystery novels. From 1989 to 2005 Bill and his wife Nellie, had a small publishing firm (Edmonston Publishing, Inc.) that specialized in original journals and memoirs of the American Civil War. Learning of the Cazenovia Fugitive Slave Law Convention through the publishing company’s participation in the Annual Peterboro Civil War Weekend, Edmonston became especially curious about two aspects of that convention: 1) The Edmonson sisters, and 2) the lack of a pictorial depiction of the meeting other than the well-known daguerreotype.

The Edmonson sisters, who escaped slavery and who were in attendance at the Cazenovia meeting, had lived in the same area of Montgomery County, Maryland, where Bill’s ancestors had resided and held slaves. Knowing that the family name is variously spelled, Edmonston set upon a search for a possible common ancestor with the Edmonson sisters.

In 2010 Bill created an oil painting of the central figures of the Cazenovia Convention daguerreotype and donated it to the Gerrit Smith Estate NHL. Bill took up painting about a dozen years ago, and paints “whatever strikes my fancy,” including landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes, still-life, people, and trompe l’oeil. Bill’s oil paintings have appeared in shows in Cooperstown, Utica, Old Forge, Albany and other venues in the upstate region. His works are in private collections in Philadelphia, New York City, Virginia Beach, Munich, Germany and the Central New York area.

The public is encouraged to attend the program at the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road / 5304 Oxbow Road, Peterboro NY. Admission is two dollars. Students are free. This program is one of a series of programs provided by the Stewards for the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark during 2011 and partially supported by a PACE grant from the Central New York Community Foundation. The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum are open from 1 – 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from May 14 to October 23 in 2011.

Admission to each site is two dollars. Stewards and students are free. For more information: Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro NY 13134-0006 www.gerritsmith.org 315-684-3262 and National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13134-0055 www.AbolitionHoF.org 315-684-3262

Illustration: Oil painting created by Bill Edmonston of 1850 Cazenovia Convention organized to protest the Fugitive Slave Bill.

Event: Spiritualist Fox Sisters in Petersboro

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Spiritualism was born in the spring of 1848 when Margaret and Kate Fox heard strange rappings in their Hydesville NY bedroom. Within two years the two “Rochester Rappers” with their sister Leah were touring the country communicating with spirits. The Free Church of Peterboro was one site for the rapping demonstrations. “Scraps of paper in the Gerrit Smith Papers showing questions posed to a spirit medium … revealed that the family attempted to communicate with their loved ones, including Fitzhugh and Peter, after they had died,” according to one historian.

At 2 pm on Sunday, July 24 the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark in Peterboro will host programs on 19th Century spiritualism with particular attention to the Fox Sisters and Peterboro’s connections to the spiritualism movement. The program is open to the public and free.

The featured speaker Nancy Rubin Stuart (Osterville, Mass) will present Maggie Fox, Victorian America’s Reluctant Spiritualist. Upstate New York teenager Maggie Fox (1833-1893) rose to national fame as Victorian America’s &#8220reluctant spiritualist.&#8221 Young and beautiful, Maggie’s alleged ability to communicate with spirits in America’s first seances of 1848 astounded the press, and made Maggie and her sisters the darlings of Broadway. Maggie inspired hundreds of imitators, and fascinated the most prominent men and women of her era, among them Horace Greeley, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary Todd Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William James. After a passionate love affair and secret marriage to distinguished Arctic explorer Dr. Elisha Kent Kane in 1856, during which Maggie promised to give up mediumship, her life took surprising twists and turns, culminating with a startling confession in 1888 at the New York Academy of Music. The lecture is accompanied by slides of Maggie Fox and her era.

Rubin explains that her purpose is neither to prove nor disprove the veracity of spirit communication, but rather to illustrate how 150 years ago the Fox sisters’ introduction of that idea swept through America and why it continues to fascinate people today. Maggie’s story is important, Rubin believes, because of passion – the passionate longing that 19th C. Americans had to once again talk with their beloved dead, and the passionate romance between Fox and Kane.

This Speakers in the Humanities event, which is free and open to the public, is made possible through the support of the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Speakers in the Humanities program has linked distinguished scholars with diverse audiences since its launch in 1983, bringing the best in humanities scholarship to thousands of people at hundreds of cultural organizations in virtually every corner of New York State. This program is just one of the ways the New York Council for the Humanities helps all New Yorkers to lead vibrant intellectual lives by strengthening traditions of cultural literacy, critical inquiry, and civic participation.

After Stuart’s presentation, popular local performers and sisters Darothy DeAngelo and Sue Greenhagen will provide a light-hearted look at early spiritualism with a vignette of the Fox Sisters during a rapping session enticing the spirits of some “dearly departed.” DeAngelo portrays Maggie, and Sue portrays Kate.

Beginning at 1 pm, Michael Keene will sell and sign his recently published book by The History Press: Folklore and Legends of Rochester: The Mystery of Hoodoo Corner & Other Tales. The book includes the story of the Fox Sisters, as well as the anti-Masonic hysteria of the early nineteenth century and the unexplained disappearance of former Mason, Captain Morgan. Keene worked for twenty-five years in the financial services industry as a financial planner. He is also the producer of an award-winning 2008 film Visions, True Stories of Spiritualism, Secret Societies & Murder, which, in part, inspired his new book.

Copies of Town of Smithfield historian Donna Burdick’s paper &#8220Spirited Women – and Men & Their Unpopular Causes&#8221 will be on sale at the Peterboro Mercantile for the benefit of the Peterboro Area Historical Society. Burdick’s document describes Spiritualism as it was introduced and “practiced” in Peterboro. Burdick refers to written accounts of medium sessions and spiritualism conferences.

The Gerrit Smith Estate and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum in Peterboro are open from 1 – 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays until October 23, 2011. Admission to each site is two dollars. Stewards and students are free. For more information:

Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro NY 13134-006- call 315-280-8828 or visit www.sca-peterboro.org

Gerrit Smith Estates Family Day of Croquet

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Abolitionist Gerrit Smith liked to play croquet daily during the summer. In honor of Smith’s summer recreation, the Grounds Squad of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark plans to hold its second Family Day of Croquet on Sunday, July 17 from 2 – 6 p.m. on the grounds of Smith’s 19th Century home. The event will be attended by local croquet enthusiasts and a group dressed in croquet outfits. Croquet can be played by amateurs of all ages, and is enjoying a national resurgence. The public is urged to join in reviving this tradition. Croquet attire of the 19th &#8211 21st Century or all white outfits are encouraged but not required.

During the afternoon, croquet courts and equipment will be available. Three buildings on the Gerrit Smith Estate with Heritage New York State Underground Railroad exhibits and the Peterboro Mercantile will be open. The National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will also be open from 1 – 5 p.m. The daily court fee is $2 per person. Gerrit Smith Estate tours cost $2 per person. Ice cream, beverages a 50-50 raffle, boxed lunches and baked goods will also be for sale.

Proceeds from the event support the preservation and promotion of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark which is a site on both the New York State Underground Railroad Heritage Trail and the National Park Service Network to Freedom. Family Day of Croquet is one of a series of programs provided by the Stewards for the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark during 2011 and partially supported by a PACE grant from the Central New York Community Foundation. For more information on the croquet event contact Lisa Louisa Bryant at 917-578-9674 or at [email protected]. For a complete listing of programs, contact www.sca-peterboro.com or [email protected]

Dreaming of Timbuctoo Showing in Essex County

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The “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” Exhibition will be on view at the Whallonsburg Grange Hall in the Champlain Valley from July 3-9. The Grange is located on Route 22, five miles south of the village of Essex, NY.

When it premiered at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake in 2001, “Dreaming of Timbuctoo” revealed the little-known antebellum history involving black homesteaders granted land in the Adirondacks in the mid-1840s—a step toward winning the vote for free black New Yorkers.

Through this abolitionist “scheme of justice and benevolence”, 3,000 African American men from nearly every county in the state each received 40 acres of land. John and Mary Brown moved to the Adirondacks in 1848 to be a friend and neighbor to those who settled their land. One of the loosely knit communities came to be called “Timbuctoo”.

Through letters, documents, archival photographs, and curator Amy Godine’s illuminating text, the exhibition explores the backdrop and motivations of some of the country’s most illustrious anti-slavery leaders involved, including philanthropist Gerrit Smith, the Rev. Henry Highland Garnet of Troy, Frederick Douglass, Syracuse’s Rev. Jermaine Loguen, and Dr. James McCune Smith of New York City.

As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the Whallonsburg Grange Hall and John Brown Lives! host the exhibition and several educational and cultural events that examine the political war on slavery, discuss its place in North Country history, and its relationship to civil rights issues.

The exhibition opens on Sunday 3 July at 3:00 p.m. and a reception and talk by the curator will follow at 6:00 p.m. Suggested donation is $7. Regular hours from Monday-Saturday, July 4-9, are from 12 noon to 6:00 p.m. and admission is free.

Other upcoming programs at the Grange include:

Wednesday, July 7 at 7:00 p.m.: The Struggle for the Right to Vote, Past and Present, with historians and civil rights activists Dr. Laura Free, criminologist Alice Green, and Paul Murray, Mississippi volunteer in the 1960s. Excerpts from the new film marking the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders will be shown. Admission $5- students free.

Thursday, July 7 at 7:00 p.m. Transgressing the Blue Line: Toward an Inclusive Adirondack Narrative with environmental philosopher Marianne Patinelli-Dubay. Admission $5- students free.

Saturday, July 9 at 8:00 p.m. Magpie in Concert, featuring the gorgeous harmonies, brilliant musicianship, and inspiring songs of the folk duo, Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino. Admission $7- children under 12 admitted for $3.

Related programs at Heaven Hill Farm will involved a trek into the archaeological dig underway at one of the “Timbuctoo” homesteads under the direction of Dr. Hadley Kruczek-Aaron, SUNY-Potsdam Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Timbuctoo Archaeology Project. The dig is near the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in North Elba. Reservations for both Heaven Hill events are necessary and can be made at [email protected] or 518-962-4758.

Thursday, July 7, from 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., educators, artists, parents and community members engage in a roundtable conversation to shape a Timbuctoo Adirondacks-Timbuktu Sahara friendship connection. A representative from a Tuoareg community school on outskirts of the Malian city of Tiimbuktu will be present.

Sunday, July 10, from 3:00-6:00 p.m., a visit to the dig site of the Timbuctoo Archaeology Project and reception afterward. $20 per person would be appreciated.

“Dreaming of Timbuctoo” is a joint project of John Brown Lives! and the Essex County Historical Society. Funding from the New York Council for the Humanities and the New York Council on the Arts were principal funders of the exhibition. The Arts Council of the Northern Adirondacks is providing support for the concert with Magpie.

For more information, go to www.thegrangehall.org or contact Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives! at [email protected] or 518-962-4758, or Mary-Nell Bockman at Whallonsburg Grange Hall, [email protected] or 518-570-2382.

Photo: Black Farmers in North Elba (Courtesy Adirondack Museum).

Peterboro: Harriet Tubman, Maggie Fox Lectures

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The New York Council for the Humanities Speakers in the Humanities Program will provide two free presentations for the 2011 Peterboro Heritage Summer Programs.

On Sunday, July 17 at 2 p.m. at the Smithfield Community Center (5255 Pleasant Valley Road in Peterboro) the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum will host Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History presented by Milton C. Sernett Ph.D. Syracuse University professor emeritus. Then, on Sunday, July 24 at 2 p.m. the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark (4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro) will host Nancy Rubin Stuart and her program Maggie Fox, Victorian America’s Reluctant Spiritualist.

Milton C. Sernett’s illustrated talk tells the story of how a black woman, once enslaved but self-liberated, became the dominant symbol of the Underground Railroad and an inspiration today for American of diverse backgrounds and reform interests. The audience will hear of the exciting findings of the latest research regarding Tubman the historical person, and of the many ways in which her life has been celebrated by writers, artists, and other creative spirits. Dr. Sernett has completed a book on the interplay of myth, memory and history during the years when Tubman was being canonized as an American saint.

On Sunday, July 24, in a talk accompanied by slides, Stuart will describe the Fox Sisters’ rise to national fame as communicators with spirits, the prominent people that followed Spiritualism in the 19th Century, and the history of young and beautiful Maggie Fox after she gave up her mediumship. Rubin will illustrate how 150 years ago the Fox sisters’ introduction of spirit communication swept through American and why it continues to fascinate people today.

These programs are free and open to the public. More information can be found online, by e-mailing [email protected] or calling 315-280-8828.

The Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum are open from 1 – 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays from May 14 to October 23 in 2011. Admission to each site is two dollars. Stewards and students are free. For more information: Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, 4543 Peterboro Road, Peterboro NY 13134, National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, 5255 Pleasant Valley Road, Peterboro NY 13134.

Launched in 1983, the Speakers in the Humanities program brings the best in humanities scholarship to thousands of people at hundreds of cultural organizations in virtually every corner of New York. Speakers in the Humanities lectures are made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Legislature, and through funds from the Gladys Krieble Delm.

Climate Justice The Focus of John Brown Day

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Climate Justice will be the focus of this year’s annual John Brown Day on Saturday, May 7, 2011. A tradition dating back to the 1930s, John Brown Day is held each year at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, to honor one of the nation’s most influential abolitionists on the anniversary of his birth in 1800.

Dedicating his life to eradicating slavery, Brown eventually risked all attacking the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Captured by troops led by Robert E. Lee and J.E.B. Stuart, Brown’s trial and execution are considered by many historians as a spark that help ignite the Civil War 150 years ago.

Climate Justice is a growing global movement that recognizes that poor and disenfranchised peoples around the world bear the least responsibility for climate change but face a disproportionate burden from its attendant effects, such as compromised health, economic hardship from rising energy costs, and displacement, destruction of property, and death due to extreme natural disasters. Here in the United States, the global campaign for Climate Justice is deeply linked to the Environmental Justice Movement, which is entering its third decade of militant opposition to environmental racism.

John Brown Day keynote speaker and Environmental Justice leader Cecil Corbin-Mark will describe the evolution of the Climate Justice Movement and give voice to the rights and concerns of the people who are usually the first and often the hardest hit by the impacts of global warming.

Corbin-Mark is Deputy Director of the Harlem-based organization, WE-ACT for Environmental Justice. In addition to his work in New York, Corbin-Mark has been active in United Nations and alternative global climate conversations from Copenhagen to Cochabamba to Cancun.
“Like slavery in antebellum America, climate change is one of the most important moral issues of our time,” said Martha Swan, director of the freedom education project John Brown Lives! which organizes the yearly event.

“Brown surely would have recognized that it is the world’s poor who disproportionately bear the brunt of climate change, so it is fitting that Climate Justice will be the focus of John Brown Day 2011. In this Sesquicentennial Year marking the start of the Civil War, we are honored that Cecil will be with us at this critical time.”

Other speakers at the annual event include David Goodman, brother of civil rights activist Andrew Goodman, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan during Mississippi Freedom Summer in
1964, Alice Kesey Mecoy, great-great-great granddaughter of John and Mary Brown, and Brother Yusef Burges. A trustee of the Children & Nature Network and an outdoor educator, Burgess will speak about the power of nature to transform youth. A frequent paddler on Adirondack waterways and former outreach and diversity coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Burgess works to connect Albany-area youth with the natural beauty and environmental issues of the Adirondacks.

John Brown Day 2011 is possible with the cooperation of the John Brown Farm State Historic Site. The event is free and open to the public, and will be held outdoors under a tent.
For more information, contact Martha Swan, Director of John Brown Lives!, at 518-962-4758 or [email protected].

Women’s Rights: Race, Class and Ethnicity

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This Saturday, April 9th, at 7:00 pm, Historic Huguenot Street will host another in its Second Saturdays Lecture Series. The featured speaker will be Harriet Davis-Kram, Professor of American History at Queens College in New York City. The title of her talk is “Women’s Rights: A Struggle of Race, Class and Ethnicity.”

The quest of American women for equal rights dates back to the 18th century. One need only read the letters Abigail Adams sent to her husband John at the Constitutional Convention, warning him, &#8220You’d better not forget the ladies.&#8221

By the early 19th century, women’s voices were often heard in the debate over the abolition of slavery, and a number of educated women began to see similarities between their own social, economic, and political status, and that of the slaves they were fighting to emancipate. A small group of abolitionists would go on to found the movement for women’s equality. Davis-Kram will explore this history and the internal tensions that were part of the fight for women’s equality.

New York women were very much a part of this movement. Sojourner Truth is well known for her leading role in advocating for the end of slavery. Less well known is the key role she played as an African-American woman in the later struggle for women’s rights. She was a contemporary of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, among others. So too was Lydia Sayer Hasbrouck, the Middletown woman who made her mark as a dress reformer and as the publisher of “The Sybil,” a 19th century women’s rights periodical. Saturday’s talk is a prelude to the reinterpretation of the Abraham Hasbrouck House at Historic Huguenot Street. When this house reopens in 2012, the story told will focus on the lives on women in early New Paltz.

Davis-Kram, who has been teaching for over 30 years, specializes in the areas of American Women’s History, American Labor History, Immigration, and New York City History. Dr. Davis-Kram also guides walking tours in New York City focusing mostly on the 19th-century up through 1920. Her talk is made possible through Speakers in the Humanities, a program of the New York Council for the Humanities. Speakers in the Humanities lectures are made possible with the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Legislature, and through funds from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

The talk will be held in the LeFevre House, located at 54 Huguenot Street in downtown New Paltz. There is a suggested donation of $5. For more information, call 845.255.1660 or visit www.huguenotstreet.org.

Troy Underground Railroad Conference This Weekend

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The annual Capital District Underground Railroad Conference will be held this weekend in Troy, NY on April 8, 9 and 10th at the Russell Sage Campus in celebration of the conference’s tenth year presenting workshops, music, and stories about the historic struggle to escape slavery.

In the words of the conference founders, Mary Liz and Paul Stewart, the conference activities are, “a fresh interpretation of an Old Story. “ This is the story of the heroic men, women and children who escaped from slavery and who traveled to new, free, lives along the Underground Railroad.

The international conference is titled, “Abolishing Slavery in the Atlantic World: the ‘Underground Railroad’ in the Americas, Africa and Europe, and its relationship with us today.” Several hundred attendees are expected at workshops, art exhibits, and musical events. The conference is organized by the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region, Inc., (URHPCR) co-sponsored by Russell Sage College and the College’s Department of History and Society. Several non-profit groups are collaborating: Rensselaer County Historical Society, Museumwise, and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

On Friday April 8th, 2011 the Opening Address will be given by Dr. Robin Blackburn at 7:00 pm, Bush Memorial, Russell Sage College, Troy, NY, “The International Struggle to End Slavery and the Slave Trade and Its Ramifications Today.” Dr. Blackburn, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex in England and Visiting Professor of Historical Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York, will describe the international slave trade which fueled the American Colonial economy and he will explore the ramifications for today of the struggle to end slavery. Performing are Kim and Reggie Harris.

Blackburn has taught in England at King’s College, Cambridge University, FLACSO (Latin American Social Science Faculty)- in Ecuador, and at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. He has studied and taught at the London School of Economics and Oxford University. He is the author of many books and scholarly articles on historical sociology and critical social theory. Two of his most important books are The Making of New World Slavery: from the Baroque to the Modern, 1492-1800, and The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848. In recent years he has written several influential articles on slavery and resistance. He is the founding editor of The New Left Review and an editor at Verso Books. Blackburn’s Opening Address at the conference will bring a high level of scholarship and an international perspective to discussions about the historical struggle for freedom from slavery in the United States.

The Underground Railroad Conference in Troy is a venue for African American art exhibits, storytelling, history workshops, and programs for educators and people of all ages. A Workshop for Educators on Friday April 8th is followed on Saturday April 9th with speakers, workshops, a raffle, art exhibit, reception and evening award ceremony. Keynote speakers on Saturday are Dr. Franklin Knight, Stulman Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, speaking about slave societies. His talk opens the conference at 9:00 am and is titled, “Of Slavery and Abolitions: Perspectives from the World of Slaves.” After the morning workshops at 1:00 pm Tony Burroughs, internationally known lecturer on genealogy, a guest speaker on many television talk shows, will participate in a panel discussion called, “Heritage Preservation Through Genealogical Research, Song and Storytelling.” Joining him on the panel are singer, MaryNell Morgan and storyteller, Miki Conn. Saturday afternoon workshops conclude at 5:00 pm followed by an evening reception and art exhibit held at the Rensselaer County Historical Society located at 57 Second Street, Troy, NY.

The conference continues on Sunday April 10th at 2:00 pm in Russell Sage College’s Bush Memorial Hall with programs devoted to music and performance. There will be performances by the Hamilton Hill Dancers, Garland Nelson, MaryNell Morgan, Eshu Bumpus, Magpie, Sparky and Rhonda Rucker, Graham and Barbara Dean, the musical group Peter, Paul and George, the Hamilton Hill Dancers, and the Hamilton Hill Drummers.

The conference is possible thanks to leadership from co-founders Mary Liz and Paul Stewart, the contribution of volunteers with the URHPCR, Inc., and conference donors and supporters: M & T Bank, Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, Russell Sage College, Kate Storms, The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region’s Standish Family Fund, The Alice Moore Foundation, Museumwise, the Arts Center of the Capital Region, New York Council for the Humanities, Pioneer Bank and Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation.

Find conference information and register online at www.ugrworkshop.com. Contact Paul Stewart at (518) 432-4432.

Wife of Abolitionist John Brown Subject of Performance

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Author-historian Sandra Weber and musician David Hodges will present a dramatic performance of the life of Mary Day Brown, wife of radical abolitionist John Brown.

The Adirondack Museum&#8216-s Cabin Fever Sunday series will return to Saranac Lake, New York on February 27, 2011. &#8220Times of Trouble&#8221 with Weber and Hodges will be held at Saranac Village at Will Rogers. The time will be 2:00 p.m. The presentation will offered at no charge to museum members, residents of Saranac Village, and children of elementary school age or younger. The fee for non-members is $5.00.

Dressed in period costume, Weber and Hodges will weave narrative and song to share the little known life of Mary Brown. The poignant piece illustrates the significant role this plain woman played as wife of the radical abolitionist John Brown.

The program will present Mary’s early life and marriage as well as later tragedies involving bankruptcy, accidents, and death. The presentation closes with Mrs. Brown’s most difficult &#8220times of trouble&#8221 in the aftermath of the raid on Harper’s Ferry. Sandra Weber has spent ten years researching the life of Mary Day Brown.

Weber is an author, storyteller, and independent scholar with special interest in the Adirondacks, Mary and John Brown, as well as women’s history. Her publishing credits include eight books and numerous articles in periodicals such as Civil War Times, Adirondack Life, Pennsylvania Magazine, and Highlights for Children.

In 2004 and 2005, Sandra Weber toured with folksinger Peggy Lynn performing stories from their book, Breaking Trail: Remarkable Women of the Adirondacks.

David Hodges has played guitar and bass for more than twenty years. He has performed with bands throughout New York, Texas and Pennsylvania and recorded CDs with &#8220Mad Factory&#8221 and &#8220Evil Twin.&#8221 Hodges currently plays with &#8220Mr. Freeze,&#8221 a blues-rock band, and accompanies Sandra Weber in folk music performances.