Cazenovia College

Cazenovia Colleges Lecture Series

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The seventh season of Cazenovia College’s Faculty Library Lecture Series: &#8220Great Minds / Great Ideas,&#8221 at Cazenovia Public Library and the Manlius Library, continues beginning Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2010. The series, sponsored by Doris Eversfield Webster, Cazenovia College Class of 1946, features noted faculty members from Cazenovia College discussing the lives and work of important thinkers who opened doors of opportunity for the human spirit. Ample time for questions and conversation follows each lecture. Complete information may be found at www.cazenovia.edu/greatminds.

Sept. 21, 2010, at The Manlius Library, 1 Arkie Albanese Avenue, Manlius, N.Y. &#8220Real Horse Power!&#8221 presented by Karin Bump, professor of equine studies. This presentation will encompass a journey through time to provide an understanding of &#8216-horse power’ from past to present, and celebrate the remarkable power of the horse to capture the hearts and minds of young and old alike.

Sept. 21, 2010, at Cazenovia Public Library, 100 Albany Street, Cazenovia, N.Y. &#8220What a Great Idea! The Inventive Minds behind Some of Our Favorite Toys,&#8221 presented by Scott Jensen, assistant professor of visual communications. The creators of many familiar toys all started with a great idea&#8230- but didn’t always know what to do with it. Discover the fascinating stories of these and some other familiar playthings in this fun, playful lecture.

Oct. 19, 2010, at The Manlius Library, 1 Arkie Albanese Avenue, Manlius, N.Y. &#8220What a Great Idea! The Inventive Minds behind Some of Our Favorite Toys,&#8221 presented by Scott Jensen, assistant professor of visual communications. The creators of many familiar toys all started with a great idea&#8230- but didn’t always know what to do with it. Discover the fascinating stories of these and some other familiar playthings in this fun, playful lecture.

Oct. 19, 2010, at Cazenovia Public Library, 100 Albany Street, Cazenovia, N.Y. &#8220Numbers: How They Amaze Us,&#8221 presented by John Livermore, assistant professor of mathematics. Number theory is the branch of mathematics that deals with the study of the properties of the natural numbers. Livermore will discuss our base 10 number system, some basic number theory proofs and how the results of these proofs are applied on the Internet to amaze us.

For more information about the lectures, contact: Cazenovia Public Library at 315-655-9322, or visit www.midyork.org/cazenovia – or The Manlius Library, at 315-682-6400, or visit www.manliuslib.org

Cazenovia Fugitive Slave Law Convention Event

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Final preparations are underway for the celebration of the 160th anniversary of the Cazenovia Fugitive Slave Law Convention. An interpretive plaque, to be installed for year-round public view at 9 Sullivan Street (home of the Cherry Valley Apartments) will be unveiled on the afternoon of Friday, August 20th—and an evening celebration performance will then be held at the Cazenovia College Catherine Cummings Theatre on Lincklaen Street.

An extremely rare daguerreotype (shown here) in the collection of the Madison County Historical Society, Oneida, provides the central backdrop for the 160th anniversary events.

Taken by Cazenovia photographer Ezra Greenleaf Weld on the second day of the Convention, which was held at the Sullivan Street location on August 22, 1850, several prominent local and national figures appear in the photograph, including: Peterboro abolitionist and Convention organizer Gerrit Smith- famed escaped slave and orator Frederick Douglass- and Mary and Emily Edmonson, escaped slaves who had been recaptured aboard the ill-fated flight of the “Pearl.” More than 2000 people, including as many as 50 fugitive slaves, attended what many historians believe was the nation’s largest anti-slavery protest.

In tribute to the many individuals who risked much to support the cause of abolitionism at the 1850 Cazenovia Convention, a magical evening, in word and song, will take place at the Catherine Cummings Theatre at 7:30 pm and will be hosted by master of ceremonies Honorable Hugh Humphreys. Frederick Douglass (portrayed by the nationally-acclaimed actor Fred Morsell) will be the guest orator for the evening, and music of the period will be provided by featured vocalist Max Smith and the vocal sounds of Elizabeth Bouk, Moana Fogg and Lowell Lingo, Jr. The evening program will be followed by a reception at the Theatre. The plaque unveiling will take place earlier that day at 4 pm on Sullivan Street.

With generous support from Patti and Sparky Christakos- Cazenovia College- the Upstate Institute of Colgate University- the Gorman Foundation- the Madison County Historical Society- the National Abolition Hall of Fame- and many other charitable donors, both the unveiling and evening presentation are free, and the public is encouraged to attend.

For more information on the commemorative events to be held on Friday, August 20th, please contact Commemorative Committee member Sarah Webster at 655-8632.

New Book: America in the Sixties

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Sandwiched between the placid fifties and the flamboyant seventies, the sixties, a decade of tumultuous change and stunning paradoxes, is often reduced to a series of slogans, symbols, and media images. In America in the Sixties, Greene goes beyond the cliches and synthesizes thirty years of research, writing, and teaching on one of the most turbulent decades of the twentieth century.

Greene sketches the well-known players of the period—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Betty Friedan—bringing each to life with subtle detail. He introduces the reader to lesser-known incidents of the decade and offers fresh and persuasive insights on many of its watershed events.

Greene argues that the civil rights movement began in 1955 following the death of Emmett Till- that many accomplishments credited to Kennedy were based upon myth, not historical fact, and that his presidency was far from successful- that each of the movements of the period—civil rights, students, antiwar, ethnic nationalism—were started by young intellectuals and eventually driven to failure by activists who had different goals in mind- and that the &#8220counterculture,&#8221 which has been glorified in today’s media as a band of rock-singing hippies, had its roots in some of the most provocative social thinking of the postwar period.

Greene also chronicles the decade in a thematic manner, devoting individual chapters to such subjects as the legacy of the fifties, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the civil rights movements, and the war in Vietnam. Combining an engrossing narrative with intelligent analysis, America in the Sixties enriches our understanding of that pivotal era.

John Robert Greene is the Paul J. Schupf Professor of History and Humanities at Cazenovia College. He has written or edited thirteen books including The Limits of Power: The Nixon and Ford Administrations and The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He is a regular commentator in the national media, having appeared on such forums as MSNBC, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, and the History Channel.

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