All Over Albany

Erie: The Canal That Made America

Speaking of the Erie Canal... A new PBS hour-long documentary -- Erie: The Canal That Made America -- will make its first appearance on WMHT September 12 at 8 pm. The trailer is embedded above.

A clip from the doc's blurbage:

Often credited with helping to create what America now knows as the Empire State, the story of the Erie Canal is more than a New York story. The towpath certainly made New York City America's leading port and economic hub once the waters of the Great Lakes were wed with the Atlantic. The confluence would change the course of cities beyond the Northeast, including New Orleans and Chicago and Cleveland.

The Erie Canal is a defining story of immigration and American culture. Farmers and new citizens poured their lives into digging and developing homes, businesses and communities along what became known as "Clinton's Ditch." We learn how six men who would be U.S. president, including Washington, Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt, are linked to the canal's destiny; though it would be a wily New York politician, DeWitt Clinton, who championed its construction.

The documentary illustrates how the canal was a route to immense social change. Slaves fleeing the south found safe paths to freedom in Canada along the canal and African Americans settled in canal towns. The ideals of the women's rights movement and the tenets of new and renewed religions were transported along the canal.

The documentary was produced by WCNY in Syracuse and it's narrated by ABC's David Muir (he's from Syracuse).