Book explores hardships for oppressed who built and worked on Erie Canal in the early days

Photo by Tom Rivers: Mark Ferrara shares about his book chronicling the Erie Canal during a presentation Saturday at Author’s Note in Medina.

MEDINA – An English professor at the State University of Oneonta has written a book about the Erie Canal, focusing on the American communities along its banks and the ordinary people who lived, worked and died there.

Mark Ferrara visited Author’s Note Book Store on Saturday afternoon to sign copies and read from his book, The Raging Erie: Life and Labor Along the Erie Canal.

Photo by Ginny Kropf: Mark Ferrara signs copies of his latest book, “The Raging Erie: Life and Labor Along the Erie Canal,” at Author’s Note Book Store on Saturday afternoon.

Ferrara grew up in the Richmond, Va. area, which he considers an “American community.” He also realized there were many American communities along the canal, including Utica and Syracuse where his parents grew up.

Realizing the canal’s bicentennial was coming up, Ferrara began reading everything he could about poor and working class who were forgotten whenever the canal was celebrated. His book took four years to complete – two years of research and then two more to put it all together and get it published.

Ferrara chronicles the fates of the Native Americans whose land was appropriated for the canal, the European immigrants who bored its route through the wilderness and the orphan children who drove the draft animals that pulled boats around the clock.

The author also shows how the canal served as a conduit for the movement of new ideas and religions, a corridor for enslaved people seeking freedom via the Underground Railroad and a spur for social reform movements that emerged in response to the poverty and suffering along its path.

The Raging Erie explores the social dislocation and untold hardships at the heart of a major engineering feat, shedding light on the lives of the canallers who toiled on behalf of American expansion.

Ferrara is also the author of seven books, two of which are American Community: Radical Experiments in Intentional Living and Living the Food Allergic Life. He has taught for universities in South Korea, China and on a Fulbright scholarship in Turkey.

This is the author’s first visit to Medina, and he planned to spend some time exploring the village before heading home.

The Raging Erie is available at Author’s Note, 519 Main St., or online at authorsnote.com. Signed copies can also be ordered for pickup or free shipping at the store’s website.