Our 2016 Spring Lecture Series kicks off with "Birds and Ballots on Seneca Lake: The Connections of Greene and Elizabeth Smith (Miller) to Geneva" by scholar Norman Dann. Professor Dann will discuss the children of abolitionist Gerrit Smith and his wife Ann and their connection to the Geneva community. Son Greene was a farmer and budding ornithologist who lived at Lochland in Geneva from 1865 to 1869. Daughter Elizabeth Smith Miller later resided at the house, pursuing suffrage and women's rights reform from 1869 until her death in 1911.
Norman Dann is the author of five books on abolition and reform, including Greene Smith and the Wild Life: The Story of Peterboro's Avid Outdoorsman and Cousins of Reform: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Gerritt Smith. He is currently working on a biography of Elizabeth Smith Miller. Dann is a retired professor from Morrisville State College, where he taught many subjects, including political science, psychology and sociology. He holds a Master's in political science from the University of Rhode Island and a Ph.D. in interdisciplinary social sciences from Syracuse University.
The lecture series will continue April 6 with "Opera Houses and Halls of the Genesee Country" by Jane Oakes and "The Psychic Highway: How the Erie Canal Changed America" by Michael Keene on May 11.
This program is free and open to the public. It is supported in part by the Samuel B. Williams Fund for Programs in the Humanities. For more information about the lecture, call the Geneva Historical Society office at 315-789-5151.
The Geneva History Museum is located in the Prouty-Chew House at 543 South Main Street, Geneva, NY. Parking is on the street or in the Trinity Episcopal Church lot across the street.
