(Cazenovia, NY – June 2015) Join Dr. Norman Dann, Gerrit Smith scholar and author, in the Cazenovia Public Library Community Room at7:00 pm for presentations on two of his most recent books: Greene Smith and the Wild Life and Cousins of Reform: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Gerrit Smith.
Wednesday, June 17: Greene Smith and the Wild Life, a biography of Gerrit and Ann Smith’s son.
Greene Smith (1842-1886) was an avid amateur scientist and ornithologist. He was bird watching at age nine and collecting specimens of birds from around the world as a young adult. In 1863, he built a three-story museum, the Ornithon, in Peterboro to house the thousands of specimens of birds, eggs, and nests that are now in university collections at Colgate, Cornell, and Harvard.
The public fascination with the “Bird House,” as it’s affectionately called, prompted Dann to turn the focus of his Smith research to Greene Smith. Dann’s study of family letters, military records, and Smith’s personal Catalogue of Birds as well as the pursuit of his hunting apparatus and the ownership and investigation of the Bird House site have all contributed to another fascinating book— Greene Smith and the Wild Life: The Story of Peterboro’s Avid Outdoorsman.
Wednesday, June 24: Cousins of Reform: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Gerrit Smith.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Gerrit Smith were first cousins born 18 years apart, but they shared a devotion to social reform that placed them together in a very small group of strong-willed people who helped shape the second half of the 19th century.
Cady Stanton was a frequent visitor to Smith’s Peterboro home, and she had long talks with her elder cousin about the nature of reform, including the social and political implications of gender, race, and religion. Each was a student of the other, and their frequent disagreements led them both to refine their causes and define themselves.
With his usual meticulous research, Dann’s Cousins of Reform sheds light on the complex, inspired relationship that drove these two cousins to great achievement—Stanton in women’s rights and Smith in the cause of aboliltion. (www.logcabinbooks.com)
Dann, professor emeritus Morrisville State College, is a founder and current Cabinet member of the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum, a Steward of the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, a member of the Annual Peterboro Civil War Weekend, and the Treasurer of the Peterboro Area Museum.
Books will be available at both events for purchases and signing. For more information on these or other events at the Cazenovia Public Library, call 655-9322 or visit www.cazenoviapubliclibrary.org.