Marilyn Higgins on the Campbell Conversations

Campbell Conversations

In the first half of the 19th century, central New York was a hotbed of reform, social and spiritual movements, earning the nickname "the burned over district." This week, Grant Reeher talks with Marilyn Higgins, author of "Dreams of Freedom: An Irishwoman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest is Marilyn Higgins. She was the Chief Economic Development Officer for National Grid and later, Syracuse University. She's with me today because she's just published a new novel, it’s her first book titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". Marilyn has also been involved in a number of philanthropic endeavors that are related to the period of upstate history that she's writing about. Marilyn, welcome to the program and congratulations on the book.

Marilyn Higgins: Thank you very much.

GR: Well, it's great to have you. So let me just ask you a couple of basic questions to start. Why did you get the notion to write this book when you did?

MH: The pandemic. Like millions of other people, I wanted to write a book all my life. I'd taken probably 20 different writing courses. I never could settle down to do it, pandemic, put myself in the chair and went at it.

GR: All right. Well, at least some good things came out of it, I guess. I have heard that story before about the pandemic with writers. But I want to push you a little bit, you had two substantial and successful careers as Chief Economic Development Officer for two large regional organizations, National Grid, Syracuse University. And writing a book is hard, you know, I know that you said you've been trying it, so, you know, what do you think about, was it that the pandemic that sort of allowed you to do it other than just having the time?

MH: Well, I've always, I love upstate New York. I am so glad I never left, a lot of the people I went to high school with did, you know, because it was the down economic times. I particularly when I worked for Niagra Mohawk, I got to visit all the little towns and villages on either side of the thruway and meet with the mayor in the diner and go to the library. And I was, I remain completely enthralled with the people and the little towns and villages of upstate New York. And honestly, I think we're missing from the creative stage. There's not a lot of books that are set in upstate New York. I think, “Ironweed” in Albany maybe snd Richard Russo did some stuff in the Mohawk Valley. But even the movie Harriet Tubman, Auburn is hardly even in it, it's mostly in Maryland. And when I think of the momentous things that happened here, I think we're too absent.

GR: Yeah, I think it's a good observation. Well, let's talk about some of the things that are in your book. It's about a certain period in history, and we'll get into that. But your book’s main characters, they go on this whirlwind tour of many of the major social upheavals and movements that came through upstate New York in the 1800’s before the Civil War. And I've read some of the histories of that time period. And as far as I can tell in this book, most of it's here. I mean, you're sort of showing the region and why it was known as the burn-over district during that time period. So just to start with, just give our listeners a brief overview of some of the different movements that swept through this area at that time.

MH: Well, this was, in terms of inventiveness, the Silicon Valley of its day. And in terms of thinking and movements, nothing in this nation parallels what happened within 120 to 150 miles along either side of the Erie Canal during this period. It's only 36 years my book covers, and in that time whole religious movements from the Mormons to the Millerites to the Shakers were formed that lived to this day, I think there's 17 million Mormons today. The women's movement was born here at Seneca Falls, the abolitionist movement. This was the hotbed of abolitionism in the whole nation. And the largest funder of the Underground Railroad lived nine miles up the road from me here in Peterboro, New York. Massive things that changed the country forever along with penicillin was invented here. Water impermeable cement was invented here. The things that happened in this corridor during that time changed not just America, it changed the world and it made New York City what it is, because it's very possible the Civil War could have turned out differently if we didn't have the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal made New York the port city, otherwise it would have been New Orleans. And when you think about what occurred, and then 7 million immigrants came along this canal in a 36 year timeframe, and that's a tiny little sliver of time. And the people who lived here, I mean, you had Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, Harriet Tubman, Garrett Smith, all, they might have been on the same canal boats, we don't know. They were all here at the same time and they knew one another.

GR: People like John Brown and Samuel May, yeah, yeah. So, a follow up to that then. I mean, particularly I’m thinking about the spiritual and the reform movements and the like, the abolitionist movement was really radical for its time and the most radical elements of the abolitionist movement were here. What was it about this area, I mean, is there something in the water? I mean, what is the reason for this?

MH: I have a personal belief about why this happened. I've read many, many books about it. Personally, I believe that, just not unlike Silicon Valley, this influx of new people with these diverse ideas, they, to migrate to America from Europe, took a special kind of person. They came here and they were ready to throw off the constraints of the past. And many of them came with Calvinistic religious feelings that, you know, their future was predetermined. Well, they make this trip across the ocean and they come up the Hudson River and across the Erie Canal and they go, oh, I'm not predetermined, I'm making my own future. So they experimented with utopian communities, Skaneateles, the Oneida Mansion House. They experimented with their religious beliefs and I think it was because there were so many new diverse people in one place at one time who were really brave people.

GR: Yeah. Thinking of the Oneida community, I mean, that would be in the category of, I guess, relationship and sexual radicalism.

MH: Right, yeah.

GR: So let's talk about the characters and the plot, because this is sort of the context in which all this is happening. But without spoiling anything for our listeners, because we do want to sell your book. So just give me a brief what summary of what’s going on.

MH: Well, the main character is a young Irish, dark Irish woman named Aileen O'Malley. And she comes here to find her indentured father and her kidnaped half siblings and she knows they're along the Erie Canal corridor. She's sort of imperious, was raised as pretty privileged person in her grandmother's home in Ireland. And she comes to America with some real strict Catholic beliefs with a mission in mind. And she learns about America bit by bit by traveling along this canal. And it changes her and it creates drama. She witnesses slaves, enslaved people committing suicide. She witnesses shakers, dancing. She witnesses all of these things that completely throw her belief system up in the air. And she finds many similarities between some of the social problems in Ireland, her home, and what was happening here. She also identifies with the Oneida women that she meets. The Haudenosaunee, as you know, was a matriarchal culture, that shocked her. She had never seen women in charge. Women pick the leaders, what? You know, that's the opposite of what she had experienced in Ireland. But she learns about the Oneida people and she's very taken with them. And her spirituality grows and changes as time goes on. And she eventually learns that she needs to take a stand and fight for justice herself because she doesn't want her new country to be what her old country was.

GR: Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Marilyn Higgins, author of a new book titled "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". I like that angle of how the new country and the movements are changing her, but then she has the impact back on them and then going back to her old country as well, that's a nice blending of things. Well, I want to ask you a question about this genre of historical fiction and I've read some other pieces like this. I read one about, that was based in the Ulysses S. Grant administration, that was quite good. And often the authors are very careful to make sure that the historical context that they are embedding their stories in are accurate. So that in a way it's fiction, but it's also a real history as well. How did you approach that for this book?

MH: Exactly the way you're describing. I have been reading and researching the Erie Canal since I was a teenager. I read every book that's ever been written on it. I've been serving on the Erie Canal Corridor Commission for 20 plus years. I have lots of history, and I learned lots of history from the little towns and villages along the canal. So to me, because I feel upstate New York is so absent from the creative stage, I thought the way to reach more people was to make it a dramatic story, because it was dramatic. But it seems to me that might be, I hope, a way to reach more people about what happened here. And I wanted to do it in a way that would draw people in. I would love Aileen O'Malley to become to the Erie Canal what Anna of Green Gables is to Prince Edward Island. Do you know what I mean? I want the stories to teach the history.

GR: And so what methods did you use? You have this background, you had all this on the ground sort of research through participating in different activities. What other kinds of things did you do? I guess you were doing a lot of reading during COVID, but…

MH: Yes, but I also had a wonderful coach because I'd never written a book before. And he gave me a way of approaching this. I took book charts, and across the top I put the years. And then in the next line down, I put the major events that I saw happening. And then at the bottom, I put her evolution as a human being. And then I lined those up in slices and started writing. That's how I did it.

GR: Well, I'm working on something that's kind of similar, so maybe I should go have you as a coach now because you just gave me you just gave me an idea. So I had this question about what you came across when you were writing. You're obviously well versed in upstate history, you just explain that again when you started the book, you had that already. But I was curious, did you learn anything in the course of researching and writing this book that totally surprised you that you didn't know before about the area?

MH: No, honestly, as soon as something comes out and the burned over district or, you know, an academic book, I’ve read the children's books, you know, on the Erie Canal, it's been a passion of mine for a really long time. Now, what I did instead, I went to these places when I was doing the work on the book. I drove to Palmyra, I went to Hill Cumorah, I stayed in an inn in Fairport along the Erie Canal. I mean, I went and experienced more of these places. But did I learn anything brand new? I don't think so.

GR: Well, that experience is probably important. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Marilyn Higgins, the former Chief Development Officer for Syracuse University, is the author of a new book titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart" and we've been discussing her book. So I wanted to circle back to the different movements and causes that swept through upstate New York in the first half of the 19th century. And, you know, we've already mentioned this, but some of them are really out there. And one of them that has always fascinated me is the Millerites. And so just remind our listeners of what those folks were about.

MH: Well, they were the ones who believed the world was coming to an end. And, you know when you think about it in a practical way, these people, their lives had been so changed that they were susceptible to believing that, gee, this might be it, this might be the end. The thing that's interesting about the Millerites is that they announced when it was going to happen and when it didn't happen, they announced it was going to happen again (laughter).

GR: Right. It was like, oh, we just we just got the year wrong.

MH: Right, right! People missed it. You know, it's very, very interesting. Something else I just realized is that you asked me if something surprised me, and I just remembered something that did.

GR: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Let's hear it.

MH: I did not know that there were these large African-American farming communities in upstate New York. There was a town called Florence right off, like where 81 is in Central Square, an 80 family African-American farming community. Successful, and it was founded by Garrett Smith because he wanted people to own land so they could vote.

GR: Right.

MH: And they started these farming communities. And there were others in western New York too. But I think that's kind of an untold piece of history. And I think that…

GR: …No, go ahead, finish your thought.

MH: I learned that from a teacher in the Camden School District. She was the one who told me about that and I researched it and it just absolutely floored me. So that's in my book, too.

GR: Yeah. I think in one of the books I read, there was a casual or side mention of that and that there was a story about one of the boys or young men who was it came from that community and went to one of Garrett Smith's schools as I recall. So back to the Millerites though, so one of the things that I found fascinating about it was, not only did they think the world was going to end, but they really believed it and that they, some of them sold their worldly possessions. And then on the day that it was going to end, they got out and laid out on their roof and just…

MH: Yep.

GR: And then it was like you know, I reminded me of the scene from Little Big Man where the, you know, the guy doesn't quite die. (laughter)

MH: Yes! Exactly, exactly. It was well, you know, that's a great example. 6,000 to 8,000 people with no mass transportation would gather and have these revival meetings that lasted for six or seven days. There were still panthers and bears in the woods here in upstate New York. I mean, traveling to get to these Millerite gatherings and other gatherings was not an easy thing. But people did it. Now, they also had no other form of entertainment. So I think there's an interesting parallel between religion and entertainment that could be drawn there.

GR: Well, the famous preacher at the time was it Finley, I think, right?

MH: Grandison Finney.

GR: Finney, Charles Finney, yeah. He was the one that drew the big crowds, right. So I'm going to switch gears a little bit on you now. And we're going to come up to the present and think about what you learned and what you know about that period of New York and thinking about now in upstate New York. And so I wanted to get your, not only your historian's take, but your business development take on the current situation here in central New York, and particularly, you probably know what's going to come out of my mouth next, the coming of Micron and its full impact on the Syracuse area. It's been described by many as absolutely historic in proportion, not just something that is different in magnitude, but it's so big that it's going to fundamentally change the area. And so I wanted to ask you, because I think you'd be particularly well positioned to comment on this, do you think that we may be embarking on a new era for this part of upstate New York?

MH: Unquestionably. I was involved in recruiting AMD to Saratoga, the first chip plant that came to upstate New York with a great team of people. There was about eight of us who worked for seven years to get that chip plant here. And I watched what happened. And as it developed, I think, well, there's still some political, but I think we're really lucky to have Ryan McMahon who was so aggressive and went after that project. But let me be very clear, I've watched these things be built. I stood on a hill and watched a mile long train of cement mixers going into that site. And this is four times that big. This is, people will get out of two years of college and make $125,000 - $130,000 a year. This regrows the middle class. It regrows the technology base of the region. It regrows, changes the leadership, I believe in the region. Somebody told me there was going to have to be 37 new gas stations to just handle the population growth. And I think that, I'm also really impressed that there's some planning going on and instead of just like wild growth, you know, some good planning going on to plan for this. But yeah, this will, upstate New York, this is revolutionary and it's going to happen. It's the biggest project in the United States of America.

GR: Yeah, I think there are too many people at too many different high positions in government that have too much at stake for this not to get through.

MH: Exactly.

GR: Well, but here's a concern, possible concern. I mean, maybe it's a good problem to have, I don't know. But do you think that with all this, that this area of central-upstate New York might lose some of its distinctive identity characteristics, that we might become, in a sense, more generic if we have all this advancement?

MH: Not if we're smart about it. I mean, I would be horrified if I thought we were just going to become like mega suburbia, quite frankly. I mean, and lose the wonderful things we have. But I live in this little village of Canastota, which is as authentic as it gets, let me tell you. And we're talking about Micron and how to prepare for it. I think the towns and villages are really looking at their own strengths and weaknesses where this new development is concerned. And I think the planning that the county has undertaken, I give Ryan a lot of credit for hiring planners, looking at development. Can you imagine what Brewerton can be, a riverfront community five miles away from this site? It'll be fabulous. And good planning is taking place, and I'm encouraged by that.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Canastota author Marilyn Higgins, whose new book is titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". Well, I also have to ask you this question. What do you think your characters, particularly your main character there in your book, would make of the current levels of political passion that we're seeing, both the negative ones and the positive ones that we're seeing in this election cycle? Do you think would be familiar to them in some way?

MH: Very familiar.

GR: They wouldn't be wrong footed by this then.

MH: No, no. I mean, this is, my book is written in the period of time with all the political hauntings that created the Civil War. And, you know, there were some things people could never agree upon. This is as close, this period of time we're in right now, in my view, this is as close to that as we have ever come. People can't have conversations over the kitchen table. I think it's really due to a lot of other reasons than that was then. I think that it was more economic and geographic and all that kind of thing. I think now it's a lot due to social media and algorithms. But I do think it would be familiar to Aileen O'Malley to have people unable to converse and have good, healthy discussion about her differences.

GR: Yeah, there's a story by, and it's one of the famous authors from upstate New York, but it's, maybe you can tell me but called, “Copperhead” and it was turned into a movie as well. But it was, you know, someone who didn't support the union and the Civil War, didn't want the Civil War, but was living up here in upstate New York. And the conflict that that family went through, it was very, very interesting, very similar to this. Well, let me ask you a question about where you get your love of history from. I mean, it's clear that you have a love of history. Where do you think it originated from? Was it the experience that you had professionally taking you to all these different towns, or did it predate that?

MH: It predated that. My dad grew up on the Armstrong Farm near Green Lake. It later became (Alverna) Heights, the nuns owned it. And we would walk there when I was a little girl sometimes and he would tell me stories about taking a team of horses down the hill to the canal and cutting out ice and dragging it up the hill and putting it in the coal house. And he would take me to Pompey, to the field days, etc. And I think he started it, I’ve just always been fascinated with the history here.

GR: So we've got about 3 minutes left or so. I want to squeeze two more questions in if I can. And the first one is, hopefully we don't have another huge resurgence of COVID. But I wondered if you do have thoughts for another book.

MH: I have a great idea for another book. But I'll tell you, the self-publishing business, I was an executive. I had a secretary. I don't know how to do all this, uploading this. The self-publishing world is challenging for me. So I don't know, I probably would write another book, but I don't know if I will go through this process again unless there's enough interest in this book to make it worth my while.

GR: Well, I have to say, though, physically, the book, you've done a very nice job with it. I mean, it you know, it looks and feels like any other book. Well, in about the last couple of minutes or so, I know you've been involved in a lot of different philanthropic and public service kinds of things, but one in particular caught my eye, this Freedom Walk. And I wonder if you could just take the last little bit of time and tell our listeners about that.

MH: I'd be delighted. In 1835, and this is in my book, the New York State Abolitionists were meeting in Utica for the first time and they were ransacked and run out of the meeting. They were literally physically assaulted and driven out because there were people in Utica who didn't like abolitionists. They were literally, with the help of Garrett Smith, put on a canal boat, brought up the canal, got off in Canastota and walked nine miles up the hill to Peterboro where they formed the New York State Anti-Slavery Society. An amazing thing there were singing freedom songs, we have farmer’s diaries that describe this. They were singing freedom songs as they went up that hill. That struck me and I thought we should maybe do a reenactment to honor that history. And we started that three years ago and it's been great.

GR: And what time of the year does it happen, in summer, I assume?

MH: October, we just had it, the first weekend in October. We had about a hundred people there. The first year Felisha Legette-Jack came and spoke. Last year, Mel Stith came. This year, Otis Jennings did the remarks. It's a really wonderful experience.

GR: Oh, well, that's great. Well, that was Marilyn Higgins. And again, her new book is titled, "Dreams of Freedom: An Irish Woman's Story of Love, Justice, and a Young Nation Coming Apart". And it's sort of timed to match the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal, which is next year, as I understand you told me, right?

MH: Yes. The 200th anniversary of the Wedding of the Waters is coming up, so we'll have a whole year of celebrations.

GR: So check out the book. You'll learn a lot about the area and its history and you’ll also get a good story in the process. Marilyn, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me, this was a lot of fun.

MH: It really was. Thank you, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.