Historical Walking Tours

June 12, 6:00pm - 7:30pm - Douglass, Anthony, & Beyond: Activism and Social Justice in Rochester Learn more and register at https://calendar.libraryweb.org/event/12348792

This walking tour focuses on Rochester’s rich history of social justice activism. While the tour discusses sites related to the city’s most famous agitators, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, it also delves into various other forms of local activism as expressed by the labor movement, the anti-draft movement, the Gay Rights movement, and others. Meet on the north side of the Rundel Memorial Building for this 1.1. mile tour.

 

June 15, 12:00pm - 2:00pm - Rochester’s Photographic history before Eastman: 1840-1880. Learn more and register at https://calendar.libraryweb.org/event/12396288

This walking tour focuses on Rochester’s earliest photographic history. Soon after its invention in 1839, photography made its foothold and blossomed into various studios and industries in Rochester on the Erie Canal. This is the era of the Daguerreotype, and wet plate processes such as the Tintype and ambrotype.

This walk will focus on local locations that had an early photographic historical note. Various photographic processes will be discussed. This walk is about 1.5 miles in total. All ages are welcome.

 

July 17, 6:00pm - 7:30pm - Multicultural Rochester: Immigrants, Migrants, & Minorities in the Flower City. Learn more and register

at https://calendar.libraryweb.org/event/12349177

This 1.1 mile walking tour focuses on the significant role that immigrants, migrants, and minority group members have played in the economic, social, and cultural development of Rochester. The tour begins at the former location of the largely immigrant-built Erie Canal, and ends at the Rundel Memorial Library, where locals and visitors alike can learn more about Rochester’s immigrant communities as well as their own ethnic and racial heritage using the resources available in the Local History & Genealogy Division. Meet on the north side of the Rundel Memorial Building.

 

August 21, 6:00pm - 7:30pm - Beyond Flour and Flowers: Industry in Rochester. Learn more and register at https://calendar.libraryweb.org/event/12349793

Rochester’s logo, a blue lilac combined with a water wheel, is telling of the city’s industrial history. Both the logo and the nicknames it features—Flour City and Flower City—evoke the two major industries that fueled the city’s early development. However, a myriad other—and perhaps lesser known—local industries and inventions also helped put Rochester on the map. Meet on the north side of the Rundel Memorial Building to explore Rochester’s industrial history on this 1.2-mile walking tour.

 

September 18, 5:00pm - 6:30pm - Heritage Trail. Learn more and register at https://calendar.libraryweb.org/event/12349824

Meet on the north side of the Rundel Memorial Building for a 1-mile walking tour of this urban trail  that tells the story of Rochester through its buildings and landmarks. The trail takes us from the earliest days of Rochester to the present.