Arrive To: Check in is between 4P and 6P at Great Camp Sagamore. Please note if you are coming from Albany that x23(Warrensburg) is an hour north of Albany. Please drive carefully. The last four miles into Sagamore are on a dirt road which is only marked at the beginning & end. After you cross our guest bridge, please turn left and come directly to the office in the conference building where you will register. Thank you.

Dinner: Dinner is at 6PM in the Dining Hall. You will select from a buffet.

Evening: Dinner is followed by announcements. Then please meet for evening introductions, orientation, schedule overview, and a short presentation on Sagamore's history, preservation, and programs. Then relax and retire. The goal of this program is to examine some of the many social, cultural and political scandals that have occurred in the Adirondack Park, especially those that followed the first great wave of tourists to the region; namely, the well-heeled urban industrialists and socialites who built what are now called Adirondack Great Camps. The introduction of these players into the wilderness of the Adirondacks changed the character of the region, and in many ways resulted in the introduction of scandalous events and tragedies into what had previously been a remote region, one largely detached and insulated from such urban problems.

Lodging: Great Camp Sagamore

Meals Included: Dinner

Note: Lectures, guided walk through 27 buildings

Breakfast: Breakfast is at 8AM in the Dining Hall.

Morning: After breakfast we will meet for an overview of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the man credited with taking us from a nation of barter to a nation of giant corporations. Called the Commodore and described since his youth as "hypermasculine" he used wars, the gold rush, and panics to his advantage. Steamships were his passion, but railroading became his life as the transportation revolution matured under his leadership. His home life is difficult to analyse. His role in Gibbons vs. Ogden gave the federal government power over state's rights. He challenged the 18th century attitude of deference and embraced the Jacksonian virtue of free competition. Was he a war profiteer or a war hero? Did he pave the way to the Gilded Age? Appointing his heir was not as easy as one might imagine and his death precipitated a battle in his family over his will which lasted for years. The bulk of his fortune eventually passed to Alfred Vanderbilt who purchased Sagamore as a 22-year-old. Following a generation behind Vanderbilt was Thomas C. Durant, the general manager of the Union Pacific Railroad and the man who moved us from the east to Promontory Point. The Union Pacific organized a construction company called Credit Mobilier to lay the track. Union Pacific's chief Washington agent, Representative Oakes Ames (R-Mass), distributed stock in Credit Mobilier to key members of Congress. Dr. Durant's son, William West Durant used his father's fortune to build elaborate camps to emulate the hunting and fishing camps of Europe. Among his clients were Collis P. Huntington, J.P. Morgan, and Vanderbilt, who "rescued" Sagamore through purchase just as William West was sinking to his knees in bankruptcy. All three camps are now National Historic Landmarks.

Lunch: Lunch is at noon in the Dining Hall

Afternoon: After lunch will will have a guided exploration of the 27 buildings of Great Camp Sagamore. This camp was purchased by the great-grandson of Commodore Vanderbilt after the son of Thomas C. Durant built it. The intertwining stories of these families share this common focal point.

Dinner: Dinner is at 6P in the Dining Hall.

Evening: We will see the A&E feature about the camps of Raquette Lake.

Lodging: Great Camp Sagamore

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

The American Tragedy, a scandalous death or a miscarriage of justice in the Adirondacks?

Note: Discussion/lecture, entertainment tonight

Breakfast: Breakfast is at 8AM in the Dining Hall.

Morning: The American Tragedy was the drowning of Grace Brown, a pregnant woman, who fell or was pushed from the boat that Chester Gillette was rowing on Big Moose Lake (a lake very close to Sagamore). Dreiser wrote the novel "American Tragedy" of the 1906 incident. It is hoped that everyone will have read the novel so that we can discuss it as a group.

Lunch: Lunch is at noon in the Dining Hall.

Afternoon: We will discuss some of the details of the trial that convicted Gillette and then see "A Place in the Sun" so that we might compare book and movie--and more importantly, share our views of whether or not justice was served.

Dinner: Dinner is at 6PM in the Dining Hall.

Evening: Tonight we will take a breather and be entertained by an Adirondack story teller.

Lodging: Great Camp Sagamore

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Breakfast: Breakfast is at 8AM in the Dining Hall.

Morning: A look into of the Vanderbilt scrapbooks. Alfred bought Sagamore when he was 22, before he was embroiled in a scandalous divorce from his first wife. Did he redeem himself on the Lusitania when he gave his life belt to a woman with a child and then tried to save other children? Before you depart we will review the lives of the men we have covered in the course to determine whether we have changed our own opinions of their lives.

Meals Included: Breakfast