Before Your Time VTDigger

Vermont's extensive old-growth forests drew representatives from the King's Navy looking for mast trees. What can their map of timber resources tell us about our relationship to the land, how Vermont defined itself, and how history is saved or not?

In the summer of 1829, three Army surveyors created a map exploring a potential canal route that would have connected Lake Champlain and the Connecticut River. "Canal Fever" was gripping the region, with the success of the Erie Canal. But this quantum leap in transportation technology would have to contend with an even bigger idea: the railroads.

Technological improvements, from butter churns to electricity, transformed life on Vermont farms from the 1890s through the mid-20th century. Many of these changes eased the workload of Vermont's farming families. But other changes - done in the name of modernity - had long-term impacts on the future of dairy in our state.

People speaking Spanish as they milk cows may not fit our traditional image of a Vermont farm. But workers from Mexico and Central America are crucial to the state’s economy. And such migrant labor has a long history in Vermont.

Though said to be extinct, catamounts live on in the minds of many Vermonters. In this episode we retrace a Barnard panther hunt from 1881 and consider the hold that these big cats continue to have on our imaginations.

Town meeting is central to our identity as a little state on a human scale that does things differently. But what happens to town meeting when it needs to change during a pandemic? Or when it changes because Vermont itself has changed?
In this episode, we discuss a film made in Pittsford, Vermont in 1950 to promote democracy in postwar Japan. We review the changes that needed to be made to town meeting during this pandemic year. And we talk with political theory professor Meg Mott about ongoing threats to town meeting and self-governance.
This episode is part of the “Why it Matters: Civics and Electoral Participation” initiative sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Federation for State Humanities Councils.