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Showing 1 - 10 of 35 Records

Women's Suffrage in Vermont Collection
    • Creator: Vermont Woman's Suffrage Association, Vermont Equal Suffrage Association
    • Date Created: 1882-1916
    • Description: The Women’s Suffrage in Vermont Collection documents Vermonters’ efforts to obtain voting rights for women. With contributions from the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration, the Leahy Library at the Vermont Historical Society, and Silver Special Collections at the University of Vermont, the collection focuses on the period from 1870 to 1920. The Women’s Suffrage in Vermont Collection include VESA annual meeting reports and correspondence, legislation, promotional materials such as broadsides and leaflets, and photographs. HISTORY In 1870, the Vermont Council of Censors proposed an amendment to the state constitution calling for full suffrage for women. A group of men formed the Vermont Woman Suffrage Association to support the amendment, which failed by a vote of 231 to 1 at the constitutional convention. Ten years later, taxpaying women did obtain the right to vote and hold office in school districts. The Vermont Woman Suffrage Association (VWSA) reorganized in 1884 and focused on achieving woman suffrage in municipal elections by introducing voting rights legislation, advocating in newspapers, and holding meetings and rallies with local and national speakers. The VWSA, which became the Vermont Equal Suffrage Association (VESA) in 1907, worked closely with the American Woman Suffrage Association, later the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Anti-suffragists formed the Vermont Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage in 1912, and by 1917, when the Vermont legislature passed a law that allowed taxpaying women to vote in local elections, the organization claimed over 5,000 members. VESA continued to push for full suffrage, and came close in 1919 when the legislature passed a bill allowing women to vote in presidential elections. Governor Clement refused to sign the bill, and the House of Representatives upheld his veto. After Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919, VESA members campaigned vigorously to have the legislature consider state ratification, but Governor Clement refused to call a special session and the amendment was ratified in 1920 without Vermont’s support. With the right to vote obtained, VESA dissolved and the new Vermont League of Women Voters took on the task of educating Vermont women about civic responsibilities. FURTHER READING Clifford, Deborah P. The Drive for Women's Municipal Suffrage in Vermont 1883-1917. Vermont History 47, no. 3 (1979): 173-190. Clifford, Deborah P. An Invasion of Strong-Minded Women: The Newspapers and the Woman Suffrage Campaign in Vermont in 1870. Vermont History 43, no. 1 (1975): 1-19.


    Vermonters in the Civil War
      • Description: Vermont soldiers in the Civil War wrote an enormous quantity of letters and diaries, of which many thousands have survived in libraries, historical societies, and in private hands. This collection represents a selection of letters and diaries from the University of Vermont and the Vermont Historical Society. The collection includes materials dating from 1861-1865. Materials were selected for digitization to provide a variety of perspectives on events and issues. The voices represented in the collection include private soldiers and officers, as well as a few civilians. All of the extant Civil War-era letters or diaries of each of the selected individuals (at least, all that are to be found in the participating institutions’ collections) are included; each adds a certain experience and point of view to the whole. Officers in the photo above are (from left to right): Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Stoughton, Colonel Edwin H. Stoughton, Major Harry N. Worthen. All are from the Fourth Vermont Infantry Regiment.


      Vermont Woman
        • Date Created: 1985-1990, 2003-2019
        • Description: Vermont Woman was a woman’s advocacy publication that was first issued monthly from 1985 to 1990. The publication restarted in 2003 with five issues per year and then four until it ceased in 2019. Woman-owned and staffed, Vermont Woman provided women’s perspectives on a wide range of topics. Articles written by women documented women’s achievements and confronted a multitude of challenging concerns. The publisher and the editors took stands on issues relevant to women, including work, education, finance, health, politics sexuality, relationships and family. They actively supported politicians and leaders who were committed to ending inequities and improving women’s lives. During its years of publication, Vermont Woman helped connect women throughout the state, achieving circulation to thousands of readers through free distribution and paid subscriptions.


        Vermont Cynic
          • Creator: University of Vermont
          • Date Created: 1883-2010
          • Description: This collection includes issues of the University of Vermont student newspaper published from April 1883 to May 2010. The publication appears as the University Cynic from 1883 to 1908. It was issued every three weeks until 1899 and biweekly until 1908. More of a magazine than a newspaper during these years, it included sections such as general literature, letters, sciences, personals, locals (with a subsection for "base ball"), books, exchanges (news from other college papers), alumni notes, and editorials. In May 1908 a title change to Vermont Cynic and Monthly reflected a weekly publishing schedule, with three issues of news followed by a magazine issue each month. The next fall, the student staff offered the UVM campus a weekly newspaper with the title The Vermont Cynic, leaving production of literary magazines to other student groups. The Cynic appeared every week during the academic year with free distribution on campus. Editorially independent, the Cynic provided a student perspective on news and events related to the university and the local community, with occasional reporting on national news and issues. As a forum for discussion and debate, the paper included editorials, opinions and letters from readers. In 2001, the Vermont Cynic added digital publication. Print was suspended in spring 2020 and briefly resumed in fall 2020. Confronting financial challenges and a decline in print readers, after a second attempt to restart print distribution in 2022, the Cynic became an online publication. In 2024 and 2025, special print issues were published. An anonymous donor funded digitization of the Cynic in partnership with the Internet Archive, which presents issues published from 1883 to 2009. Print issues from 1883 to the present are available in the Silver Special Collections Library.


          University of Vermont Alumni Publications
            • Description: The University of Vermont has published newsletters and magazines for alumni since 1905. The alumni publications are a valuable source of information about the institution and its students, faculty, and staff. The publications document faculty, student and alumni activities and accomplishments, curriculum developments, and campus expansion and building construction. They include feature articles, statistical and financial reports, interviews, photographs, and alumni news. The titles and frequency of publications have changed over the years. The first publication, U.V.M. Notes, was issued monthly during the school year. In 1921, the title changed to Vermont Alumni Weekly, reflecting a much more ambitious publication schedule. From 1937 to 1980, alumni publications appeared monthly under eight different titles and in several formats. Since 1980, the alumni magazine has been published quarterly for alumni, parents of students, faculty and staff, and friends of UVM.



            The Gadfly: a UVM student newspaper
              • Date Created: 1985-1997
              • Description: The Gadfly, a University of Vermont (UVM) alternative student newspaper, was published by a nonhierarchical collective from 1985 to 1997. The Gadfly Collective, a recognized student club, was part of the Union of Concerned Students, which served as a coordinating group and resource center for progressive student groups at UVM. A quote from Plato on the masthead explained the paper’s title and mission, “I was attached to this city as upon a great noble horse, which was somewhat sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly.” The paper’s frequency varied from semi-weekly, to monthly and then quarterly. After a 16-month hiatus beginning in late 1994, The Gadfly reappeared in March 1996 “to educate, uncover lies and invoke action.” The last issue appeared in February 1997. The Gadfly challenged the UVM community by presenting alternative viewpoints about issues on campus, in Burlington and Vermont. It also addressed national and international areas of concern. The paper published articles, commentaries and essays, interviews, art, letters, poetry and announcements about community events. Members of the collective and the community contributed content, but The Gadfly also reprinted articles from other publications. As a forum for debate, The Gadfly tackled controversial campus issues such as divestment, racism and diversity, military recruiting, policies and decision making, labor, and student activism.


              Tennie Toussaint Photographs
                • Date Created: 2007-04-10
                • Description: The Tennie Toussaint collection includes photographs of agricultural landscapes, logging, mills, barn raisings, and railroad bridges from the Danville, Vermont area, circa 1900. Tennie Toussaint was a columnist for the Burlington Free Press in the 1960s - 1970s. In addition, she was an artist, librarian, made maple syrup, and refinished antique chairs. The photographs were taken by Elgin Gates, a North Danville blacksmith. Other notable figures in this collection are Frank Valley, a carpenter responsible for a lot of the new barns built at this time and the remodeling of many local houses who was known for his meticulous craftmanship, and Arthur Sanborn, who owned the sawmill and whose home had modern touches such as electricity, an aluminum roof, and a stained glass window. The mill owned by Sanborn had previously been run by the McFarlands and produced one million board feet a year at its peak.


                Prospect Archive of Children's Work
                  • Creator: Prospect School and Center for Education and Research
                  • Description: The Prospect Center for Education and Research, located in North Bennington, VT, started in 1965 as a school for elementary, and later, middle school children. The School closed in 1991 and the Center in 2010. Featured here are substantial, digitized selections of the work of nine students of the several hundred who attended the School. The School’s daily schedule included large blocks of time for its students to work with a broad range of materials individually and together, in self-directed ways. Visual and written work left behind was gathered and saved and eventually became the Prospect Archive of Children's Work, which now also contains teacher records and some subsequently donated work. The Archive is a unique resource, offering a longitudinal perspective on children’s thinking and growth. It has been used for many years by teachers and other educators—employing methods for collaborative study developed at the Prospect Center—to further understanding of individual children, of children in school, of what in the educational setting supports their learning, and ultimately, of larger questions about human work, thought, and capacity. It is Prospect’s hope that the children’s work and supporting material on this site and in the Special Collections Library at UVM will be used by educators to continue their study in service to the idea that each child offers something new to the world, a fresh perspective, a renewed meaning, and that it is the work of education to enable that emergence. This collection includes the work of nine individual children and The Introduction to the Reference Edition of the Prospect Archive (1985), which offers background and descriptions of the Prospect School, the Archive of Children’s Work, and the Reference Edition itself, from which all the children’s work and related material on this site have been drawn. The Reference Edition of the Prospect Archive is a slide, microfiche and manuscript compilation of the complete works of thirty-six children. Note: The convention of parentheses around the children’s names indicates a pseudonym. The Prospect Center for Education and Research, located in North Bennington, VT, started in 1965 as a school for elementary, and later, middle school children. Out of its own efforts to learn more about children and how best to provide for and encourage their learning, the Prospect School grew to encompass a variety of teacher education programs, research projects, and an archive of children’s work and transformed itself into the Prospect Center in 1979. The School closed in 1991. The Center continued some of its adult education and research activities, and undertook an ambitious publication program, until its closing in 2010.


                  Porter C. Thayer Photographs
                    • Description: This archive contains 1300 photographs made by Porter C. Thayer,scanned from silver gelatin prints, held in the collection of the Brooks Memorial Library. The prints were made in 1980 from the 5x7 glass plates negatives created by Porter Thayer. These images are also available on microfilm at the Brattleboro library. Porter Thayer was born Porter Charlie Thayer on January 6, 1882 on Main Street in Williamsville, Vermont. He grew up in the red house called the Tillotson Place in the Parish section of Newfane, Vermont. He photographed Windham County, Vermont, beginning in 1906 through around 1920. Like most Vermont men of his generation he was a farmer, specifically an apple orchardist, managing his 50 acre apple orchard on Baker Brook Farm in Newfane. He turned to his apple business after ending his photographic career. The postcard craze that most likely reached Vermont by about 1905, was perhaps the impetus for Porter Thayer starting up a photographic business. His diaries tell that he sold 1,197 postal cards during a six-month period at the height of his career. The cards were for sale as souvenirs to summer tourists at small general stores, local inns, boarding houses and hotels. Local folks purchased his photographs as well, especially around the Christmas season, to send to distant relatives. A Brattleboro, Vermont directory of 1909 lists Porter as advertising that he would come to anyone’s home and make images for a reasonable fee. Around 1911 he recorded that he had 720 customers. Eventually he photographed in all the towns within a 25 mile radius of his home in Newfane. Porter Thayer perfectly fits the archetype of the town photographer. He traveled the narrow dirt roads in his buggy, behind his faithful mare Lady, who accompanied him daily. He could apparently take extended naps while Lady brought him safely home, as she always knew the way. He used two cameras: a 5 x 7 and a 6.5 x 8.5 view camera and made glass dry-plate negatives. He traveled with stacks of postcards to be delivered at stores along the way to his days work. Working continually through seasons and years, Porter Thayer left an archive that is a cultural treasure for southeastern Vermont. The quality of his work shows that he was able to combine business needs with aesthetic ones. During the time period Porter worked, Vermont was extremely poor and rural, yet held a close-knit population that shared the labors of life. Farmers helped one another to survive in a subsistence and barter economy. For women, men, and children, life meant constant work. Thayer’s images describe the work and the tools involved. His landscape images reveal this working landscape, which today is mostly hidden by trees. The fruits of his labor as a photographer have grown in importance, as both the landscape and culture of Vermont has shifted into modern spheres of living. Written by Jessica Weitz and Forrest Holzapfel, 2010.