Showing 1 - 35 of 35 Records
A Tourist's Album of Japan
- Date Created: 1909
- Description: Katherine Wolcott and her uncle, Robert Hull Fleming, compiled this photo album on their visit to Japan in 1909. Part of a larger Asian trip, the two stopped in Japan and collected photos, postcards, bookmarks, and other materials. Fleming was a graduate of the University of Vermont, and in 1929 Katherine Wolcott helped to fund the construction of the Robert Hull Fleming Museum in memory of her late uncle. This album, a memento from their trip, was part of Wolcott’s own collection. There are nearly 40 leaves of collected photographs and postcards, numbering two to three per album page. The pictures range in content, some depicting staged photos of daily life while others portray landscapes and countryside. The album itself measures approximately 11 x 14 x 4 inches and is currently housed at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont. Wolcott’s album captures a unique view of Japan at the brink of burgeoning Western influence. After defeating the Russians in the Russo Japanese War (1904-05), Japan began to cement itself as a global power, and its efforts to modernize began to attract Westerners. The images in this album depict a Japan with a strong national heritage and cultural appreciation as well as a newfound embrace of modernization and technology. Most of the pictures in the album sold commercially as a form of postcard. In the early 1900s, the Japanese populace began consuming millions of these types of commercially produced picture postcards. Eventually, the medium became so popular that it started to replace the more traditional wood block print. The citizenry sought pictures of their budding nation, wanting to hold a still image of the rapidly modernizing and changing countryside.
Absurdities and Realities of Special Education
- Creator: Giangreco, Michael F., 1956-
- Date Created: 1998-2020
- Description: Absurdities and Realities of Special Education: The University of Vermont Center for Digital Initiatives Collection is a complete set of all of the cartoons created by Michael Giangreco with the assistance of the artist Kevin Ruelle. This includes a total of 335 cartoons from four previously published books and searchable CD that went "out of print" in 2019 and a few newer cartoons. Michael Giangreco created the original ideas, text, and sketches for each cartoon and Kevin Ruelle redrew the sketches. The cartoons in the first three books all were originally in black and white. That was a conscious decision, both for aesthetic and practical reasons. The cartoons were designed to be easily copied on to overhead transparencies for display in classes, workshops, and other learning environments. A group called Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) requested permission to use one of the cartoons on the cover of their magazine and subsequently colorized it. Prompted by Giangreco’s colleagues associated with ALLFIE, Giangreco and Ruelle began to colorize the rest of the images. In this complete digital collection, we have included a total of 335 different digital images; including the 315 different cartoons from the four earlier books, 12 cartoons that were on the CD only, and eight that were not included in any of the previously published books or CD. Cartoons from the early books have found their way on to the pages of many newsletters disseminated by schools, parent groups, disability advocacy organizations, and professional associations. They have appeared in books, manuals, and journals; a few were even published in a law journal. The cartoons have been used extensively as projected slides or within learning activities in college classes, at conferences, in workshops, and at other meetings. Parents have framed cartoons that closely reflected their own experiences and hung them in their homes or offices. Other parents have used them in meetings with professionals to help get their points across. They have been given as gifts to people who "get it" and handed out as door prizes. The Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights used them as part of "Disability Awareness Day" at the Vermont legislature. The cartoons can be used in innumerable creative ways.
Ariel (University of Vermont Yearbooks)
- Date Created: 1886-1997
- Description: Ariel, the student yearbook, documents the student body and student activities and organizations. The first volume was published by the sophomore class in 1886, but it soon became a junior class project. Beginning in 1956, the senior class assumed responsibility for the annual yearbook. The title was derived from the character in Shakespeare's The Tempest. The faculty and students of the Medical College were included until 1936. Ariel ceased publication in 1997 with volume 110. It was superseded by a senior memory book, Folklore, in 2001.
Civil War Broadsides and Epemera
- Date Created: 1861-1865
- Description: The Civil War Broadsides and Ephemera Collection contains items from the UVM Silver Special Collections Library that were printed and circulated from 1861 to 1865. Most of the items are related to the war, while a small number are related to Vermont’s efforts to organize and train the state militia after the war. The collection features proclamations, orders and announcements about the state’s military operations, including recruitment, enrollment, supplies, and equipment; relief efforts; the end of the war; and President Lincoln’s death. One of the most unusual items is a broadside alerting the public to the theft of U.S. Treasury notes and bonds stolen from a St. Albans, Vermont bank by Confederate raiders in October 1864.
Congressional Portraits
- Date Created: 2007-04-13
- Description: Individual and group portraits of Vermont members of Congress.
Congressional Speeches
- Date Created: 1812-1988
- Description: This collection features speeches made on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and Senate by Vermont Congressmen. Topics covered include the environment, education, agriculture, World War II and selective service, the Mexican War, the tariff and international trade, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction. The speeches date from 1812 to the present and a wide variety of Congressmen are represented.
Dairy and the US Congress
- Creator: Aiken, George D. (George David), 1892-1984
- Date Created: 1941-1975
- Description: This collection documents legislative issues relating to dairy such as milk pricing, subsidies, and oleomargarine. Vermont's congressional delegation has a long and active history in matters relating to Vermont's dairy farmers and the dairy industry. George Aiken, Elbert Brigham, James Jeffords, and Patrick Leahy all served on Agriculture committees and their collections document many of the agricultural issues that faced Congress in the 20th Century.
Diaries
- Date Created: 1766-1919
- Description: The Diaries collection provides access to more than thirty fully transcribed and searchable diaries from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century. The collection includes diaries documenting student life at UVM in different eras, the 1918-1919 flu epidemic, the civil war, life in Italy in the early 1860’s, courtship and marriage, social life, religious life, employment opportunities for women, travel, life at a summer cottage, and more.
Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont
- Date Created: 1869-1922
- Description: This collection contains large-scale maps of Vermont villages and cities produced to give fire insurance companies and underwriters accurate information about insured properties. The collection currently includes maps of communities in Chittenden and Franklin Counties that were published from 1869 to 1922. Maps from other Vermont communities will be added in the future. The detailed maps provide an important historical record of industrial areas, business districts, and some residential sections. Because most insurance maps were periodically updated and revised, they provide evidence of changes that occurred during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The colored 21 x 25 inch sheets show building footprints, construction methods and materials, size and number of floors, and uses. They also show streets, railroads, wharves and slips, property boundaries, street numbers, water systems and fire protection. Most map sets include an index sheet showing the mapped area and sheet numbers, a list of streets and addresses, a “specials index” of businesses and organizations, and a detailed key that lists the symbols used to indicate building features. Original Vermont fire insurance maps, including maps published after 1922, are available in UVM Special Collections - http://specialcollections.uvm.edu/
Fletcher Family
- Date Created: 1826-1903
- Description: The Fletcher Family collection includes family correspondence from the period 1826-1903 and photographs from circa 1860-1890. The material comes from the Fletcher Family subseries of the Consuelo Northrop Bailey Papers, which contains family papers collected by Consuelo's mother, Katherine Fletcher Northrop. The correspondence included in this collection was collected by Ruth Allen Colton Fletcher, Henrietta Smith Fletcher, and Katherine Fletcher. Ruth was born in 1810 or 1811 to Lydia and Lemuel Colton of Sharon, VT. She married Andrew Fletcher in 1839, and lived in Waterville, Belvidere, and then Johnson, VT until her death, circa 1903. Her oldest surviving child was Andrew Craig Fletcher, who married Henrietta Smith in 1869. Henrietta was born in 1845 to Catherine and George Smith of Burke, NY. Katherine Fletcher was born in 1870 to Henrietta and Andrew Craig Fletcher of Jeffersonville, VT. She attended Johnson State Normal School from 1885-1887, graduating in January 1888. The correspondence describes the experiences of several family members who moved west to New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, and California. The correspondents recount in great detail the work of creating and managing their farms in these new states or territories, and many letters give meticulous lists of the prices of land, grains, stock, and groceries. The families in this correspondence endure a great deal of sickness and deaths and these as well as some accounts of their medical treatments are described in the letters. There are a few letters from Enos Fletcher and Charles Hogan that are from the Civil War, and several letters refer to the War and its effects on their communities. There is an account of the "St. Albans Raid" by Ruth's son Andrew Craig Fletcher, who was working in St. Albans at the time. Katherine Fletcher's correspondence with her family and classmates document her life and studies at Vermont's teacher training institution twenty years into its history as such.
George Perkins Marsh Online Research Center
- Description: The George Perkins Marsh Research Center provides access to transcriptions and images of selected letters in Marsh's correspondence. With a generous grant from the Woodstock Foundation we have transcribed over 650 letters from the University manuscript collection and from Marsh's letters located at other institutions.
Hay Harvesting in the 1940's
- Creator: Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station, Carter, Robert McCrillis, 1902-
- Date Created: 1940's
- Description: In the 1940’s, Robert M. Carter, of the University of Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station, conducted a study of hay harvesting techniques and costs in Vermont. This collection documents that work which resulted in several published studies and three films showing different hay harvesting techniques. The films capture hay harvesting at a time when there was an increasing use of power machinery, and they show a range of techniques including older methods of hand harvesting, as well as newer tractor driven methods. In Carter’s study he writes, “While nearly half of all farmers contacted relied upon horses for handling some field equipment, combinations of horse- and motor-operated equipment were frequent. Forty-one percent of the farmers owned tractors, and 21 percent had trucks.” These films capture hay harvesting right in the middle of the transition from horse to machine driven equipment. Vermont was still a predominantly agricultural state in the 1940’s and dairy was the largest agricultural sector, so hay harvesting was a subject of significant interest in the state. It was also a subject of importance outside of Vermont. Between 1946 and 1948, at least 28 studies on hay harvesting methods and costs were published (Vermont, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, United States Department of Agriculture, New York, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, California, New Zealand, Colorado, Nevada, Washington, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Connecticut). The large number of studies demonstrates clearly that the point in time that these films capture was critical in terms of the development of hay harvesting. It captures an agricultural sector in a period of intense study and change. In Vermont, the cost of dairy farming was increasing which resulted in fewer and larger farms. The increased size of dairy herds led to greater requirements for feeding them. In a history of the State of Vermont, the authors note, “Wheat, buckwheat, and oats all but disappeared as cash crops for regional or national markets while farmers focused on raising hay, field corn, and other silage crops.” The authors also note that the greater focus on feed forced farmers to examine productivity and to adopt more mechanized and machine driven techniques. Again, the films document this transitional phase while simultaneously serving as evidence of the increased attention paid to issues of labor and cost-saving techniques. Robert Carter was a rural sociologist interested in labor saving techniques and systems. He studied the different ways that farmers harvested hay because “harvesting the hay crop is hard, tedious, expensive work.” His study investigated the efficiency of various hay harvesting methods. He looked at the following hay harvesting tasks: cutting grass, raking hay, bunching hay, loading hay, necessary travel carrying hay between field and barn, unloading hay, and mowing-away hay. He looked at the time spent on each task, the cost of the equipment used, crew size, idle time, time spent making repairs to equipment, the interrelationships between jobs, and the production yield. His study is thorough and provided benchmarks for farmers to measure their performance against as well as strategies for improving efficiency.
Historical Maps of Burlington and Winooski, Vermont
- Description: This collection contains wall maps, city plans, and atlas sheets published between 1830-1890, a period when Burlington became the largest city in Vermont and a center of commerce and industry on Lake Champlain. The earlier maps show the village and rural sections of the town of Burlington. Later maps cover the City of Burlington, which was established in 1865 when the rural areas were set off to create the town of South Burlington. Maps of the neighboring village of Winooski are also included in the collection. The maps show streets, buildings and lots, building owners’ names and functions, parks, cemeteries, wards, railroads, and some natural features. Some of the maps include illustrations of prominent buildings and business directories.
John Johnson Collection
- Creator: Johnson, John, 1771-1842
- Date Created: 1793-1842
- Description: The John Johnson Collection consists of 168 maps, surveys, and architectural drawings. The items included here represent every town in Chittenden County, as well as much of the rest of northwestern Vermont. The original items are in the Oversize Maps and Surveys series in the John Johson Papers, which also contain seven cartons of records divided into the following broad categories: correspondence; business papers; architectural plans and drawings; maps and surveys; bound manuscripts; and miscellaneous papers. More information about the John Johnson Papers is available here - http://scfindingaids.uvm.edu/repositories/2/resources/1249 John Johnson -- surveyor, millwright, master builder, civil engineer -- was born in Canterbury, New Hampshire on December 2, 1771. He moved to north-western Vermont in 1790 and eventually settled in Essex, where he helped build a dam and several mills at Hubbells Falls on the Winooski River. Johnson's practical versatility soon made him the most prominent surveyor and engineer in northern Vermont and Lower Canada, and the growing demand for his services led him to move to Burlington in 1809. He was named Surveyor General of Vermont in 1813, and four years later received the appointment of superintendent of the survey of the United States-Canada border from the Bay of Fundy to the head of the Connecticut River. Although the survey was suspended after two years, Johnson's work along the Maine-New Brunswick line in 1818-19 served as a partial basis for the final settlement of the border under the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842. Johnson maintained his several careers in the 1820's and 1830's. He designed or constructed many of the finest residences and public buildings in Chittenden County, served as a consultant on engineering projects as far away as North Carolina and Illinois, and continued to run surveys throughout northern Vermont. He also served again as Surveyor General of the state in the 1830's, and worked throughout that decade as an inspector for the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Johnson died of sudden attack of erysipelas fever on April 30, 1842 at the age of seventy.
Justin Morrill Letters to UVM President Matthew Buckham
- Creator: Morrill, Justin S. (Justin Smith), 1810-1898
- Date Created: 1872-1898
- Description: Justin Morrill (1810-1898) served as a US Representative (1855-1867) and Senator (1867-1898) from Vermont, following a successful business career. His signature legislative accomplishments were the Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890, which used the proceeds from the sale of federal lands expropriated from tribal nations, to create land-grant colleges. The purpose of these land-grant colleges was to teach agriculture, military instruction, and mechanical arts such as engineering in addition to the traditional science and classical education that was generally taught in colleges at that time. The second Land Grant Act, passed in 1890, funded colleges in the former Confederate states and required each state to offer race blind admissions or set up a separate land-grant college for persons of color, which led to the creation of several of the historically Black colleges and universities. An additional act passed by Congress in 1887 funded agricultural experiment stations under the direction of the land grant colleges. In 1865, the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College was incorporated, after a great deal of debate about whether a land-grant college in Vermont should be a separate institution, or attached to the University of Vermont, Norwich University, Middlebury College or even possibly a merger of those three institutions. Despite the 1865 incorporation, these debates would continue in Vermont for many years to come. With the establishment of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Morrill became a trustee of the University, a position he continued to hold until his death in 1898. Matthew Buckham (1832-1910) became President of the University in 1871 and continued in this role until his death in 1910. He had previously graduated from the University in 1851 and served as a faculty member from 1856-1871. His time as president saw the admission of women to the University, the addition of several notable buildings to campus such as Williams Hall and the Billings Library, and the development of the State Agricultural College which had admitted no students to the agricultural course in the six years before he became President. Morrill and Buckham were frequent correspondents and eighty-two of Morrill’s letters to Buckham, along with three to George Benedict and one to Albert Cummins, are preserved in Buckham’s papers at the University of Vermont and are digitized and transcribed in this collection. The letters included here discuss a wide variety of topics, mostly related to the agricultural college and include: federal support for the University, possible donors, military instruction, Morrill’s views on the development of agricultural colleges around the country, competition with Middlebury and Norwich, Vermont legislation such as the 1890 “divorce bill” which would have separated the State Agricultural College from the University, the experimental farm, the academic progress of Morrill’s son James at the University, and the construction of Billings Library along with the potential acquisition of the library of George Perkins Marsh.
Kake Walk at UVM
- Date Created: 1896-2004
- Description: The Kake Walk at UVM collection documents a racist event held at the University of Vermont that was the highlight of the campus social calendar for over eighty years. Annual Kake Walk performances featured fraternity brothers in blackface and kinky wigs dancing to the tune of "Cotton Babes." The items in this digital collection were selected from holdings in the University Archives in 2010 by Robin Katz, Digital Initiatives Outreach Librarian, and Dr. Brian Gilley, Anthropology Professor and Director of the ALANA US Ethnic Studies Program. They are presented here to acknowledge and shine a light on a painful part of the University’s past and to highlight the protests which eventually resulted in its termination.
In 2010, while the digital collection was being developed, students enrolled in Katz’s and Gilley’s ALANA US Ethnic Studies course, "Curating Kake Walk: Race, Memory, and Representation," contributed to this collection overview. In a statement reflective of class discussions and opinions, one group wrote that the Kake Walk at UVM materials "should be seen not as encouraging racism, but as an opportunity to learn from insensitivities from the past that can help us build a more unified future.”
Kake Walk History
UVM's Kake Walk dates to the early 1890s when it resembled the popular American minstrel show. A dance known as the cakewalk, by then a standard act in minstrel theatre, originated on plantations as a competition among slaves. The pair that most entertained their white owners would be awarded cake. The cakewalk later evolved into a refined social dance whose accompanying music was a predecessor to ragtime. UVM's Kake Walk departed from these styles, however, to become its own unique tradition. Early Kake Walks featured a pair of men in costume (one in drag) wearing blackface. In addition to the "a walkin' fo' de kake" competition, the event included grotesque stunts and a peerade; skits were soon added. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Winter Carnival weekend grew to include the election of a King and Queen and a snow sculpture competition. After World War II, male walkers wore suits in the colors of their fraternity known as "silks." The judging was codified as the high-stepping dances became more and more stylized. By the 1960s, the three-day festival also included a ball, a jazz concert, and winter sporting events. Local merchants benefited from the influx of returning alumni and visiting guests, and the organizing committee made significant profits. Kake Walk was governed by fraternity brothers known as Directors, as well as a female student appointed Secretary. Professors James Loewen and Larry McCrorey date dissent concerning Kake Walk to as early as 1954 when Phi Sigma Delta first refused to wear blackface. Various statements opposing Kake Walk were printed in the student newspaper The Vermont Cynic, published in local papers, and delivered at public events; two students picketed the last performance. In 1963, the Interfraternity Council (IFC) voted to eliminate blackface in favor of light green makeup but to continue using dialect. In 1964, due to audience complaints, the makeup was changed again to a darker green which, in black and white photographs, is impossible to distinguish from blackface. In 1969, due to successive decisions by a student-faculty committee, the Student Association, and the IFC, Kake Walk was officially eliminated from the Winter Carnival weekend.Detailed Description of Collection
This digital collection contains a selection of records from the University Archives such as event invitations, recruitment flyers, documentation of ticket requests, press releases, financial records, committee minutes, and director's reports. There are several representative examples of correspondence from alumni and community members responding to the discontinuation of Kake Walk. Some notable records include the 1964 document "A New Face," which announces the switch to dark green makeup after one year of light green; the results of the 1969 student opinion poll on the future of Kake Walk; the October 31, 1969 announcement eliminating Kake Walk from the Winter Carnival weekend; and a 1977 letter describing the Greek and Panhellenic vote to oppose any Kake Walk revivals. Fourteen student newspapers from the University of Vermont are included in this collection. Every year, The Vermont Cynic produced a Kake Walk special edition. A sampling of papers from 1923 - 1977 were selected for this digital collection, as well as an article from 2004. The Cynics include some advertisements and articles unrelated to Kake Walk, but the majority of the papers' contents document Winter Carnival planning, activities, and participants. Some of the later newspapers, such as the 1954 Cynic, include debates around Kake Walk and voices of dissent. Twenty-one Kake Walk programs ranging from 1898 to 1970 document the increasingly well-designed and expensively-produced publications. The programs contain information about winter carnival events, judges, committee members, participants, scorecards, royalty candidates, and awards. The programs include advertisements from local businesses, photographs of activities and participants, and various accounts of the history of Kake Walk. Blackface first appeared on a program cover in 1938 and was depicted on subsequent publications, with varying degrees of realism, until the last performance in 1969. Researchers will notice two parody programs: a 1922 publication imitating a Communist "rag" and a 1924 program entitled “The Bohemian Meow.” The program for the 1970 film festival which replaced Kake Walk is also included. More than one hundred photographs taken during the last decade of the University of Vermont's Winter Carnival are available in this collection. The photos were most likely taken by staff and student enthusiasts to document and publicize the committee's production work, Winter Carnival events, and Kake Walk performances. In some cases, professional photographers may have been hired. This collection also includes many non-traditional archival formats. Starting around 1912, all Kake Walkers choreographed their high-stepping dances to the syncopated tune of "Cotton Babes." A 10 inch 78 rpm record of this signature musical piece has been digitized and made available online. Originally composed by Percy Weinrich, this version of the song was arranged by UVM Band Director Joseph Lechnyr. A bronze Kake Walk trophy and fraternity drinking souvenirs such as a metal cup and a ceramic jug represent the many artifacts associated with this event. In 2004, the Howe Library held an exhibit entitled "UVM's Past: The Legacy of Kake Walk." This collection makes available exhibit materials archived at UVM, including newspaper articles which may have been on display, draft exhibit labels, and a notebook containing visitor comments.Processing Information
Undergraduate and continuing education students enrolled in the summer 2010 ALANA US Ethnic Studies course "Curating Kake Walk: Race, Memory, and Representation" contributed to this collection overview and provided subject headings describing many of the collection's digital objects. They also developed several criteria in order to select the original collection image thumbnail. In a statement reflective of class discussions and opinions, one group wrote that the Kake Walk at UVM materials "should be seen not as encouraging racism, but as an opportunity to learn from insensitivities from the past that can help us build a more unified future.”Suggested Readings
For more information about the Kake Walk tradition at UVM and this digital collection, see the following: Katz, Robin M. “Teaching Cultural Memory: Using and Producing Digitized Archival Material in an Online Course” in Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives, edited by Eleanor Mitchell et al. Association of College & Research Libraries, 2012. Loewen, James. "The Black Image in White Vermont: The Origin, Meaning, and Abolition of Kake Walk" in The University of Vermont: The First Two Hundred Years, edited by Robert Daniels et al. University of Vermont: Distributed by University Press of New England / University of Vermont, 1991. This chapter is included in this digital collection. At the time this collection launched in 2010, it was the only known scholarly work on Kake Walk. McCrorey, H. Lawrence. “The History of Racism at UVM: the Vermont Paradox,” speech given on February 19, 2004 in the University of Vermont’s Bailey/Howe Library. University Archives, Record Group 53: Fraternities and Sororities, Series: Kake Walk. This speech is included in this digital collection. Spees, Emil R. "Kake Walk Data" in University Archives, Record Group 53: Fraternities and Sororities, Series: Kake Walk. This document, which compiles minutes and published information on committees, judges, programs, receipts, rules, and walkers, is included in this digital collection. Tunc, Tanfir Emin. “Kake Walk on Kampus: Ritualizing Racism or Commemorating Tradition at the University of Vermont?” in We are what we remember : the American past through commemoration, edited by Jeffrey Lee Merriwether and Laura Mattoon D’Amore. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012Updates
Collections description, thumbnail image, banner image, and suggested readings updated in April 2025 by the Silver Special Collections Library’s reparative description working group.
Letters Home From Congress
- Creator: Austin, Warren Robinson, 1877-1962, Collamer, Jacob, 1791-1865, Crafts, Samuel Chandler, 1768-1853
- Date Created: 1818-1941
- Description: This collection features letters home from Warren R. Austin (Senator, 1931-1946), Jacob Collamer (Representative, 1843-1848; Senator, 1855-1865), and Samuel C. Crafts (Representative, 1817-1824; Senator, 1842-1843). The letters document travel to and from Washington by horse, boat, train, and airplane; lodging in boarding houses, hotels, and homes; social life in Washington; significant local and national events; and legislative issues under consideration in Congress. Austin's letters detail his frustrations serving as a Senator in the minority party during the era of Roosevelt and the New Deal; his activities on the Judiciary Committee; and foreign affairs topics such as the Neutrality Act. The letters of Crafts and Collamer both extensively cover the question of slavery, discussing Missouri statehood, John Brown, the annexation of Texas, and the Civil War. All three Congressmen frequently discuss questions regarding appropriations and the Federal budget. Biographical information is available from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, at: https://bioguide.congress.gov/
Long Trail Photographs
- Creator: Congdon, Herbert Wheaton, 1876-1965, Dean, Theron S.
- Date Created: 2010-03-09
- Description: The Long Trail Collection includes over 900 images of the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States: Vermont’s Long Trail. The collection is mainly comprised of black-and-white and hand-colored lantern slides derived from photographs taken between 1912 and 1937. It documents the Green Mountain Club’s building of original trails and shelters and illustrates the enthusiasm for the Long Trail project (and hiking in general) at the turn of the century. These images chronicle the views and landscapes seen by early hikers of the Long Trail and provide an historical record of people associated with the Green Mountain Club’s formative years. The images in this collection were captured by Green Mountain Club members Theron S. Dean and Herbert Wheaton Congdon, both of whom were early contributors to the trail’s development. Congdon surveyed and mapped a large portion of the early trail including a fifty mile stretch from Middlebury Gap to Bolton. Congdon, along with Leroy Little and Clarence Cowles, is also credited with the first winter ascent of Mount Mansfield on February 21, 1920. Dean is perhaps the most prolific documenter of the Long Trail’s development. Dean traveled throughout Vermont presenting slideshows and giving talks about the Long Trail, often to hundreds of people. A number of the original lantern slides in this collection were used by Congdon and Dean in their Long Trail presentations. Dean in particular meticulously cultivated his lantern slide collection and displayed these slides during his many talks. The original slides can be viewed in the Dean and Congdon collections at the University of Vermont Silver Special Collections Library. More information about the Long Trail can be obtained from the Green Mountain Club. The slides were scanned by the University's Landscape Change Program with the generous support of the National Science Foundation. The digitized photographs also appear in the Landscape Change image database at: http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/
Louis L. McAllister Photographs
- Description: Louis L. McAllister photographed people and places near Burlington, Vermont for 60 years. He was born in Columbus, Nebraska on October 16, 1876, the son of Julius S. McAllister (born 1841 in Lincoln, VT) and Rosette Gould (born in Vermont in 1851). Julius McAllister worked as a photographer and dentist in Washington D.C., Bristol, Vermont and Columbus, Nebraska. Around 1895, Julius, his third wife Amy, and their children left Nebraska for the Union Soldiers’ Colony in Fitzgerald, Georgia. By 1900, Julius and Amy were divorced, and Amy and her stepson Louis were working as photographers in Thomasville, Georgia. In 1907 Louis McAllister married Cora Shepard (born about 1872 in Vermont) in Holland, Michigan. By 1910, they were living in Queen City Park in South Burlington, Vermont, where Louis established a photography studio. The McAllisters moved to Burlington, and by 1919 they lived at 47 N. Winooski Avenue. They continued to occupy a summer cottage at Queen City Park, and were active in the Queen City Park Association, which held spiritualist camp meetings annually. McAllister conducted his photography business from home until his death in 1963. McAllister’s “trademark” was his panorama camera which made him familiar to all sorts of groups ranging from graduating classes to state police to summer camp groups. In addition he did print 8 x 10 photos, many of which document building construction and Burlington Street Department projects, as well as group and individual portraits. The L.L. McAllister Collection includes portraits, construction projects, buildings, businesses and events in the Burlington area covering the period ca. 1920-1960. The collection also includes photos of street, bridge, airport and sewer construction and repair, as well as group portraits of clubs, schools, etc. Revised April, 2010
Maple Recipe Collection
- Date Created: 1952-2008
- Description: The Maple Recipe collection offers a unique glimpse at the variety in maple sugar and maple syrup use over the last half-century, as it is prominently featured in a range of dishes, from the sweet to the savory. The collection includes entrees, side dishes, appetizers, breads and desserts, and draws recipes from a variety of sources, including commercial cookbooks, regional cookbooks, and community cookbooks. Highlights of the collection include: a selection of recipes from Judith Jones, cookbook editor for Julia Child and part-time Vermont resident; published recipes from celebrated Vermont food establishments, including the Inn at Shelburne Farms, the Cobble House Inn, and the New England Culinary Institute; and recipes from community organizations, including local Vermont church groups, the Green Mountain Folklore Society, and the University of Vermont. The materials in this collection are a small sampling of the cookbook collection in the University of Vermont Libraries Department of Special Collections.
Maple Research Collection
- Creator: Proctor Maple Research Center, Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station.
- Date Created: 1890-1988
- Description: This collection documents the history of maple research at the University of Vermont. Included in the collection is a selection of photographs from the archives of the Proctor Maple of Vermont (UVM), and the first permanent maple research facility in the United States. The photographs, taken between 1948-1957, document the construction of the field station’s first sugarhouse, as well as the PMRC sugar bush and early maple experiments. Also included in the collection are the published University of Vermont Agricultural Extension bulletins on maple research (1890-1988), taken from both the Proctor Maple Research Center archive and the University of Vermont Libraries Department of Special Collections. Maple research in Vermont has a long history, dating back to the early 1890s, when C. H. (Charles Howard) Jones, head of the UVM Agricultural Experiment Station and a prominent early maple sugar chemist, conducted seminal research on the biology of maple trees to better understand the sap flow mechanism and its dependence on meteorological changes, as well as the considerable variance in sap sugar content. In 1946, James Marvin and Fred Taylor founded the Proctor Maple Research Center with a donation by Governor Mortimer Proctor of the former “Harvey Farm” in Underhill Center, Vermont, to UVM. For the first year of operation, research on sap flow, maple tree physiology, and the economics of maple production were conducted in an 8’ x 12’ shed. In 1948, the first sugarhouse was constructed to allow research on syrup production techniques, followed several years later by the C.H. Jones Laboratory (which served as the primary research laboratory until it burned down in 1998). Through the years, the PMRC has had its fair share of prominent maple researchers, scientists and educators, including Frederick Laing, whose research helped develop and improve methods of installing plastic tubing and directed improvements in using vacuum pumps to increase sap yields, and Mariafranca Morselli, who brought a greater understanding to the role of microorganisms in determining syrup grade, as well as developing methods to detect adulteration of maple syrup by adding other sugars. In 1999, the PMRC was named to the National Register of Historic Places, and today houses facilities that include an 8,000 square foot laboratory and a demonstration and research sugarhouse, as well as the original research shed.
Martha Pellerin Collection of Franco-American Song
- Creator: Pellerin, Martha
- Description: The Martha Pellerin Collection of Franco-American Song is an online database of French and English language songs drawn from two sources: nine song-book manuscripts collected by Martha Pellerin that date to the mid-twentieth century, and a series of six interviews conducted by Martha with Alberta Gagné of Highgate, Vermont in 1998. The songs that make up the collection include traditional French Canadian materials, commercial popular songs from Canada, France and the United States, family songs, personal songs, bawdy songs and religious songs.
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts
- Date Created: 12th century - 17th century, C.E.
- Description: The Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts Collection contains images of 21 unbound manuscript items and 10 bound manuscript items from the Silver Special Collections Library of the University of Vermont. These manuscripts were written in various locations across Europe and the Middle East, from early in the 12th century to the 17th century C.E. Many of the texts are religious in nature. There are examples from Vulgate Bibles, the Koran, liturgical books, books of private devotion, handbooks for confessors, and a book of church law. Other texts include works by Cicero, Terence, Eberhard Hicfelt, and Ascanio Savorgnano; and contain topical works on medicinal herbs, the island of Cyprus, and the laws of Carpeneto, Italy. The collection also includes a contract and a will, both from Italy. These beautiful books are often heavily illustrated or decorated, and provide examples of a wide range of scripts, both Gothic and later varieties. Most of the manuscripts are written on parchment, but several are made of paper, including the oldest item, a Koran leaf with a supplied date of 1106. The scope of the collection will facilitate studies of book history, codicology, paleography, and Medieval and Renaissance history.
Out in the Mountains
- Date Issued: 1986-2007
- Description: Out in the Mountains was the only LGBT focused newspaper in Vermont from early 1986 to January of 2007 when the last issue was released. The newspaper provided a forum for a diverse LGBT community to stay connected, covered issues facing the community such as violence, isolation and HIV, and discussed policy and organizing efforts to battle discrimination against LGBT people in Vermont and in the United States as a whole. Some significant milestones for LGBT rights in Vermont covered by Out in the Mountains include the passage of Civil Unions and the Vermont Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The newspaper featured ongoing advice and dating column, a series of coming out stories, a column for youth writers, LGBT cartoonists including Alison Bechdel, and profiles of prominent community members. The newspaper refused to print advertisements for alcohol or cigarettes, and ran advertisements for safer sex practices. Out in the Mountains ceased publication due to financial difficulties.
Photographs of Vergennes (Vt.)
- Description: This collection contains 794 images comprising 122 years of history in Vergennes, Vermont’s oldest city. Featuring a wide range of topics, which date from the 1866 Civil War parade to the 1988 Bicentennial, the collection provides a comprehensive and unusual look at small town life in northern Vermont. These photographs document the full visual spectrum of history in Vergennes, from businesses, industries, and transportation to natural scenery, paintings, and portraits of people who once walked the city’s streets. These images were scanned from 35mm slides located in the Bixby Memorial Free Library archives in Vergennes. The slides were made around 1987 from color photographs taken of the original images. The originals, mainly of the Vergennes area but including several from Ferrisburgh and Lake Champlain, had accumulated over the years in the library’s historical materials repository. Many of these photographs, along with the slides and accompanying inventory notebook, can be viewed with permission at the library. The authors of these photographs remain undocumented and anonymous, except for a selection of photographs by local artist Harvey Custer Ingham (1863-1931), a personal friend of local businessman and library founder William Gove Bixby (1829-1907). Mr. Bixby left funds from his estate for the founding of a public library in the city of Vergennes, including the construction of the imposing Greek revival library building on Main Street. The library opened on November 4, 1912, and in 2012 celebrates a century of continued service to Vergennes and the surrounding towns of Addison, Panton, Waltham, and Ferrisburgh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.