October 5

The Great Wave: New England Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan

Mount Holyoke College professor Christopher Benfey considers how Gilded Age New England intellectuals, disaffected by America’s materialistic culture, treasured the image of Old Japan while the Japanese looked to New England for how to Westernize their country.

November 2

100 Years since Triangle: The Fire That Seared a Nation's Conscience

Dartmouth professor Annelise Orleck reflects on the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Greenwich Village, which killed 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, and spurred major legal changes.   

December 7

American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era

David Blight, Yale professor and acclaimed author of Race and Reunion, considers how Americans looked on the War’s centennial during the early 1960s and explores the gulf between remembrance and reality. Sponsor: Brattleboro Historical Society. A Vermont Reads/Big Read event

January 4

An Evening with Ken Burns

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns discusses past, present, and future projects to better understand who we are as Americans by examining our collective past. Location: Latchis Theater. Sponsor: Dakin & Benelli, P.C. 

February 1

Willa Cather’s Prairie Landscapes

The European immigrant farmers in My Antonia and other novels fail nearly as often as they succeed. Amherst College professor Michele Barale examines the relation between Cather’s art and her very tangible earth. Sponsor: KSE Partners, LLP

March 7

The Book of Kells

Dartmouth professor Jane Carroll considers one of the treasures of Western civilization, the Book of Kells, and how the Irish monks’ lavish illustrations of the twelve-hundred-year-old Gospel manuscript illuminate the artists’ thoughts about theology and the power of the word.

April 4

An Evening of Latin American Poetry

Amherst College professor Ilan Stavans considers poems by Rubén Darío, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, and others—parts of a tradition in which words are mechanisms of resistance against oppression.

Thursday, June 7 (rescheduled from May 2)

One Nation under Contract

Middlebury College professor Allison Stanger provides a disturbing look at an important trend in politics: the privatization of American foreign policy and its consequences.

First Wednesdays is supported in part by the Institute of Museum & Library Services
through the Vermont Department of Libraries

Program Sponsors:
Brattleboro Historical Society
Dakin & Benelli, P.C.
KSE Partners, LLP


Library Sponsors:
Brattleboro Savings & Loan
Downs Rachlin Martin PLLC
Friends of Brooks Memorial Library
Windham World Affairs Council of Vermont