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Vermont Humanities Council Annual Fall Conference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Sharing Our Past — Shaping Our Future” Since 1974

Fall Conference 2007

Office in Montpelier

 

11 Loomis Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602

802.262.2626

Fax: 802.262.2620

E-mail: info@vermonthumanities.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learn about VHC’s Civil War sites research project.

 

Read about historian Howard Coffin’s search for Vermont Civil War sites.

 

More about the 2007 Swenson Award

 

 

Looking Back at the Northern Civil War Home Front at VHC’s 2007 Fall Conference

On Saturday morning, following a welcome from VHC Executive Director Peter Gilbert, VHC Board Chair Melissa Hersh presented the 2007 Victor R. Swenson Humanities Educator Award to Jean Berthiaume of Harwood Union High School. Berthiaume’s progressive curriculum and emphasis on service learning and civic participation earned praise from many students and colleagues.

Saturday’s plenary speakers—
J. Matthew Gallman of the University of Florida, Elizabeth Leonard of Colby College, and Chandra Manning of Georgetown University—considered, respectively, dissent and propaganda during the Civil War, women on the New England home front, and what kind of revolution the Civil War represented, which closed the conference. Participants adjourned with new understandings of the many ways the Civil War touched Vermont, and with renewed anticipation of the war’s 150^th anniversary in 2011.

Chandra Manning

Elizabeth Leonard

Swenson Award winner Jean Berthiaume with Victor Swenson, VHC Executive Director Peter Gilbert, and VHC Board Chair Melissa Hersh

More than 150 people participated in VHC’s 2007 Fall Conference, “The Northern Civil War Home Front,” November 9–10 at the Inn at Essex. The conference sought to examine the impact of the Civil War on Vermont, in particular its effect on communities and families, and how a conflict seemingly so far away rippled throughout the state.

 

The conference got underway with optional excursions to the Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, a National Historic Landmark and Underground Railroad site, and to various sites around St. Albans, which in 1864 witnessed the St. Albans Raid—the northernmost land action during the Civil War.

 

Later in the evening, a large group convened in the Inn’s ballroom for a spirited discussion of Geraldine Brooks’ Pulitzer-winning Civil War novel March. Another group gathered to hear “Researching Your Town’s Civil War Sites,” a panel including Vermont historian Howard Coffin and Grant Reynolds of the Tinmouth Historical Society. Coffin and Reynolds discussed their findings in the context of VHC’s effort, begun in 2007 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, to identify sites throughout the state related to the Northern home front of the Civil War—the first project of its kind in the nation.

Saturday’s morning and afternoon breakout sessions delved into myriad topics, such as Vermont’s Civil War hospitals, methods of recruiting, the political and social climate in Vermont during the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination in light of the St. Albans Raid, and others.