In response to concerns about election tampering in the 1850s, New Yorker Samuel Jollie proposed a novel solution: a ballot box made of glass. Emphasizing glass’s transparency and purity, Jollie suggested that his box would ensure fair and just elections.
Nineteenth-century Americans often saved or exchanged locks of hair, constructing jewelry or keepsake wreaths of their kinship networks. Delicate braids of hair also interlace to frame the famous silhouette of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake. In more recent decades, hair has become a powerful political medium.
The publication of Tillie Walden’s recent graphic novel Charity & Sylvia–and its selection as the 2026 “Vermont Reads”–was a wonderful impetus for the Henry Sheldon Museum to rethink how we might feature the story of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake in the museum galleries.
Ellery Foutch is an Associate Professor in the American Studies Program at Middlebury College, where she teaches classes on the art and material culture of the United States, as well as critical museum studies. Her new book, A Perfectionist Impulse: The Art of Stopping Time in the Nineteenth Century (University of Minnesota Press, July 2026) explores period fascinations with perfection and its preservation across art, natural history, popular culture, and museum exhibition practices.
Coco Moseley is the Executive Director of the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury. Since beginning this role in 2023, she has worked alongside the staff, board and community to reimagine the Sheldon Museum as a place where stories, history and art can inspire visitors today.
Join award-winning cartoonist Marek Bennett for a behind-the-scenes look at comics & graphic novels drawn from historical primary sources.
Vermont author Kerstin Lange considers the 870-mile-long border—now a unique nature preserve called the Green Belt—that divided her native Germany during the Cold War. Over 1200 rare animal and plant species found refuge in the highly militarized border strip.
Kerstin Lange has lived in Vermont since 1995, when she worked as a caretaker along the Long Trail. Originally from northern Germany and fluent in German, she holds an M.A. in Anthropology and an M.S. from the University of Vermont. She has taught in both fields, worked with biological anthropologists among nomads in northwest Kenya, and consulted on natural history-based land management.
Join artist and educator Jen Berger for a presentation that places monuments within the broader field of public art, examining how objects in shared space shape memory, belonging, and power, and how monuments, often permanent and officially sanctioned, are mistaken for neutral history.
Jen Berger (she/her) is a socially engaged artist and educator based in Vermont. Her interdisciplinary practice—spanning printmaking, performance, installation, and mixed media—explores the intersections of art, care, and justice, with a focus on collective grief, participation, and belonging. Grounded in decades of social movement experience, her artwork connects research, making, and community engagement into public and shared spaces.
Our seasonal “Words in the Woods” program allows Vermonters and visitors to enjoy our state’s natural beauty while listening to and reading literature in the outdoors.
Humanities Camps are filled with reading and writing projects, field trips, and outdoor activities.
We won a 2020 Schwartz Prize for best public humanities programming in the U.S. for Vermont Reads 2019: “March: Book One.”
We supported the Chandler Center for the Arts’ Global Connections Youth Outreach program, which highlights artists from around the world.
Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.
