Vermont’s remarkable Civil War battlefield record is well documented, but little is known of how Vermont women sustained the home front. Historian Howard Coffin explains how women took on farming, worked in factories, served as nurses in the state's military hospitals, and more.
Vermont sent far more sharpshooters to the Union armies than any other state, on a per capita basis. Sharpshooters from this state played a little-known but major role at Gettysburg. Historian Howard Coffin will discuss his recent research into this little-recognized group and consider the reasons why Vermont may have been so well-represented in this elite group of marksmen.
#1 New York Times bestselling author Jason Reynolds discusses his collaborative work on the book Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, a reimagining of Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning, “remixed” for a Young Adult audience.
Most Vermonters might be surprised that among the 30 men killed at the Battle of Bennington was a black man, Sipp Ives, a member of Seth Warner’s Continental regiment of Green Mountain Boys. And Ives was not the only patriot of African descent who played a role in the fighting and its aftermath. In this illustrated talk, teacher and author Phil Holland explores military records and early town histories to present a more diverse picture of Vermont’s iconic battle and its Green Mountain Boys than typically depicted. Holland will also reflect on historical memory and how it is preserved and constructed.
A finalist for the Vermont Book Award, North is a moving story about a Vermont monk, a Somali refugee, and an Afghan war veteran whose lives converge on a snowy Vermont night. Author Brad Kessler reviews the creation of the novel and his ongoing work with new Americans in Vermont.
What is happiness? Can it be measured? And what is the relationship between happiness and virtue, money, pleasure, relationships, mindfulness, and satisfaction? In this program, William Edelglass will focus on what research suggests makes us happier, and then introduce three practices that research shows do make us happier
This event has been postponed due to illness. Fifty years after five burglars were caught inside the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee, the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency continues to reverberate in modern American politics. Journalist Garrett M. Graff, author of Watergate: A New History, discusses how Watergate shaped modern Washington, and how the events of 1971-1974 are stranger, wilder, and weirder than our popular memory.
In 2021, UVM student Jordan Rowell kayaked the 120-mile length of Lake Champlain. Over a two-week journey, Rowell and local filmmaker Duane Peterson conducted interviews to better understand the challenges facing the lake and to explore our relationship with natural resources in the era of climate change. The pair shares excerpts from their short documentary film and discusses its creation.
Jolivette Anderson-Douoning shares the lived experience of Mrs. Goldleana, whose story illuminates the role Black women played as laborers in the Louisiana cotton and timber industries—and in their own families—in the 1940s and 50s. She also highlights geographical differences in Black migration: some left the South while others remained.
“Bird Diva” Bridget Butler believes that there’s a bit of bias in the birding world when it comes to females. In this presentation, she examines new scientific studies on female birds, shares stories of the “Mothers of Ornithology,” and reflects on current research about gender and birding.
Poet Sarah Audsley joined us at the Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park for Words in the Woods.
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 Historic New England’s “More than a Market” project that explored the experiences of new Americans through food markets.
Our free public events help bring the power of the humanities to communities across Vermont.
