Michele Pagán is a recently-returned native Vermonter, who spent her childhood in Bennington. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont and the University of Connecticut, where she studied clothing and textiles. She credits her early experience visiting the Bennington Museum with opening new doors to her, allowing her to envision a unique career trajectory. The Bennington Museum recently published her research entitled Geography and Technological Change in Vermont: The Transition from Homespun Flax To Machine-Made Cotton Textiles.
Today she is a textile conservator in private practice who likes to say that she is “saving history one piece of fabric at a time.” She works out of her studio in East Dorset. Michele is currently the Special Projects Coordinator with the VT Sampler Initiative, and instigated the 2025 “From Bennington to Brownington: the Vermont Samplers Driving Tour,” in conjunction with the Vermont State 250th Commemoration of the start of the American Revolution.
Travel radius: statewide
Needlework samplers are a visual record of the values that guided early female education in Vermont, including its focus on needlework as an essential skill for all girls and women. Textile conservator Michele Pagán shares her research into the Revolutionary War ancestors of the girls who made 19th century schoolgirl samplers.
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.
