Vermont 250 Speakers Bureau Talks

Consuelo Northrop Bailey (1899-1976) was a national pioneer among women in public service.  Born and raised in Fairfield, Vermont, a 1921 graduate of the University of Vermont, Bailey was one of the first women in America to serve as a state’s attorney, as speaker of a state house of representatives, and as lieutenant-governor. Historian Kevin Graffagnino details the life and career of this extraordinary Vermont role model for women in politics and the law.

Land speculator, revolutionary, pamphleteer, politician, and empire-builder, Ira Allen was a key figure on the late eighteenth-century Green Mountain frontier. Based on his 2024 book, “Ira Allen: A Biography,” J. Kevin Graffagnino’s lively talk evaluates Allen’s checkered career and makes the case for including him in our picture of Vermont’s formative decades.

Historian, naturalist, professor, and minister, Zadock Thompson (1796-1856) played a significant role in how nineteenth-century Vermonters viewed their state’s heritage and appreciated its natural resources. Kevin Graffagnino looks at Thompson’s life and career, with particular emphasis on how his work shaped several generations of Vermont attitudes toward our state’s eighteenth-century beginnings.