Ilsley Public Library

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.