August 20
Carol Potter is a teacher, editor, and author of five books of poetry. Some Slow Bees won the Field Poetry Prize from Oberlin College Press in 2014. Her poems have been published in The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The Green Mountains Review, The Kenyon Review, among others.
August 24
New England’s longest river, the Connecticut, is rich in history. Michael Tougias, author of fourteen books about New England, offers a narrated slide presentation that takes the viewer down the entire 410 miles of the river, discussing history from the days of loggers, Indian Wars, steamships, and canals.
August 24
This series starts with the 1893 Columbian Exposition and continues on through the Gilded Age. Portrayals of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists and lawyers include Henry James, Stanford White, Clarence Darrow, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, D.W. Griffiths and detective William Burns. Three novels and a narrative history illustrate that spectacular time period in ways that in turn illuminate our own era.
September 1
Vermont has been a featured location in Hollywood movies for nearly a century. It has represented many different ideals during that time, and its portrayal reflects both Vermont’s own history as well as American history. Examining those films provides interesting and fun insights into the hold Vermont has had on imagination in the media age.
September 8
In this series, participants explore 19th and 20th century visions – utopian to apocalyptic – of the future. Themes include repression, community, socialism, capitalism, feminism, creativity, ethics, and evolution.
September 10
Keysi Montás was born in the Dominican Republic and migrated to New York at the age of 16. He has published five poetry books, two collections of short stories, and two collections of essays.
September 21
All Morgan horses today trace their lineage back to a single horse: a mystery stallion named Figure, owned by singing teacher Justin Morgan in the late 18th century. But who was Figure, really? What stories have people told about him in the two centuries since he lived and worked in Vermont?
October 1
The history of what and how we eat encompasses everything from the prehistoric mammoth luau to the medieval banquet to the modern three squares a day. Find out about the rocky evolution of table manners, the not-so-welcome invention of the fork, the awful advent of portable soup, and the surprising benefits of family dinners – plus some catchy info on seasonal foods.
October 11
During the 1890s, enthusiasm exploded statewide as bicycles became safer, women took to the wheel, roads improved, and retailers developed novel advertising techniques to draw in buyers. By 1920, popular interest in bicycles had waned, but it had not just been a fad: the bicycle was tied to important changes in industrial production, consumerism, new road policies and regulations, gender relations, and new cultural ideas about auto-mobility and effortless speed.
October 15
Between 1880 and World War II, painted theater curtains were artistic features of most New England villages and towns. Christine Hadsel provides a glimpse into the world of talented and often sophisticated artists who were part of the rural cultural scene, illustrating the rich cultural history of small-town Vermont before World War I.
October 18
This presentation examines the many meanings of maple sugaring. Maple is enormously important to Vermont’s economy, ecology, and heritage. Champlain College professor Michael Lange will discuss sugaring ethnographically, based on over five years of research among sugarmakers all over the state, to learn from them what sugaring really means to Vermont.
October 23
The 20th century saw the rise of religious faith-based organizations and groups working to advance the cause of peace. They addressed such issues as conscription, nuclear weapons, war and US foreign and military policy.
October 26
Singer and historian Linda Radtke, in period garb and a “Votes for Women” sash, celebrates the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave the right to vote to white women.
November 9
Common garden vegetables have long and fascinating histories. Science and history writer Rebecca Rupp will discuss the stories behind many of our favorites, among them the much-maligned tomato and potato, the (mostly) popular pumpkin, and Vermont’s dynamic duo of kale and Gilfeather turnip. Find out why a lot of us don’t like beets, how a 17th-century pirate named the bell pepper, how carrots won the Trojan War, and how George Washington was nearly assassinated with a plate of poisoned peas.