Book Description
Two Vermonts establishes a little-known fact about Vermont: that the state's fascination with tourism as a savior for a suffering economy is more than a century old, and that this interest in tourism has always been dogged by controversy. Through this lens, the book is poised to take its place as the standard work on Vermont in the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Searls examines the origins of Vermont's contemporary identity and some reasons why that identity ("Who is a Vermonter?") is to this day so hotly contested.

Searls divides nineteenth-century Vermonters into conceptually "uphill," or rural/parochial, and "downhill," or urban/cosmopolitan, elements. These two groups, he says, negotiated modernity in distinct and contrary ways. The dissonance between their opposing tactical approaches to progress and change belied the pastoral ideal that contemporary urban Americans had come to associate with the romantic notion of "Vermont." Downhill Vermonters, espousing a vision of a mutually reinforcing relationship between tradition and progress, unilaterally endeavored to foster the pastoral ideal as a means of stimulating economic development. The hostile uphill resistance to this strategy engendered intense social conflict over issues including education, religion, and prohibition in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The story of Vermont's vigorous nineteenth-century quest for a unified identity bears witness to the stirring and convoluted forging of today's "Vermont."

Searls's engaging exploration of this period of Vermont's history advances our understanding of the political, economic, and cultural transformation of all of rural America as industrial capitalism and modernity revolutionized the United States between 1865 and 1910. By the late Progressive Era, Vermont's reputation was rooted in the national yearning to keep society civil, personal, and meaningful in a world growing more informal, bureaucratic, and difficult to navigate. The fundamental ideological differences among Vermont communities are indicative of how elusive and frustrating efforts to balance progress and tradition were in the context of effectively negotiating capitalist transformation in contemporary America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

excellent
I like what Searls has done here.He gives an excellent analysis into what has shaped the modern Vermonter's psyche by exposing the dichotomy between the agrarian/rural vs. urban.The author does this by examining Vermont during one of America's most significant eras - post Civil War and pre WWI.In doing so, Searls has authored an interesting book that is a "must read" for all of those with even a passing interest in Vermont history.Indeed, all Vermonters should read this book. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Vermont- great book!
This book is in a series of state books.It is informative and has great graphics.Everyhting you ever wanted to know about Vermont. ... Read more

Book Description
Why is it that although Vermont is relatively distant--both geographically and metaphysically--from publishing centers as well as many issues at the heart of current literature, it is also home to some of America's greatest writers? Is there something about the place that speaks to them?

In this book, twenty-one contemporary Vermont authors are profiled along with examples of their writing. Included are: Julia Alvarez, Chris Bohjalian, David Budbill, Joseph Citro, Joan Connor, David Huddle, Jamaica Kincaid, Galway Kinnell, Sydney Lea, Jeffrey Lent, David Moats, Howard Frank Mosher, Grace Paley, Jay Parini, Verandah Porche, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Ruth Stone, Abigail Stone, Phoebe Stone, Tom Smith, and Ellen Bryant Voigt.

In their conversations with Yvonne Daley, these writers open their toolboxes to share their writing approaches and techniques, their tricks of the trade. Special exercises are also included for students to make this a useful resource for the classroom. Most importantly, the book provides entry into the treasure trove that is the work of a select group of gifted Vermont writers sustaining a rich literary tradition that too many of us take for granted. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The story of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys beyond the capture of Ft. Ticonderoga
Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys are best remembered for capturing Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution without a single shot being fired.There is a famous hand-colored engraving by Alonzo Chappel showing Allen ordering the confused British commander to surrender the fort.That illustration appears as a two-page spread in this volume, which would make it the largest picture I have seen in any of The Library of American Lives and Times volumes to date.However, as Emily Raabe makes clear from the title of this book, "Ethan Allen: The Green Mountain Boys and Vermont's Path to Statehood," Allen is central to a larger story than that of the capture of a fort.Her opening chapter asks Who Was Ethan Allen? and makes it clear he was both a legendary figure, associated with tall tales similar to Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, but also a controversial figure where whether you thought of him as a hero or a villain depended on where you lived at that time.

What you have to remember is that Vermont was not one of the original thirteen colonies and on the eve of the Revolution it was called the Hampshire Grants by those looking at it from the east and New York by those to the west.There is a map in the third chapter of this book of New England and the other colonies that shows how the boundary between New York and New Hampshire was a controversial subject.This book tells the story of how Allen became involved in that controversy and played a substantial role in helping to make Vermont one of the new United States.Raabe introduces Allen in the second chapter as A Connecticut Troublemaker, opening with a scene of Allen being inoculated against smallpox in 1764 by his friend, Dr. Thomas Young, despite the church forbidding the practice as the devil's work, before going back and telling the story of his life from his birth in 1738 to first traveling to the Hampshire Grants, which is what the third chapter is about.Chapter 4, Trouble in the Grants, explains the problems that rose between the Granters and the (New) Yorkers and how Allen and the Green Mountain Boys were formed as a local militia (or army) to protect the Grants.Consequently, they were considered the Green Mountain Outlaws by the Yorkers, and the fifth chapter tells about some of their more famous exploits.

I would have thought that when we got to Chapter 6, War with Great Britain, that this would change priorities for Allen and his men, but while this chapter does cover the capture of Ticonderoga and other forts to give the Americans control of Lake Champlain, and Allen's plan to capture Montreal, it proved to be only a minor diverse from the question of Vermont's independence.Chapter 7, Making a State, actually begins with Allen being taken prisoner by the British, while back in Vermont the people wrote a declaration of independence for what they were going to call "New Connecticut," which was submitted to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.Chapter 8, Ethan Returns, begins with Allen's release in 1778 and how his unique political power allowed him to keep Vermont at peace during the rest of the war.

Chapter 9, The Independent Republic of Vermont, informs young readers that Vermont was not part of the new nation and that the Green Mountain boys fought several battles against the Yorkers and not the British to maintain Vermont's autonomy.Ethan Settles Down, the final chapter, looks at the second family Allen began after the war and how he ended up dying two years before Congress finally accept Vermont into the Union in 1791.I wish there were a bit more details on how the latter finally came about given all the obstacles that were put in the way of Vermont statehood, but I suppose the life of Ethan Allen will be of more interest to younger readers than the whole issue of making Vermont a state.The back of the book includes a Timeline regarding Ethan Allen and Vermont, a Glossary of terms from "allegiance" to "yeoman," and a few books and websites that qualify as Additional Resources as well as a Bibliography.

The book is illustrated with historic etchings and maps, as well as a letter from George Washington talking about Allen and the title page from a book Allen wrote on philosophy and religion that earned him enemies in the church, which was something he apparently enjoyed.This is one of several titles in The Library of American Lives and Times devoted to the colonial period and the American Revolution.Others includes "Abigail Adams: A Revolutionary Woman," "Nathan Hale: Patriot and Martyr of the American Revolution," "Marquis de Lafayette: French Hero of the American Revolution," "Thomas Paine: 'Common Sense' and Revolutionary Pamphleteering," "Robert Rogers: Rogers' Rangers and the French and Indian War," and "Peter Stuyvesant: New Amsterdam and the Origins of New York."As you can tell from these titles, this series does not focus on the most famous Founding Fathers like Washington, Franklin and Jefferson (the sort who end up on money), but those who make up the next level of the pantheon. ... Read more