Life Became Very Blurry

Episode 24: Vermont in the Great Depression

Until recently, little has been written about Vermont during the Great Depression. Two major and now classic scholarly works addressed some aspects of the era. Richard M. Judd's New Deal in Vermont covers a broad expanse of time and focuses on the major political events and the players who shaped New Deal legislation in Vermont. Elin Anderson's We Americans offers a remarkably insightful look at patterns of social interaction between Burlingtonians of varying social and ethnic identities ca. 1930, but does little to convey the overall reality of Depression-era life throughout the state. What was the nature of suffering, misery, despair—in sum, what was it like to have lived through this devastating event and the subsequent years?

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/vermont-in-great-depression-1929

Episode 23: The Flood of 1927

Vermont has had a long history of flooding. Of its approximately twenty major floods in the last two hundred years, the flood of November 3-4, 1927, was one of the most devastating (rivaled, and perhaps exceeded, by the floods in May 2011 in Central Vermont and the widespread damage from flooding related to Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011). A severe rainfall had swept across all of New England on that November weekend. But when the deluge hit Vermont, the state’s soil had already become saturated and the streams were running full because of an unusually heavy precipitation in late summer and fall.

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/flood-of-27-1927

Episode 22: Memories of Silent Cal

Calvin Coolidge became president of the United States as a consequence of Warren Harding’s death from a cerebral embolism on August 2, 1923. Coolidge completed Harding’s term and was elected to a term of his own in 1924, finally leaving office in March 1929. He was fortunate to have been president during a period of relative peach and expanding apparent prosperity. His conservative Republican policies of inaction toward domestic and international problems came to symbolize the era between World War I and the Great Depression. He skillfully restored integrity to government following the Harding scandals, and his plain-and-simple style was an appealing sign of calm and stability during the Roaring Twenties.

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/memories-of-silent-cal

Episode 20: Vermont Country Fairs

Agricultural fairs have been popular annual attractions of Vermont’s summer and fall seasons for at least 150 years.

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/vermont-country-fairs-1924

Episode 19: Walter Hard, Storekeeper-Writer

Vermont claims several writers and artists who, intentionally or otherwise, have become the makers or recorders of the Vermont mythology, the shapers of its image of itself or the image the rest of the world appears to share of the place and its people. Writers Rowland Robinson, Daniel L. Cady, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and Robert Frost; as well as painters Thomas Waterman Wood, James Franklin Gilman, Norman Rockwell, and Wolf Kahn are some of the best known. Few, however, seem as universally admired as Walter Hard.

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/walter-hard-sr-1924

Episode 18: The KKK in Vermont

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/kkk-in-vermont-1924

Episode 17: Edna Beard

For more background information on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/edna-beard-vermonts-first-woman-legislator-1921

Episode 16: The Anarchist Movement in Barre

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/anarchist-movement-in-barre-1920

Episode 15: Women Get the Vote

For more background on this episode, please visit: https://vermonthistory.org/women-get-vote-1920

Episode 14: Prohibition

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/prohibition-1920