Life Became Very Blurry

Preparations for hiking Vermont’s 270-mile Long Trail, the first long-distance wilderness hiking trail in America, have changed considerably since the first Long Trail Guide was published in 1917. Men were advised to wear “ordinary height shoes with hobnails, felt hat, ‘generous sized’ silk bandana, inch-wide leather belt with cup attached, wool underwear, wool shirt and stout wool trousers,” while female hikers should have high-laced boots with “Hungarian nails,” and wear bloomers.

For more information on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/long-trail-1910

For more information about this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/number-please-telephone-comes-to-vermont-1910

For more background on this episode, visit https://vermonthistory.org/dorothy-canfield-fisher-1907

Prior to World War I, automobiles in Vermont functioned by and large as novelties or objects of curiosity. They were few in number (in 1906, there were 373 registered vehicles) and, according to William Wilgus (The Role of Transportation in the Development of Vermont), usage was confined to “individual pleasure and convenience.”

For more background on this episode, visit https://vermonthistory.org/early-autos-in-vermont-1902

In the years before the First World War, the electric trolley, spitting blue sparks, saw its heyday in Vermont, also its decline. The little four-wheel “bobbers” and the big eight-wheel, two-trucked interurbans carried 10 million passengers a year.

For more background on this episode, visit: https://vermonthistory.org/age-of-trolleys-1901

The “Dewey Day” celebration in Vermont occurred in Montpelier on October 12, 1899. On that day Vermonters staged a historic welcome home for native son Admiral George Dewey, whose success in destroying the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War made him the nation’s number one naval hero. Dewey’s exploit in the Philippines seemed to bring glory to Vermont and it became one the highlights of standard histories of the state.

For more background on this episode, visit https://vermonthistory.org/dewey-day-a-century-ends-1899