Showing 11 - 20 of 53 Records
Porter C. Thayer Photographs
- Description: This archive contains 1300 photographs made by Porter C. Thayer,scanned from silver gelatin prints, held in the collection of the Brooks Memorial Library. The prints were made in 1980 from the 5x7 glass plates negatives created by Porter Thayer. These images are also available on microfilm at the Brattleboro library. Porter Thayer was born Porter Charlie Thayer on January 6, 1882 on Main Street in Williamsville, Vermont. He grew up in the red house called the Tillotson Place in the Parish section of Newfane, Vermont. He photographed Windham County, Vermont, beginning in 1906 through around 1920. Like most Vermont men of his generation he was a farmer, specifically an apple orchardist, managing his 50 acre apple orchard on Baker Brook Farm in Newfane. He turned to his apple business after ending his photographic career. The postcard craze that most likely reached Vermont by about 1905, was perhaps the impetus for Porter Thayer starting up a photographic business. His diaries tell that he sold 1,197 postal cards during a six-month period at the height of his career. The cards were for sale as souvenirs to summer tourists at small general stores, local inns, boarding houses and hotels. Local folks purchased his photographs as well, especially around the Christmas season, to send to distant relatives. A Brattleboro, Vermont directory of 1909 lists Porter as advertising that he would come to anyone’s home and make images for a reasonable fee. Around 1911 he recorded that he had 720 customers. Eventually he photographed in all the towns within a 25 mile radius of his home in Newfane. Porter Thayer perfectly fits the archetype of the town photographer. He traveled the narrow dirt roads in his buggy, behind his faithful mare Lady, who accompanied him daily. He could apparently take extended naps while Lady brought him safely home, as she always knew the way. He used two cameras: a 5 x 7 and a 6.5 x 8.5 view camera and made glass dry-plate negatives. He traveled with stacks of postcards to be delivered at stores along the way to his days work. Working continually through seasons and years, Porter Thayer left an archive that is a cultural treasure for southeastern Vermont. The quality of his work shows that he was able to combine business needs with aesthetic ones. During the time period Porter worked, Vermont was extremely poor and rural, yet held a close-knit population that shared the labors of life. Farmers helped one another to survive in a subsistence and barter economy. For women, men, and children, life meant constant work. Thayer’s images describe the work and the tools involved. His landscape images reveal this working landscape, which today is mostly hidden by trees. The fruits of his labor as a photographer have grown in importance, as both the landscape and culture of Vermont has shifted into modern spheres of living. Written by Jessica Weitz and Forrest Holzapfel, 2010.
Fire Insurance Maps of Essex Junction, Vermont, 1894
- Creator: Sanborn-Perris Map Company
- Date Created: 1894
- Description: The 1894 fire insurance map sheet for Essex Junction, Vermont was produced by the Sanborn-Perris Map Co. to give fire insurance companies and underwriters accurate information about insured properties. In addition to the village center, insets document the factories, mills, and creamery located south of the village on the Winooski River.
- Parent Collections: Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont, Fire Insurance Maps of Essex Junction, Vermont
Fire Insurance Maps of St. Albans, Vermont, 1912
- Creator: Sanborn Map Company
- Date Created: 1912
- Description: The 1912 fire insurance map sheets for the city of St. Albans, Vermont were produced by the Sanborn Map Co. to give fire insurance companies and underwriters accurate information about insured properties. The maps record the extensive railroad facilities west of Main Street, manufacturing and industrial enterprises located nearby, the city’s commercial center along Main Street, and the churches, courthouse and academy located east of Taylor Park. The maps also include residences in the central section of St. Albans. An inset shows the village of St. Albans Bay, three miles west of St. Albans City on Lake Champlain.
- Parent Collections: Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont, Fire Insurance Maps of St. Albans, Vermont
Fire Insurance Maps of Winooski, Vermont, 1894
- Creator: Sanborn Map Company
- Date Created: 1894
- Description: The 1894 fire insurance map sheets for Winooski, Vermont were produced by the Sanborn-Perris Map Co. to give fire insurance companies and underwriters accurate information about insured properties. The maps document the extensive mill complexes along the Winooski River and the churches, residences, and commercial buildings in the village center.
- Parent Collections: Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont, Fire Insurance Maps of Winooski, Vermont
Fire Insurance Maps of Winooski, Vermont, 1899
- Creator: Sanborn Map Company
- Date Created: 1899
- Description: The 1899 fire insurance map sheets for Winooski, Vermont were produced by the Sanborn-Perris Map Co. to give fire insurance companies and underwriters accurate information about insured properties. The maps document the extensive mill complexes along the Winooski River and the churches, residences, and commercial buildings in the village center. The maps also document the damage to the mills and other buildings caused by the 1898 fire east of Main Street between the Winooski River and Canal Street.
- Parent Collections: Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont, Fire Insurance Maps of Winooski, Vermont
Congressional Speeches
- Date Created: 1812-1988
- Description: This collection features speeches made on the floor of the United States House of Representatives and Senate by Vermont Congressmen. Topics covered include the environment, education, agriculture, World War II and selective service, the Mexican War, the tariff and international trade, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction. The speeches date from 1812 to the present and a wide variety of Congressmen are represented.
Justin Morrill Letters to UVM President Matthew Buckham
- Creator: Morrill, Justin S. (Justin Smith), 1810-1898
- Date Created: 1872-1898
- Description: Justin Morrill (1810-1898) served as a US Representative (1855-1867) and Senator (1867-1898) from Vermont, following a successful business career. His signature legislative accomplishments were the Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890, which used the proceeds from the sale of federal lands expropriated from tribal nations, to create land-grant colleges. The purpose of these land-grant colleges was to teach agriculture, military instruction, and mechanical arts such as engineering in addition to the traditional science and classical education that was generally taught in colleges at that time. The second Land Grant Act, passed in 1890, funded colleges in the former Confederate states and required each state to offer race blind admissions or set up a separate land-grant college for persons of color, which led to the creation of several of the historically Black colleges and universities. An additional act passed by Congress in 1887 funded agricultural experiment stations under the direction of the land grant colleges. In 1865, the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College was incorporated, after a great deal of debate about whether a land-grant college in Vermont should be a separate institution, or attached to the University of Vermont, Norwich University, Middlebury College or even possibly a merger of those three institutions. Despite the 1865 incorporation, these debates would continue in Vermont for many years to come. With the establishment of the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, Morrill became a trustee of the University, a position he continued to hold until his death in 1898. Matthew Buckham (1832-1910) became President of the University in 1871 and continued in this role until his death in 1910. He had previously graduated from the University in 1851 and served as a faculty member from 1856-1871. His time as president saw the admission of women to the University, the addition of several notable buildings to campus such as Williams Hall and the Billings Library, and the development of the State Agricultural College which had admitted no students to the agricultural course in the six years before he became President. Morrill and Buckham were frequent correspondents and eighty-two of Morrill’s letters to Buckham, along with three to George Benedict and one to Albert Cummins, are preserved in Buckham’s papers at the University of Vermont and are digitized and transcribed in this collection. The letters included here discuss a wide variety of topics, mostly related to the agricultural college and include: federal support for the University, possible donors, military instruction, Morrill’s views on the development of agricultural colleges around the country, competition with Middlebury and Norwich, Vermont legislation such as the 1890 “divorce bill” which would have separated the State Agricultural College from the University, the experimental farm, the academic progress of Morrill’s son James at the University, and the construction of Billings Library along with the potential acquisition of the library of George Perkins Marsh.
Long Trail Photographs
- Creator: Congdon, Herbert Wheaton, 1876-1965, Dean, Theron S.
- Date Created: 2010-03-09
- Description: The Long Trail Collection includes over 900 images of the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States: Vermont’s Long Trail. The collection is mainly comprised of black-and-white and hand-colored lantern slides derived from photographs taken between 1912 and 1937. It documents the Green Mountain Club’s building of original trails and shelters and illustrates the enthusiasm for the Long Trail project (and hiking in general) at the turn of the century. These images chronicle the views and landscapes seen by early hikers of the Long Trail and provide an historical record of people associated with the Green Mountain Club’s formative years. The images in this collection were captured by Green Mountain Club members Theron S. Dean and Herbert Wheaton Congdon, both of whom were early contributors to the trail’s development. Congdon surveyed and mapped a large portion of the early trail including a fifty mile stretch from Middlebury Gap to Bolton. Congdon, along with Leroy Little and Clarence Cowles, is also credited with the first winter ascent of Mount Mansfield on February 21, 1920. Dean is perhaps the most prolific documenter of the Long Trail’s development. Dean traveled throughout Vermont presenting slideshows and giving talks about the Long Trail, often to hundreds of people. A number of the original lantern slides in this collection were used by Congdon and Dean in their Long Trail presentations. Dean in particular meticulously cultivated his lantern slide collection and displayed these slides during his many talks. The original slides can be viewed in the Dean and Congdon collections at the University of Vermont Silver Special Collections Library. More information about the Long Trail can be obtained from the Green Mountain Club. The slides were scanned by the University's Landscape Change Program with the generous support of the National Science Foundation. The digitized photographs also appear in the Landscape Change image database at: http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/
Fire Insurance Maps of Burlington, Vermont, 1906
- Date Created: 1906
- Description: The 1906 fire insurance maps for Burlington, Vermont were produced by the Sanborn Publishing Company to provide insurance companies and underwriters with detailed and accurate information about individual properties. There are also maps of two areas located outside Burlington, Queen City Park in the town of South Burlington and Dr. W. Seward Webb's farm in Shelburne.
- Parent Collections: Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont, Fire Insurance Maps of Burlington, Vermont
Fire Insurance Maps of Burlington, Vermont, 1912
- Date Created: 1912
- Description: The 1912 fire insurance maps for Burlington, Vermont were produced by the Sanborn Publishing Company to provide insurance companies and underwriters with detailed and accurate information about individual properties. There are also maps of two areas located outside Burlington, Queen City Park in the town of South Burlington and Dr. W. Seward Webb's farm in Shelburne.
- Parent Collections: Fire Insurance Maps of Vermont, Fire Insurance Maps of Burlington, Vermont