Vermont

VERMONT

The state of Vermont has retained its rural character throughout the history of a nation that has become increasingly urbanized and industrialized. Its quaint, natural beauty continues to attract thousands of tourists and summer residents who add greatly to the state's economy. Yet its manufacturing enterprises that make up over 50 percent of the state's revenues. Vermont has maintained its ties to the past, but has kept pace with the present.

The first European explorer of Vermont was Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635), who, in 1609, crossed the lake that now bears his name. From around 1650 through the 1760s, French, Dutch, English, and Iroquois Indians crossed Vermont, using trails between Montreal, Massachusetts, and New York. The first permanent settlement in the region was not established until 1724. For several decades both New York and New Hampshire claimed Vermont. Ethan Allen, a hero in the American Revolution (1775–1783), led a group that protested New York's claims. During the Revolution, Vermont adopted its own constitution and formed an independent republic; it was admitted to the Union in 1791.

Just before the War of 1812 (1812–1814) Vermonters engaged in smuggling to avoid the Embargo of 1808. The state continued trading with Canada during the war despite prohibitions on trade with Great Britain. By 1810 Vermont's population had reached 220,000, with most of the new settlers engaged in self-sufficient farming. After 1820, however, many began moving to the virgin lands of western New York, the Ohio Valley, and the trans-Mississippi region, which depleted Vermont's population. Despite an economic boost from newly built railroads, Vermont had simply run out of arable land and had overworked the available land. Vermont also had an insufficient number of manufacturing jobs, partly because the British had flooded the markets with cheaply produced cloth after the War of 1812.

The construction of the Champlain-Hudson Canal in 1823 and the railroads that were built in Vermont during the 1840s and 1850s did little to improve the state's economy, making it more vulnerable to competition from western territories. As emigration increased, however, those farmers remaining in the state were able to increase their prices for wool, butter, cheese, and milk. Irish and French-Canadian immigrants added to the population, and some light industry helped the economy to grow. By the late nineteenth century the well-known Vermont marble and granite quarries were being constructed, and the tourist industry began its steady rise into the twentieth century.

Vermonters seemed largely distant from many of the political and economic trends that gripped the nation after the American Civil War (1861–1865). They did not respond to the "free silver" message of presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan (1860–1925), nor to the Progressivism of the 1920s. The only U.S. President from Vermont, Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929), espoused rural conservatism. Though industrial growth occurred in towns such as Springfield, which manufactured the rifles named after the town; St. Johnsbury, where the famous St. Johnsbury scales were produced; Burlington, which boasted a number of textile mills; and quarry towns like Barre, Vermont remained primarily rural in character. In the early 1920s Vermont had the dubious honor of having more cows than people (a ratio which persisted until 1963).

The state was more forward-looking, however, in its approach to what would become a thriving tourist industry. Vermont established the first state publicity service in the nation. By 1911 it had produced its first publication, Vermont, Designed by the Creator for the Playground of the Continent. The state had recognized that its natural beauty was attracting many vacationers to its lakes, mountains, and, by the 1930s and 1940s, its ski resorts.

After World War II (1939–1945) both vacationers and second-home buyers flocked to Vermont over improved highways. A more suburban outlook began to pervade the state as professional people from New York and Massachusetts settled in the state. Native Vermonters wrestled with how to hold onto their rural heritage and, at the same time, embrace the economic benefits brought by the newcomers. A number of soil and water conservation measures were enacted by the state legislature, along with anti-litter and anti-bill-board regulations.

Although manufacturing is the economic lifeblood of the state, Vermont remains the nation's most rural state, with two-thirds of its population living in towns of 2,500 or fewer. In the words of historian Charles T. Morrissey, "Vermont is not where Chicago or Pittsburgh or Detroit or other large cities grew. It is not where stockyards and slaughterhouses spread along the railroad tracks, or steel mills darkened the skies with smoke. . . .Vermont has been apart from the American mainstream." Modern Vermont's primary agricultural products are livestock and dairy products, followed by corn, hay, and apples. The state is also the nation's leading producer of maple syrup.

Mining is another profitable sector of Vermont's economy. It quarries granite and slate, is home to the world's largest marble reserve, and produces crushed stone, construction sand, and gravel. Dimension stone is the state's leading mineral commodity, making up slightly less than 50 percent of the state's total mineral production value. While these rural enterprises are important to the state, employment in recent decades has increased the most in manufacturing including such products as: electronics and machine parts. However, construction, wholesale and retail trade, and other service industries have also thrived. The state's per capita income in the mid-1990s was just over $22,000, which ranked thirtieth in the nation.

FURTHER READING

Bassett, T.D. S. Vermont. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1983.

Crockett, Walter H. History of Vermont. 5 vols. New York: Century, 1921.

Hill, Ralph Nading. Vermont: A Special World. Montpelier: Vermont Life, 1969.

Morrissey, Charles T. Vermont: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1981.

Sherman, Micheal, and Jennie Versteeg, eds. We Vermonters: Perspectives on the Past. Montpelier: Vermont Historical Society, 1992.

vermont is part of the modern world despite its rural landscape and the currier and ives imagery projected from the garish sides of maple syrup tins.

charles d. morrissey, vermont: a bicentennial history, 1981