Calendar
Whether you're casually interested in Vermont history, keen to experience bygone eras, or passionate about telling stories about Vermont's past, the Vermont Historical Society has programs for you!
- Our hours, holidays and special hours are listed on the Hours & Directions page.
- Current exhibits are listed in the Vermont History Museum page and Vermont Heritage Galleries page.
June 1 – Watercolor Painting and Hopkins "Story Time" in Barre
Saturday, June 1 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre
In celebration of "Story Time in Barre," the Vermont History Center will be hosting an exhibition of the 1840s drawing books of John Henry Hopkins, Sr. and Jr. A day of special programs and activities on June 1 will launch the exhibition.
From 10:00 am to 1:00 pm children of all ages are invited to try their hand at embellishing the Hopkins' illustrations using watercolor paints. Expert botanical drawing artist Susan Bull Riley will demonstrate watercolor techniques at 10:30 and 11:30 am. Vermont Historical Society Curator Jackie Calder will follow at 2:00 pm with an illustrated presentation about the unusual and sometimes controversial life of Bishop John Henry Hopkins, including background on the drawing books he produced with his son.
All activities are free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
June 7 – Art Walk at the Vermont History Museum
Friday, June 7, 2013 from 4:00 - 7:00 pm at the Vermont History Museum, 109 State Street, Montpelier
The Vermont History Museum will be free for all visitors as we take part in Montpelier's Art Walk. Come see our special exhibit "Plowing Old Ground: Vermont's Organic Farming Pioneers," featuring photography and oral history of Vermont's earliest organic farmers, and our award-winning core exhibit, "Freedom and Unity: One Ideal, Many Stories."
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
July 13 – Second Saturday Series: "Vermonters at Gettysburg"
Saturday, July 13 at 2:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre
Within several weeks of serving its nine months of active duty, and having seen no combat, the Second Vermont Brigade found itself on the right flank of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg with a chance to alter the course of the Civil War. On the same day, July 3, 1863, the First Vermont Cavalry Regiment was sent into a cauldron of death from which many Green Mountain Boys would never return. Come hear Paul Zeller share these stories of Vermonters and Vermont units at the battle of Gettysburg.
All Second Saturday talks are free with admission to the Vermont History Center.
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
August 2 – Art Walk at the Vermont History Museum
Friday, August 2, 2013 from 4:00 - 7:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Museum, 109 State Street, Montpelier
The Vermont History Museum will be free for all visitors as we take part in Montpelier's Art Walk. Come see our special exhibit "Plowing Old Ground: Vermont's Organic Farming Pioneers," featuring photography and oral history of Vermont's earliest organic farmers, and our award-winning core exhibit, "Freedom and Unity: One Ideal, Many Stories."
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
August 10 – Second Saturday Series: "The Champlain Glassworks: A Roller Coaster Ride for Burlington's First Manufacturing Company (1827-1850)"
Saturday, August 10 at 2:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre
In 1827 in Burlington what could be more enticing for enterprising businessmen and investors looking for a start-up venture than the fascinating business of glass making? Commerce had taken over the lake and the port of Burlington after the War of 1812, the Champlain and Erie Canals had been built and opened resulting in new cities and new markets, especially in the West. Window glass was a needed commodity and thus the Champlain Glass Company, Burlington's largest manufacturing enterprise at the time, was founded. But glass blowing was risky business - fires and more fires, tariffs, competition for markets and for skilled workers, bankruptcy, then successful reorganization, and on it went. Using information sources such as company ledgers, weekly payrolls of barter and pay, stories of the management, the workers and their families, insurance maps and newspaper reports, this is the story of the company and its changing leaders as told by expert historian L. Diana Carlisle.
All Second Saturday talks are free with admission to the Vermont History Center.
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
August 25-26 – Finding Wentworth: A Vermont Historical Society Trip
Sunday, August 25 - Monday August 26, Bus Trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire
The Vermont Historical Society invites you to join us for a trip to explore the colonial history of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, see the historic homes of Benning Wentworth and his family, and visit one of New England's best-kept secrets, the history museum Strawbery Banke.
Benning Wentworth, first Royal Governor of New Hampshire, issued 129 township charters in present-day Vermont between 1749 and 1764. To learn more about the 250th anniversaries of these towns, and to see when your town was chartered, please view our Semiquincentennial Toolkit. [PDF]
Click here to learn more about the trip, and click here to register online.
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Program Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
September 14 – Second Saturday Series: "Italian-American Stoneworkers in Vermont"
Saturday, September 14, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre
Middlebury College Professor Ilaria Brancoli-Busdraghi will present a short talk about the heritage and history of Italian-American stoneworkers in Vermont.
All Second Saturday talks are free with admission to the Vermont History Center.
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
October 12 – Second Saturday Series: "Vermonters at Cedar Creek"
Saturday, October 12 at 2:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre
At Cedar Creek the Confederates brought about one of the two great surprise attacks of the Civil War, the first being at Chancellorsville. It fell to a Vermont regiment and a Vermont brigade to make sacrificial stands and try to rescue victory from defeat. At stake may have been Abraham Lincoln's reelection, and, surely, Union control of the vital Shenandoah Valley. Learn more about this vitally important yet often overlooked battle with preeminent Vermont Civil War historian Howard Coffin.
All Second Saturday talks are free with admission to the Vermont History Center.
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
November 9 – Second Saturday Series: "Major Valentine's Swedes"
Saturday, November 9, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. at the Vermont History Center, 60 Washington Street, Barre
Paul Searls, Lyndon State College
In 1890, Vermont's Commissioner of Agricultural and Manufacturing Interests, Alonzo B. Valentine, launched a program to repopulate Vermont's 'abandoned' farms with farmers recruited from Scandinavia. The program brought a handful of Swedes to three towns in the state, was immediately discontinued, and generally has been dismissed, both by contemporaries and by historians, as a preposterous fiasco. But, in fact, the program had a remarkable legacy, both in terms of its impact on the promotion of summer tourism, and as measured by the subsequent lives of the Swedes and their descendants, many of whom remain in Vermont to this day. In particular, this talk will focus on four families settled in Landgrove: the Westines, Nyrens, Neilsons and Andersons. In this talk, Paul Searls will explore the strange and ironic story of Vermont's Swedish colonists, what the program has to teach us about that transitional era in Vermont's history, whether the program brilliantly accomplished what Valentine hoped for it all along, and what we can learn about twentieth-century Vermont as the Swedes became Vermonters.
All Second Saturday talks are free with admission to the Vermont History Center.
For more information, please contact Amanda Gustin, Public Programs Coordinator, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (802) 828-2180.
