Announcing the winner of the 2025 Richard O. Hathaway Award

The Vermont Historical Society is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2025 Richard O. Hathaway Award: Burlington filmmaker Travis Van Alstyne, for his animated short film Love of the Land.

The Richard O. Hathaway Award is an annual award presented to an individual, group or organization that has made outstanding contributions to the study of Vermont’s history. The award was announced during the Vermont Historical Society’s Annual Meeting on October 16 at the Vermont History Center in Barre. 

Love of the Land is an animated short film based on the story of Ascutney farmer Romaine Tenney, who committed suicide in the early morning hours of September 12th, 1964 in response to the seizure of his farm by eminent domain to make way for the construction of Interstate 91.

Van Alstyne wrote, directed, and animated the short film, which features narration and voice-over by George Woodard, and was supported in part by Vermont Public’s Made Here fund. He began work on the project in 2020, creating more than 3,000 digitally hand-drawn frames over the course of four years. The film is available to watch for free online here.

Vermont Historical Society Executive Director Stephen Perkins says “This profoundly moving film humanizes an event often seen as a footnote to the mid-20th-century transformation of Vermont. In place of the former interpretation of the event as public protest, Travis Van Alstyne’s work instead shows Tenney’s actions as a requiem to a lost way of life.” 

You can find more details and past recipients for the Richard O. Hathaway Award here.