-A +A

VT Research News: Political books and town meeting

Submitted by tim on

Vermont Research News The Center for Research on Vermont received so many responses to its fall request for nominations of important Vermont books that we decided to share the results in several reports. Here we focus on titles about Vermont politics and government. Thanks to Prudence Doherty, Silver Special Collection Librarian for curating this list.
Town Meeting
As we approach Town Meeting Day 2021, it is appropriate to lead with Frank Bryan’s Real Democracy: The New England Town Meeting and How It Works (2004). Bryan and a host of students gathered data for years to study what Bryan sees as “real democracy,” when citizens come together to make decisions at the annual town meeting. Center members Susan Clark and Jane J. Mansbridge both suggested Real Democracy. Clark wrote, “Political scientists around the world look to its groundbreaking political science research, with Vermont as the laboratory and proving grounds of local deliberative democracy.” Mansbridge explained, “At a time when trust in government is declining in most of the world’s democracies, interest is growing dramatically in the different ways that citizens in a democracy can govern themselves. Bryan’s work, which analyses citizen participation in town meeting in ways that no one has done before or since, is central to understanding the dynamics of the Vermont town meeting, and by implication, any direct, small-scale democracy. Because of Bryan’s work, Vermont town meetings stand as a beacon before the world.." Will Town Meeting survive this years COVID detour?
REAL TIME STORIES FROM "TOWN MEETING" - TODAY (!)

Vermont Political Tradition
In 1984, William Doyle, then a state senator and a professor at Johnson State College, published Vermont Political Tradition. UVM historian Sam Hand regarded Doyle’s book as the best short introduction to Vermont political history available. Doyle’s concise and readable history includes chapters on major developments and identifies enduring themes. Reviewing the book in 1985, Vermont journalist Norman Runnion praised it as “a valuable guidebook to Vermont’s unique and vital and often colorful political life,” but felt that it would need revision soon to cover a rapidly changing political landscape. Doyle did publish revised and expanded editions in 1987, 1990 and 1992.

The Star that Set
While Doyle takes a broad look at Vermont’s political history, historian Samuel B. Hand takes a close and detailed look at the history of Vermont’s Republican Party in The Star That Set: The Vermont Republican Party, 1854-1974 (2002). Hand documents the Republican hegemony that, despite internal schisms and conflicts, dominated public policy for over a century. Party popularity began to decline in the 1960s but Hand sees the star finally setting in 1974, when Vermonters elected Democrat Patrick Leahy to the U. S. Senate.
How Red Turned Blue
Hand, Anthony Marro and Stephen Terry turn the focus to one of the other important Democrats in Vermont politics in Philip Hoff: How Red Turned Blue in the Green Mountain State (2011). Hoff, the state’s first three-term governor, helped transform government and the state. Viewing government as a force for positive change, he oversaw an enlarged role for state government and promoted new strategies for solving problems. Chapter 5, “Civil Rights in the Whitest State” bears reading in 2021. It includes accounts of Hoff’s opposition to discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sex, his involvement in the 1968 case of shots fired at the home of a black minister, and the Vermont-New York Youth Project.

Red Scare in the Mountains
Kirkus Reviews praises Rick Winston’s Red Scare in the Green Mountains: Vermont in the McCarthy Era 1948-1960 (2018) as a “compelling case study on the political effects of collective close-mindedness.” Winston shows that Vermont was not immune from red-baiting and paranoia during the McCarthy era. He presents examples chronologically, beginning with Congressman Charles A. Plumley’s campaign to defeat an opposing candidate by painting him as a Communist sympathizer in 1946. Other incidents include the Henry Wallace campaign in 1948, Lucille Miller’s denunciation of neighbors in Bethel in 1950, the firing of UVM biochemistry professor Alex Novikoff in 1953, and attacks on the Hinton family who operated the Putney School in 1953-1954. Winston also credits Vermonters who resisted red-baiting, including Senator Ralph Flanders and newspaper editors and publishers such as John Drysdale and Robert Mitchell. See a video interview with Rick here.

Bernie!
Politics and government in the city of Burlington during the administration of socialist Mayor Bernard Sanders have been much examined during the last two presidential campaigns. Three books published shortly after Sanders left the mayor’s office in 1988, including The People’s Republic: Vermont and the Sanders Revolution by Greg Guma (1989), Challenging the Boundaries of Reform by W. J. Conroy (1990) and The Socialist Mayor: Bernard Sanders in Burlington, Vermont by Steven Soifer (1991), analyze the successes and limitations of progressive politics at the municipal level.

Town Government

Three books that document the organization and operation of town and state government are invaluable resources. Andrew Nuquist, a political science professor at UVM, published Town Government in Vermont in 1964 based on a series of Rutland Herald articles written between 1946 and 1948. As a reference manual for local officials, the book includes sections on town officers, finances, special districts (fire, water, and school), voting, conservation, and county government. Updating the articles for the book, Nuquist recognized how many changes and improvements had occurred. “In many ways,” he wrote, “this present study is a report on dying or departed practices, and may well be a swan song for the type of government it describes.” Two years later, Andrew Nuquist and Edith Nuquist published their monumental 644-page volume, Vermont State Government and Administration. The Nuquists describe and analyze government operations and suggest improvements. Although much has changed, students and researchers frequently consult both volumes to understand the history of state and local bureaucracy.

Thanks to more changes than the Nuquists could have predicted, a much needed and equally monumental sequel came out in 1999. The goal of Vermont State Government Since 1965, edited by Michael Sherman, was to “narrate a history of state government and describe current practice.” Twenty-nine authors contributed essays that cover every aspect of government and take into account the many changes that affected government operations from the mid-1960s to the end of the twentieth century. See also Dateline Vermont, Chris Graff's listing of the top political events in twentieth century Vermont.

Have a book you'd like to publish?

The Center is keen to support Vermont authors who want to work with student researchers. More information here and how to procure our latest title, Vermont Heritage: Essays on Green Mountain History, 1770–1920, a collection of articles by two of Vermont’s most prominent historians H. Nicholas Muller III and J. Kevin Graffagnino, coordinated and edited by long-time Center staffer Kristin Peterson-Ishaq.
Have an opinion on any of this? Post it here!
Copyright © 2019 Center for Research on Vermont, All rights reserved.
The Vermont Research News is a bi-monthly curated collection of Vermont research -- focused on research in the Vermont "laboratory" -- research that provides original knowledge to the world and research that adds to an understanding of the state's social, economic, cultural and physical environment. Thanks to support from the Office of Engagement at UVM.
Send your news items to Newsletter Editors Martha Hrdy, Nick Kelm, or Richard Watts.