click to enlarge - Courtesy Of Elise A. Guyette
- McKenzie's meat packaging business, started by an Irish family on George Street in 1909, initially delivered goods by wagon but eventually moved to automobiles
Vermont's largest city has a long and storied history, from its service as a garrison for several thousand U.S. soldiers during the War of 1812 to its timber port (once the third largest in the country) to its role as the birthplace of Phish and Ben & Jerry's. Currently, though, there's no museum or visitor center where residents and tourists can learn about Burlington's colorful past.
Four local women intend to change that. With backgrounds in bringing local history alive and launching public spaces, they've formed a nonprofit to create a Burlington History & Culture Center. Rather than focusing on the wealthy and powerful people typically celebrated in museums, history books and school curricula, they want to highlight the Indigenous people, immigrants and laborers who built the Queen City with their own hands.
The details of the proposed center — whom it will feature, which stories it will tell, where it will be located — remain nebulous for now. That's by design. Instead of dictating their own vision of Burlington's historical and cultural roots, the organizers plan to spend the coming months meeting with residents, community groups and historians to answer those questions.
click to enlarge - Courtesy Of John H. Crabbe
- The Fayette sisters, members of a large Lebanese neighborhood on Maple Street, standing in front of the family home, now the offices of Freeman French Freeman.
"I am most excited that we don't have a closed view of how the center is going to look, how it's going to feel, what it's going to sound like and what it's going to smell like," said Gail Rosenberg, a Burlington writer, fundraiser and communications specialist.
For seven years, Rosenberg and Elise Guyette, a local historian, author and educator, ran two citywide walking tours: Burlington Edible History and More Than a Market. After the pandemic put those tours out of business, the pair decided to start a local history center, an idea that, they said, Burlingtonians have been discussing since the 1970s.
In 2022, Rosenberg and Guyette invited Burlington entrepreneur and activist Melinda Moulton to join their efforts. Moulton had just stepped down as CEO of Main Street Landing, a waterfront office building and event space.
Because the walking tours told the stories of local immigrants through their food businesses and culinary traditions, the organizers want their proposed history and culture center to include a kitchen and a performance space for music, theater, art and dance.
"This won't be your typical museum full of stuffy old things to look at. This is someplace that we hope can really grow into a community center," said the fourth project organizer, Lisa Evans, a board member of the Chittenden County Historical Society and former executive director of the Saint Albans Museum. "And what brings people together more than music and food?"
click to enlarge - Courtesy Of Louis L. Mcallister Collection, Uvm
- A parade float advertising Gelineau's Pastry Shop on North Street, one of several Burlington bakeries owned by French Canadians.
All four women expressed their commitment to making the center as inclusive as possible of traditionally marginalized groups. To that end, they plan to choose a location along a public bus route. They want every design feature of the center, from the architecture to the exhibits, to be accessible to people with disabilities.
The center would tell the histories of people with disabilities, too. Rosenberg recounted the story of Anne Connelly, a blind woman who, in the 1920s, became the first person in Vermont to use a seeing-eye dog. Connelly walked every day from her apartment to her job in Burlington City Hall.
In the coming months, Rosenberg, Guyette, Moulton and Evans plan to meet with other advocacy groups, including those working with recent immigrants, people living in poverty and members of the LGBTQ community. They see the project as fortuitously timed to generate renewed community pride, given the many problems plaguing Burlington as well as the recent historic election of Emma Mulvaney-Stanak as the city's first female mayor.
click to enlarge - Courtesy
- Gail Rosenberg and Elise Guyette
Guyette emphasized that the center wouldn't shy away from controversial topics, which might range from Burlington's role in the eugenics movement in the early 20th century to the current fight over who can claim authentic Abenaki heritage. This year, the women plan to visit the Odanak First Nation tribe in Québec and Vermont's Abenaki tribes to learn more about the latter topic.
"That's the reason we study history — so we can learn what's worked in the past, what's gone wrong in the past and how we can do better," Guyette said. "If you don't have controversy, it's going to be pretty boring."
The project has nearly reached its first-year fundraising goal of $40,000, much of it through a three-year, $10,000 annual grant from Vermont Humanities, which will cover the cost of a website, logo design and public listening tour. But Moulton, who envisions creating something on a scale comparable to the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, estimated that the final price tag will run into the millions.
"Right now, it's just the four of us," Moulton added. "But there's no doubt in my mind that this will happen."