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Baking with Substitute Flours: A Patriotic Sacrifice

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Special Collections

When I encountered the 1918 UVM Extension Circular No. 13, “Substitute” Breads, Biscuits and Muffins, I knew I had found the topic for my first post in our year-long Vermont cookbook series. I started substituting whole wheat flour for white when baking bread as a college student in the early 1970s, and over the years have tried many multigrain bread recipes. I was intrigued with Vermont’s responses to the U. S. Food Administration’s wheat conservation efforts during World War I, when wheat (white) flour was needed to feed the troops and starving allies in Europe.

Before Vermont bakers could replace wheat flour in their baked goods, they needed supplies of substitute flours. The August 9, 1918 issue of the Essex County Herald (published in Island Pond, Vermont) included a short article on corn flour, reporting that during the last 18 months, the industry increased its output of corn flour 500 percent to meet the demand by converting wheat-milling machinery into corn-milling machinery.

Newspaper advertisement for Saturday Cash Special's at Leary's Grocery, including cereals, meat, and different kinds of flour.

Source: Burlington Free Press, June 21, 1918

Newspaper advertisement for substitute flours and sugar substitutes for sale at John Dunn's cash stores.

Source: Rutland Daily Herald, September 4, 1918

Vermont grocers ran advertisements in newspapers around the state to let bakers know that substitute flours were available. Dunn’s Cash Store stocked all the wheat flour substitutes as well as sugar substitutes, including maple flavor Karo (corn syrup) and Vermont maple syrup and sugar. Leary’s Grocery at the corner of King and Pine Streets in Burlington offered wheat flour mixed with substitute grains for $0.43 per 5-pound bag and white and yellow corn flour for less at $0.31 per bag. A 24.5-pound bag of barley flour was a bargain at $1.70.

The campaign to conserve wheat included a variety of educational initiatives, including newspaper articles, demonstrations and speaking tours, and wide dissemination of recipes. Bertha M. Terrill, professor of home economics at the University of Vermont and State Director of Home Economics for the U.S. Food Administration, led the educational efforts in Vermont in 1918.

A large number of seated women watch a woman in an apron and baker's hat prepare a recipe using ingredients laid out on a table in front of her. A table of food samples separates the audience from the cook.

Baking without wheat demonstration at the Vermont Milk Chocolate Factory in March 1918.

Terrill and others arranged cooking demonstrations in factories, at club meetings and in the home economics facilities at UVM. In March, the Civics Department of the Klifa Club, UVM Extension and the U. S. Food Administration sponsored a demonstration at the Vermont Milk Chocolate Company in Burlington. Just before closing, Mrs Julia Dimock demonstrated preparation techniques and distributed recipes and samples to nearly 100 young women. On a Saturday in April, Terrill led a demonstration on substitute cereals at UVM’s Morrill Hall. She assured the audience that making substitutions was comparatively easy. She made and then shared muffins, buckwheat bread, gingerbread and even rarebit (hot cheese sauce) on rice cakes to prove that the results could be delicious. A demonstration at Morrill Hall the following week focused on substituting potatoes for cereal grains.

Terrill shared recipes for baking with substitutes through newspapers, a small cookbook, and UVM Extension publications. Acknowledging that “The present emergency brings its increased problems to every housekeeper because of the higher prices and desire to use supplies to the best advantage,” the Home Economics Club at UVM published Some Thrift Recipes under Terrill’s direction. Introducing a section on substitute breads, the club members assure cooks, “The results from the recipes below are as light and fine-grained as wheat breads, have a delicious flavor and are more healthful.” The Silver Special Collections copy of Some Thrift Recipes was originally part of the Bertha M. Terrill Memorial Library, and is signed “Bertha M. Terrill 1917-1918.”

Terrill’s UVM Extension circular, “Substitute” Breads, Biscuits and Muffins, provides many more recipes and more detailed guidance about baking with substitute grains. Terrill explains why wheat and rye are superior for yeast breads and why baking powder is a better leavening agent for substitute grains. While the recipes include some wheat and substitute flour combinations, Terrill promoted recipes using substitute grains only. The results would be delicious and wholesome, she said, and “give opportunity to be 100% patriotic by using 100 percent wheatless materials.” She acknowledged that the substitute flours cost more than wheat, but reminded Vermonters, “We are asked to regard this as one of the costs of war.”

Corn flour and buckwheat muffins.

I made three of Terrill’s recipes from the Extension circular using corn flour, buckwheat flour, and rolled oats. I had buckwheat flour and rolled oats in my cupboard, but when I could not find corn flour in Burlington-area stores, I ordered it online. I followed Terrill’s advice and stuck to recipes calling for baking powder, choosing buckwheat and corn muffins, corn flour biscuits, and oat and corn flour bread. The muffins had a great flavor and a nice texture and were very hearty. The recipe called for just 1 tablespoon fat and 1 tablespoon sugar or 2 tablespoons of syrup, but the next time I make them (I still have lots of corn flour), I will use a bit more of both. After a day, the leftover muffins were a bit dry, but split and toasted, we agreed with Terrill that they “could hardly be distinguished from freshly baked.” We liked the flavor of the bright yellow corn flour biscuits and the quick bread (four tablespoons of maple syrup), but each had texture problems: the biscuits were dense and the bread crumbled easily.

In my enthusiasm for the substitute grains project, I also purchased white and brown rice flour. I look forward to trying Terrill’s recipes for muffins and quick breads that combine rice flour with rolled oats, buckwheat flour or barley flour.

Submitted by Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian

Posted in Vermontiana | Tagged Bertha M. Terrill, bread substitutes, wheat conservation, wheatless, World War 1 | Leave a comment

Pullin’ in the New Year!

Posted on January 21, 2021 by Special Collections

Ingrid Bower continues our cookbook series with a post about making molasses taffy.

December is generally known as a time to gather and celebrate with friends and family. It is a time when even mageirocophobes (those with a fear of cooking) break out the measuring cups and cookie sheets from the depths of their kitchen cabinets to recreate the cookies and candies that their grandmothers used to make. My kitchen is no different.

In pre-COVID years, I have spent hours in the kitchen preparing one to two dozen different types of cookies and candy to share with my wonderful neighbors who generously allow us to run our sled dogs or graze our sheep on their properties. This year was different. I purchased “safe,” boxed chocolates for my neighbors and made only a few batches of cookies for the family. But this tradition of sugary neighborliness did lead me to a subject for our second Vermont cookbooks post.

Handwritten entry on a diary page dated September 5, 1909

Lamson’s Sept. 5, 1909 diary entry describes a very busy Sunday, concluding with “… then we made pulled candy, awfully good.”

The inspiration for the late December experiments in my kitchen came from the diaries of Genieve Lamson that we transcribed as part of our pandemic transcription project. Genieve Amelia Lamson was born in 1887 to Whitcomb E. and Hannah A. Lamson of Randolph, Vermont. She traveled widely and was well educated. She taught at Vassar College among many other career ventures, but eventually returned to her family home where she lived until her death in 1966. Lamson was a prolific diarist, and our Genieve Lamson Papers include her diaries from 1908-1910. The diaries illustrate the relatively carefree, socially active life of a young woman at the turn of the century. She was an avid baker and candy maker and attended many parties, some of which included “candy-pulls.”

My interest was piqued by these candy pulls. As I dug deeper, I found that they were popular party activities in the nineteenth century and had several resurgences in the twentieth century. In some cases the candy pull was also a courting activity where sweethearts could pair up and get close in a socially acceptable way.

Genieve Lamson attended or hosted several candy pulls for both “white candy” and molasses in 1908 and 1909, so once I decided to make taffy, my search for recipes in our Vermont cookbook collection focused on approximately that time period. The 1891 Ladies’ Aid Society of the Universalist Parish of Bellows Falls cookbook and the 1902 Crystal Lake Cook Book from the Barton Women’s Literary Club have appealing and seemingly authentic recipes of the time, and so the fun began.

Cook stirs a pot on a stove holding the boiling molasses mixture and a thermometer.

Boiling the molasses mixture to the proper temperature and consistency.

We started with the 1891 recipe, which is basically just a list of ingredients with very brief instructions: “Two cups molasses, one cup sugar, one tablespoonful vinegar, butter size of walnut; boil twenty minutes, then add one teaspoonful [baking] soda; cool and pull.” Being uneasy with these minimal directions, we found a modern molasses candy recipe. Using a candy thermometer we were guided to about the correct temperature in those twenty minutes.

Since we had no idea how long we should cool the molten candy we again turned to the modern recipe, which led us astray a bit and we tried to work the candy too soon, causing a portion of it to harden to the sides of the pan like concrete. The salvaged portion cooled properly and as we pulled and folded and pulled over and over again, the color changed from a dull brown to an attractive metallic bronze and the consistency changed from somewhat brittle to soft and taffy-like. We twisted the long cords of candy together and cut them into bite size pieces and then wrapped them in waxed paper to share. As to taste, reviews were mixed. I loved it! But I enjoy the flavor of molasses. Those who are not molasses fans did not care for this candy.

Pulled taffy!

A week later we tried the 1902 recipe, which calls for much less molasses and provides more detailed instructions. The temperature of this batch rose much more quickly than the last and caught us off guard and we allowed it to get to too high a temperature. We did succeed in cooling it properly, so, though the candy was more brittle than it should have been, the pulling was more successful. The flavor of this batch was much milder, like a “Werther’s Original,” and was a big hit with all who tasted it.

Cut pieces of taffy waiting to be sampled and then wrapped in wax paper.

Due to COVID, having a candy pull party was a bit tricky, but, following the Governor’s guidelines, we included a “trusted family” in the creation of our second batch, so that our experience felt somewhat authentic. It was a lot of fun to include this historic aspect of gathering and neighborliness and I hope to continue this tradition for years to come.

Posted in Manuscript Collection, Vermontiana | Tagged candy pull, Genieve Lamson, taffy, Vermont cookbooks | Leave a comment

Hygge* in My Vermont Kitchen

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Special Collections

Hygge: a Danish word meaning a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality.

For the next year, Silver Special Collections staff will share their adventures cooking with recipes from our Vermont cookbook collection. Sharon Thayer starts the series with this post on her chosen comfort food.

November. The end of daylight savings time, bare gray tree branches, dropping temperatures, wanting to be warm and cozy. This time of year makes me think of snug domesticity. Especially in the midst of pandemic living–staying home, cooking all of my meals, and reading so many Instagram/Facebook posts documenting the triumphs of our national flirtation with home baking—I turn to comfort food.

Several years ago the Special Collections winter holiday get-together was a potluck lunch of soups and breads at a colleague’s house out in the Vermont countryside (as opposed to the suburban Burlington-area homes for the rest of us). We met at her house on a clear, cold, sunny early January day around noon. The idea was to spend some time outdoors before gathering in the kitchen to share a communal meal. Guests brought four kinds of homemade soup and several freshly made breads, and our host provided a huge green salad and holiday candies and cookies for dessert. It was a fantastic feast of good food and good will.

So when I thought about a blog post on comfort food, soup and bread came to mind. I wanted recipes that were delicious, but simple, not taking too much time and work. I wanted to use Vermont ingredients and products as much as possible. And the recipes had to match my rather limited skill set in the kitchen. After browsing our Vermont cookbook collection, I selected recipes from two modern cookbooks.

For the soup, I chose a cheddar cheese soup recipe. I considered several, but most had beer or ale as an ingredient, which did not appeal to me. The recipe I made, “Potage de Vermont,” is from Tony Clark’s New Blueberry Hill Cookbook (1990). Laurie Caswell, chef at the Blueberry Hill Inn in Goshen from 1981 to 1982, provided the recipe, which she served as a first course. The soup was wonderful. I used three kinds of Cabot cheddar: Vermont Sharp, New York Extra Sharp, and Seriously Sharp Cheddar. I made minor changes to the recipe, substituting dry dill for fresh and leaving out the toasted sesame seeds garnish. The result was delicious.

For the bread, I wanted a hearty rustic loaf to go with the rather rich soup. In the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion All Purpose Cookbook (2003), I found a basic version of Irish soda bread. The “Irish Dairy Bread” recipe called for buttermilk and baking soda as the leavening agents.

Sadly, the bread was disappointing. I followed the recipe to the letter, but it was too pale coming out of the oven. I baked it a bit longer, but didn’t want to overbake it. Per the recipe, I let it cool completely for the structure to set. I expected a hearty peasant loaf. I got a heavy round that was too pale and hard as a brick – if I had thrown it at someone, I daresay they would have been injured. Even slathered with Cabot Creamery butter, it was not very appealing. However, the smell of fresh bread in the house was divine.

Although I will draw a veil over the soda bread experience, I added a new comfort food recipe to my collection. I will definitely make “Potage de Vermont” again.

Posted in Vermontiana | Tagged cheddar, comfort food, coookbooks, soup, Vermont | 2 Comments

Racing to Ratify

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Special Collections

In July 1920, Vermont had the chance to be the final state to ratify the 19th Amendment and guarantee women the right to vote. Congress passed the amendment in June 1919 and sent it to the states for ratification. By 1920, thirty-five state legislatures had voted to ratify, and only one more vote was needed. Many hoped Vermont would be the thirty-sixth state to ratify the amendment; others thought the Tennessee legislature might act first. Special Collections has two pen and ink drawings by the well-known editorial cartoonist W. Norman Ritchie that capture the tension.

Ritchie imagined “The Ratification Sweepstakes” in an energetic cartoon that ran in the Boston Post on July 9, 1920. A woman sporting a national suffragist badge fires a starter pistol to start the Great Suffrage Ratification Race between Tennessee and Vermont, brandishing a prize cup for the woman vote. Trainer James Cox, the Democratic presidential nominee, urges a runner labeled Tennessee Legislature (Democrats), “Speed up, Colonel, and show your Southern chivalry,” while Warren G. Harding, the Republican presidential nominee, tells a runner labeled Vermont Legislature (GOP), “Go to it Vermont, you must not fail!”

Vermont did fail, despite the best efforts of the Vermont Equal Suffrage Association, due to the continued opposition of Governor Percival Clement. Clement refused to call a special session of the Vermont legislature for a vote on the 19th Amendment. An extreme strategy involved getting Clement to leave the state so that Lt. Governor Mason Stone, who favored suffrage, could arrange a special session. On July 21, 1920, the Post published Ritiche’s cartoon, “No Vacation for Clement.”

Ritchie’s drawing bears the handwritten title “A steady job for Clement.” The caption for the top panel reads, “If Gov. Clement leaves the state, the suffs may vamp Acting Gov. Stone and win the vote.” Clement heads to the railroad station with a suitcase, while a representative of the “suffs” grabs Lt. Gov. Stone and urges him to call the special session. Ritchie pokes fun at Clement’s dilemma, suggesting that the governor might need to vacation at home “on guard against the wily suffs,” and stay on the job to keep Lt. Gov. Mason from bringing the suffs and ratification to the legislative altar. On the bottom left, Ritchie illustrates a dramatic strategy: the desperate “women scorned” might kidnap Clement!

When it became clear that the final ratification vote was not coming from Vermont, suffragists turned to Tennessee. Thanks to a tie-breaking vote cast by a young legislator following his mother’s advice, Tennessee won the sweepstakes and became the thirty-sixth state to ratify the 19th amendment on August 18, 1920.

W. Norman Ritchie (1867-1947) was a news cartoonist for the Boston Post for over 50 years. Reviewing a 1932 exhibit of newspaper artists, the Boston Globe noted “the skill and imagination, together with a keen sense of humor” that characterized Ritchie’s work. Ritchie drew thousands of news cartoons during his tenure. Silver Special Collections acquired these two drawings, along with others featuring Vermont native Calvin Coolidge, in 1973.

Find more primary sources about Vermonters’ efforts to obtain voting rights for women in our latest digital collection, Women’s Suffrage in Vermont. With contributions from the Vermont State Archives and Records Administration, the Leahy Library at the Vermont Historical Society, and Silver Special Collections, the collection focuses on the period from 1870 to 1920.

Contributed by Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian

Posted in Vermontiana | Tagged 19th amendment, Mason Stone, political cartoon, suffrage, Vermont | Leave a comment

Traveling with Caroline Crane Marsh

Posted on June 11, 2020 by Special Collections

Although our transcription team has been working from home, they simultaneously have been traveling in Italy with Caroline Crane Marsh. Team members Ingrid Bower, Chris Burns, Erin Doyle, Hannah Johnson and Sharon Thayer are transcribing the diaries Caroline kept from 1861 to 1865 that reveal her enthusiasm for travel and adventure and her talent for vivid description. Following Caroline, the team has made virtual visits to the Piazza di Castello and the Casa d’Angennes in Turin, numerous Alpine peaks, a coastal village near Genoa, and an eleventh-century tower in Piobesi. This post pairs diary entries with images of just some of the places where the Marshes lived or visited during this period.

The Piazza di Castello, with pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages, surrounded by buildings, including the Baroque Palazzo Reale and the Palazzo Madama.

The Piazza di Castello, circa 1842. The Palazzo Reale is in the center, and the Palazzo Madama is on the right. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Marshes arrived in Turin in 1861, when George Perkins Marsh assumed his position as the first American minister to the newly united kingdom of Italy. Shortly after they arrived in early June, Mrs. Marsh wrote, “Our rooms are large and finely situated, being three front rooms in the Hotel de l’Europe, overlooking the principal square of the town and directly opposite the Royal Palace.” From their balcony, she noted, “We watch every movement in the fine piazza before us with all the interest that novelty and the prospect of a prolonged stay here would naturally excite.” In July, Caroline described a concert honoring a Swedish diplomat, when a vast crowd gathered in the Piazza di Castello. Mr M.,” she wrote, “thought that ten thousand did the numbers half justice.”

Casa d’Angennes. Source: Museo Torino.

The Marshes left the hotel for an apartment in the seventeenth-century Casa d’ Angennes. They stayed until the end of 1861, when a large rent increase drove them to find lodging elsewhere. By November 1863, they had found a way to return to the Casa D’Angennes and Mrs. Marsh noted with satisfaction, “And here we are again after fifteen months once more in our fine Italian home.”

Monte Rosa and neighboring Alpine mountains.

Monte Rosa. Source: Library of Congress.

On Oct. 7, 1862, the Marshes climbed in the nearby Alps. Caroline’s diary entry for the day is typically evocative. She wrote, “Well were we repaid for the labour it had cost us. There stood Monte Rosa with all her eight spitzen, a most magnificent mountain-mass.” She continued, “Glorious as the mountains were, however, beautiful as the lakes at our feet … we could not help turning from these to gaze on the wonderful cloud-phenomena which presented themselves around and below us …. For two or three hours we watched, now the mighty chain of the Alps based on their everlasting foundations, and now the ever-shifting clouds that sometimes seemed a phantom-ocean heaving and surging below us, sometimes pillars of fire rising to a height that dwarfed the loftiest summit of the true mountains.”

The village of Pegli on the Mediterranean coast, between 1890-1900. Source: Library of Congress.

The Marshes spent the winter of 1862-63 in the quiet coastal village of Pegli, near Genoa, where they took up residence in a hotel. Mr. Marsh worked in Turin during the week and on weekends returned to Pegli, where he forged ahead on “his most momentous work,” Man and Nature.

Chinese pagoda , pond and bridge in the Pallavicini gardens.

The Chinese pagoda in the Pallavincini Gardens.

In a diary entry for November 7, 1862, Mrs. Marsh described a visit to Pegli’s beautiful Pallavicini Gardens, which she called “the chief wonder of the neighborhood.” The gardens, she wrote, were “… luxuriantly planted, and provided with walks, seats, rustic cabins, thatched sheds, marble temples, arches, imitations of old castles, Turkish kiosks, specimens of Greek, Egyptian, Chinese and Persian architecture, water falls, precipices, bridges—in short everything wealth and fancy can contrive.”

Castello di Piobesi.

The Marshes spent the summer of 1863 in Piobesi at the Castello di Piobesi, located about twelve miles southwest of Turin, providing Mr. Marsh with a much shorter commute and a quiet setting to finish Man and Nature. Most of the castello dates to about 1830, but one tower remains to mark the site of a structure built in the eleventh century.

On April 5, Caroline wrote a diary entry after they ascended the old tower. She made it about halfway up, where from a seat in a window she could rest and look at a landscape “so sweet and quiet, the Alps so majestically grand, the sky so clear and blue, that I gave myself up at once to the mighty influence that nature is sometimes able to exert upon us…”

Note: The Caroline Crane Marsh diaries are part of the George Perkins Marsh Collection. They will be available online in the near future.

Submitted by Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian

Posted in Manuscript Collection | Tagged Caroline Crane Marsh, diaries, George Perkins Marsh, Monte Rosa, Pegli, Piobesi, Turin | 2 Comments

Billings Library: A Most Delightful Place for Dancing

Posted on May 14, 2020 by Special Collections

Front cover of the 1907 UVM Senior Prom dance card showing exterior view of Billings Library. For over forty years, Commencement Week activities at the University of Vermont included what a 1912 headline called a “brilliant commencement function.” From 1894 to 1936, the evening of Class Day ended with a senior reception followed by a senior promenade. The reception and prom were held in Billings Library, “a most delightful place for dancing.”

A student committee organized the annual event. Guests included students, faculty, alumni returning for reunion, and for some years, “the young society people of the city.” Newspapers routinely reported that 200-400 people came to the reception and the dance. In 1936, nearly 1,000 people came through the doors.

Vermont orchestras and dance bands provided the music, although a Boston band provided the entertainment on at least one occasion. One year, a musician from Montreal performed a notable xylophone solo during a dance number. While waltzes remained a staple, some dances changed with the times. For example, old fashioned quadrilles lost favor to new dances like the foxtrot.

For one night during Commencement Week, Billings Library was transformed for the Senior Prom. One writer noted, “In its vacation garb, the library did not much resemble its appearance during the college year.” Tables on the main floor and in the apse were moved out to make room for the reception, the band and the crowds. A large platform was set up inside the entrance for the band, and the floors were waxed “to perfection.” The rooms were decorated in the college colors, and potted palms and cut flowers added to the atmosphere. In short, as the Burlington Free Press reported in 1936, “endless rows of books, dusty rafters, and furrowed brows were replaced in a flurry of gay-colored dresses and happy faces.”

1936 reception in Billings Library with receiving line in front of the fireplace and an orchestra

In 1935, the receiving line in front of the fireplace included President Guy Bailey, Dean and Mrs. Hills, Dean and Mrs. Eckhard, and student representatives. Sid Carsley and his 12-piece orchestra provided the music. Photo from the 1936 Ariel.

Senior prom dancers fill the north hall of Billings Library

Only alumni, faculty and members of the senior class were admitted to the prom in 1935 due to the limited dancing space. Photo from the 1936 Ariel.

Dance cards with decorative covers served as souvenirs of what was for seniors one of the final social events of their college years. On the pages inside, dance partners signed up for one of the evening’s twenty dances, sometimes using a small pencil attached to the card with a cord. The dance order below on the right is from 1894, and includes several deux temps and waltzes, a polka, two types of square dances (quadrille and lanciers). Two names on the line next to the polka suggest that a second partner cut in before the dance ended.

The well-attended 1936 gala was the last prom held in Billings Library. In 1937, the tradition ended when the senior reception and prom moved to the newly completed Southwick Memorial Hall on the Redstone Campus.

Submitted by Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian

Posted in Archives, University Archives | Tagged Billings Library, commencement, dance, University of Vermont | Leave a comment

Twisting the Night Away

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Special Collections

Beginning in the summer of 2019, Special Collections worked with the Department of Theatre and Dance to plan an outreach program for this semester that included an exhibit, a lecture, a panel discussion, and a student performance. This is the blog post we planned in conjunction with the April events, now canceled.

In 1962, the dance craze the twist was sweeping the nation. Chubby Checker’s song “The Twist” is credited with starting the trend. It enjoyed two waves of popularity, reaching number one on the Billboard weekly chart in September 1960 and January 1962, when it was re-released. On the annual chart, it peaked at number nine. Other twist classics that enjoyed popular and commercial success that year included Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away” at number 23, “The Peppermint Twist” by Joey Dee and the Starlighters at number 25, and The Isley Brothers classic “Twist and Shout” at number 38.

At UVM, students were twisting at the height of the craze. The Student Association’s Pep Committee sponsored a dance on Saturday, February 17, 1962. Scheduled for 9:30 to midnight, after a men’s basketball game against the University of Massachusetts, it’s not surprising that a handful of star athletes attended. With live music provided by the Craters, a twist-a-thon took place, documented in a set of photographs taken by Andrew Bush. The dance was one of the last events held in the gymnasium (now Royall Tyler Theatre) before Patrick Gym opened in 1963. It must have taken a lot of quick work to transform the gym after the game with crepe paper streamers and dance wax on the floor.

Photograph of a male and female student dancing a crowd of other students.

Benny Becton ’63 (center), star basketball player and future UVM Athletic Hall of Fame member, and his dance partner twist in the men’s gym.

Photograph of a male and female student walking in the gym while smiling and snapping their fingers. Other students dance in the background.

Football star Frank Bolden ‘63 (left) at the 1962 dance. Bolden was inducted into the UVM Athletic Hall of Fame, chaired UVM’s Board of Trustees and received an honorary degree from the university in 2018.

In some ways, the loosened up movements and close contact that characterize the twist mirrored changes in society. Not everyone was a fan.

Famed dancer Ginger Rogers objected to the twist, calling it “ungraceful,” “vulgar,” and “obscene” in this AP story printed in the Burlington Free Press on January 3, 1962.

There was a clear generational divide, with youngsters in favor of this newest fad and their parents full of concern (Rutland Daily Herald, January 25, 1962).

Still, a few schools in Vermont banned the dance for moral or religious reasons and in quite strong terms. The first was imposed by Marian High School (Brattleboro Reformer, January 23, 1962). St. Anne’s Academy of Swanton took action soon after (Brattleboro Reformer, January 30, 1962).

Twisting brought out warnings for potential back and foot injuries among adults (Brattleboro Reformer, January 24, 1962). But other sources promoted twisting for exercise (Bennington Banner, January 13, 1962).

With these widely varying viewpoints, it’s no wonder the subject of twisting popped up in advice columns (Burlington Free Press, May 19, 1962).

Newspaper column in which 15-year-old Patty asks for advice about holding a twist party for her friends while her mother thinks it a "vulgar dance" and "doesn't want to have people believe that she approves of it." The reply lists other past dance fads that were more suggestive including dancing cheek-to-cheek, The Charleston, jitterbug, and Big Apple, which the author describes as "fun." The twist was such a cultural phenomenon that it didn’t take long for twisting to be referenced in the funny papers, like this “Archie” comic that also seems to predict iPods (Burlington Free Press, August 27, 1962).

Contributed by Erin Doyle, Manuscripts and University Archives Assistant

Posted in University Archives, Vermontiana | Tagged dance, twist | Leave a comment

Work of Art: Dancing Together in Vermont

Posted on April 1, 2020 by Special Collections

In February, we mounted a new exhibit in our small gallery, “Work of Art: Dancing Together in Vermont.” The exhibit examines the process involved in creating diverse dance communities, from groups of girls and boys in clever costumes tap dancing across school stages to performers exploring familiar landscapes in new ways. Using photographs, documents and artifacts, the exhibit looks at two long-running Burlington dance studios led by Polly Nulty and Lorette Sousie, the stage performances and “eco-choreography” of l. tarin chaplin, and two site-specific projects from Cradle to Grave Arts under the artistic direction of Hannah Dennison. Each provided opportunities for community members of all ages and skill levels to work together to learn and to stage performances that delighted and challenged participants and audiences.

“Work of Art” was created as one component of a semester-long focus on dance. Working with Paul Besaw and Julian Barnett in the Department of Theatre and Dance, we scheduled three programs. Although we had to cancel the April events, Barnett’s presentation in early March, “Personal Poetics, From Rupture to Transformation,” drew a wonderful crowd of students and community members to the Marsh Room in Billings.

While our doors are closed, we are joining many museums and libraries who are bringing exhibits and collections online. We fortunately had digital copies of the images used in the Burlington dance studio section of the exhibit, so here we present “Polly Nulty: A Strong and Impressive Style” and “Lorette Sousie: Developing the Love of Dance.”

Polly Nulty: “A Strong and Impressive Style”

Polly Nulty (1923-1992) owned and directed her dance studio for 30 years, providing inspiration and guidance to a generation of Burlington children. Nulty started teaching neighborhood kids for free in her home in 1947, when she could spare the time from her responsibilities as a homemaker, wife, and mother. Enrollment soon increased to about 60 students and she launched a business, with classes at Burlington’s Heineberg Club. Outreach to surrounding towns included Stowe, Morrisville, Waterbury, Richmond, Essex Junction, and more.

Over the course of her dance career, Nulty studied with the Jack Stanley School of Dancing in New York and, to keep her skills sharp, attended dance classes at the University of Vermont and at conventions in Boston and New York. By 1957, she had become a member of Dance Educators of America, after a difficult four-hour examination that included assessment of her choreography, teaching, and knowledge of music.

Left: Nulty with daughter and student Mary in matching costumes. Right: Nulty shows the proper technique in her studio on St. Paul Street.

Enrollments rose to 250 to 300 students. By the mid-1950s, Nulty had established a custom studio space at 86 St. Paul Street, complete with a waiting area, barre, and mirrored wall. Eventually, the business came full circle with a studio in her new home on Pearl Street.

Nulty (left) guides students into the proper posture and formation during class.

Months of dedication and training culminated each year in a grand recital, bringing the whole studio together to entertain and impress an audience full of family and friends. The combination of bold costumes, bright lights, music, and excitement all around made for strong memories. The picture of the 1952 recital below includes a glimpse of the larger studio community making up the capacity audience at the Nazareth School, later St. Joseph’s. Note the standing ovation in progress from the balcony – a fun night and a happy memory for the admission price of just 60¢.

Students perform the Narcissus dance in the 1952 recital.

Family and friends stand to applaud the dancers at the conclusion of the 1952 recital.

Modeled after the famous Radio City Rockettes, Nulty founded The Pollyettes dance chorus and precision drill team about 1954. Comprised entirely of high school students, the Pollyettes maintained an impressive schedule of public performances for a variety of fraternal, religious, and benevolent organizations, even traveling to appear on local television in Schenectady and Plattsburg, New York in 1955.

While the team’s namesake and dance instructor was Polly Nulty, their drill instructor was Sergeant Mina Yeager (second from left in photo above), a recruiting officer in the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). Yeager provided drill instruction without charge in a style similar to the basic training required of WAC recruits.

Pollyettes on the move. The troupe heads to Schenectady, where they will appear on the “Home Fare” television show. The Burlington-Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce supported their round-trip transportation in a chartered bus. A sign on the bus read “From the shores of Lake Champlain, Vermont’s Own Pollyettes.”

Nulty retired in 1977. Former pupil, teacher, Pollyette, and daughter-in-law Angie Olio Nulty (1952-2018) continued the legacy by running her own studio for 25 years. There, the third generation of Nultys became dance students alongside many other Burlington children.

Lorette Sousie: Developing the Love of Dance

Lorette Sousie, born in Winooski, Vermont in 1924, began teaching dance at 18. She operated the Sousie School of Dance in Burlington for 35 years. From 1949 to 1984, Sousie offered instruction at venues around the city. Over the years, she taught tap, ballet, jazz and baton with the help of daughters Donna and Karen. In a 2008 Burlington Free Press article that featured Sousie, the writer observed,“The principles of respect and consideration were incorporated in the way she handled her students. No matter their level of talent, she helped them discover a way to shine.”

When Sousie died in 2018, her obituary noted that she “helped develop the love of dance in many children. She was very proud of her students and took pleasure in presenting them in recitals, at nursing homes, minstrel and talent shows, and many other venues.”

Young dancers in costume on school stage Tap dancers on stage at the Lyman C. Hunt School in Burlington, Vermont.

L. L. McAllister photographed Lorette Sousie’s students from 1955-1961, when she held classes at 138 North Winooski and then in a home studio at 115 North Avenue. The posed photographs capture the creativity of Sousie’s themes and costumes as well as the students’ enthusiasm. McAllister took photos in the studio and at performance sites like the Lyman C. Hunt Middle School, where Sousie presented annual recitals. As part of the L. L. McAllister Collection, the photos were originally labeled “Dance Recitals — Unidentified.” In 2014, when the library digitized the massive collection of prints, a member of the project team met with Lorette Sousie to identify dancers, studio locations and dates.

Daughter Donna Sousie smiles at the front of the group next to the mirror.

Five young tap dancers in cowboy hats, flannel shirts, and jeans Son Allen Sousie stands in the middle of the back row of young cowboys.

Notes

The Polly Nulty Papers are the source for much of the information and the images used here. Sousie School of Dance images are from the L. L. McAllister photograph collection, which contains many photos of Sousie and Nulty dancers.
To learn more about resources available in the Silver Special Collections Library, please consult the Vermont Performing Arts research guide.
The team of Hannah Johnson, Erin Doyle and Prudence Doherty curated the Work of Art exhibit.

Posted in Archives, Events, Exhibits, Vermontiana | Tagged Burlington VT dance studios, L. L McAllister, Lorette Sousie, Polly Nulty | 3 Comments

George Washington’s Bold, Clear Signature

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Special Collections

In his 1902 book on the art of bookbinding, William Loring Andrews describes George Washington’s beautifully bound copy of The Contrast as “a book made doubly valuable by having the great chieftain’s bold, clear signature upon the title page.” That valuable book is now part of our Vermont Research Collection.

The Contrast is recognized as the first American comedy performed by a professional theater company. Royall Tyler wrote the play in 1787, four years before he moved to Vermont, where he was a lawyer, Supreme Court Justice and a University of Vermont trustee and instructor. The play was performed with some success in New York, Baltimore and Washington.

Royall Tyler assigned the copyright to actor Thomas Wignell, who portrayed the Yankee character Brother Jonathan in the original 1787 production. After gathering enough financial backing, Wignell arranged to have the script printed in 1790. He placed George Washington’s name first in the list of 375 subscribers in the published edition. Wignell sent two copies to Washington, who signed the title page of one copy in the upper right corner.

Three noted collectors of Vermontiana owned Washington’s copy of The Contrast before it came to Special Collections. After a long quest, Lucius E. Chittenden purchased it when remnants of Washington’s Mount Vernon library sold at auction in 1876. In his 1893 memoir, Chittenden declared the volume “perfect in every particular.” He wrote, “It would be difficult to imagine a volume possessing more elements of attraction to a collector than the first play written by an American, …once owned by the Father of his Country, who had written his own name upon the title, and which was withal of such excessive rarity.”

In 1920, James B. Wilbur purchased Washington’s copy of The Contrast at auction for $2,800. The auction catalogue provided a lengthy description, highlighting the book’s association with the first president of the United States and its fine binding “in American red morocco, border and center-piece inlaid in green morocco, with conventional floriated tooling in gilt.” Wilbur sponsored a limited edition of The Contrast, published in 1920, that included a history of George Washington’s copy.

1919 auction catalogue entry, reproduced in Wilbur’s 1920 edition of The Contrast.

After Wilbur died in 1933, the signed copy of The Contrast was included in an auction of his books and autographs. Vermontiana collector Hall Park McCullough of North Bennington purchased it for $3,100. Although the University of Vermont received significant portions of the Chittenden, Wilbur and McCullough libraries, Washington’s copy of The Contrast was not included. After McCullough’s heirs donated it to the University of Vermont in 1970, Special Collections director John Buechler praised it as one of the library’s major holdings. The donation rejoined George Washington’s signed copy of The Contrast with three of the libraries that had once held it.

Submitted by Prudence Doherty, Public Services Librarian

Posted in Vermontiana | Tagged George Washington, Royall Tyler, The Contrast | Leave a comment

Medieval Manuscripts in the Green Mountains

Posted on January 8, 2020 by Special Collections

This article was adapted from the presentation that Silver Special Collections Director Jeffrey Marshall delivered to open our November 2019 colloquium, “Interpreting the Handwritten Book: Medieval Manuscripts at UVM.”

In Commemoratione defunctorum manuscript page

In Commemoratione defunctorum (Office for the Dead)

Our Rare Book Collection includes sixteen medieval manuscript books. We can divide them conveniently into three categories: manuscripts given to the University of Vermont before the formation of Special Collections in 1962; those donated between 1962 and 2010; and those that we have purchased since 2010.

The first group includes eight books, all described in Seymour de Ricci’s 1935 Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Three are part of the George Perkins Marsh collection.

The first Marsh manuscript is Ascanio Savorgnano’s Copiosa Discrittione delle cose di Cipro (UVM MS 4). Savorgnano was sent to Cyprus by the gentlemen of Venice, apparently around 1572, to describe its “military capabilities.” A very similar copy is housed at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn Ms. Codex 327).

The second Marsh manuscript is attributed to King Frederik II of Denmark and Norway, and titled Van der Lehre des Reinen Godtlichen Wordes (UVM MS 5). To quote from a description of the manuscript written several years ago, “it appears to be a copy of the Danish Church Ordinance of 1537, here applied to Frederik’s new royal patrimony of Ditmarschen. The original ordinance, by Frederik’s father Christian III, established Danish ecclesiastical organization (Lutheran) and was based on the Augsburg Confession of 1530.”

The last of the Marsh manuscripts is a hastily copied seventeenth-century text of Eberhart Hicfelt’s Aucupatorium herodiorum (UVM MS 7), a treatise on hawks and hawking. It’s interesting to note that de Ricci identified the author as Richardus Hitfelt. I assume that de Ricci was relying on information supplied to him by our librarians in the 1930s, and that he was unaware of Eberhart Hicfelt’s work on the subject.

Considering the richness of Marsh’s library, now the core of our rare book collection, it is a little surprising that his three manuscripts are not more visually compelling. I don’t think he had a particular interest in manuscripts, and these may have been acquired quite casually.

Italian herbal, ca. 1500.

Three manuscripts among the first group were donated by Lucius Chittenden, a prominent Vermont lawyer and book collector who served in the Lincoln administration. The visual appeal of Chittenden’s manuscripts more than makes up for the modest appearance of those from Marsh’s library. They include a volume containing several works of Cicero (UVM MS 3), copied around 1400; an early sixteenth-century Italian herbal (UVM MS 2); and a Flemish prayer book from 1561 (UVM MS 8). Benjamin Franklin Stevens, the Vermont-born London bookseller, gave us In Commemoratione defunctorum, or the Office for the Dead (UVM MS 1). The last of the early manuscript donations is the statutes and ordinances of Carpeneto, Italy, written in 1458 (UVM MS 6). This was given to us by Prof. Giuseppe Ferraro, who published the text of the manuscript in 1874.

Over the more than one hundred years that followed these early donations, we acquired only one additional medieval manuscript. In 1964 a St. Albans resident left with us a choir psalter (UVM MS 12), likely made in the sixteenth century, and never returned to reclaim it. This large-format book contains three brightly colored illustrations (most like colored in the nineteenth century) and a number of hymns that feature new wording in place of partially erased letters.

Despite the fact that we have had an active collecting program since Special Collections opened its doors in 1962, our first director, John Buechler, did not focus on medieval manuscripts. And for good reasons. They were expensive, and there was little apparent demand among our faculty. Even if the resources and the demand had existed, developing a strategic approach to acquiring medieval manuscripts, nearly from scratch, would have been an enormous challenge for a librarian at a small state university.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Special Collections received its next manuscript gift. That year, Robert and Sally Fenix donated two copies of the Summa de Casibus Conscientiae of Bartholomew of San Concordia (UVM MS 9 and 10), both copied in the early 1400s. This work, a guide to confessors evaluating sins large and small, was very popular in its time

The manuscript collection came full circle, in a sense, in 2010, when David Richardson donated a very large Spanish gradual (UVM MS 11), a book containing chants for the Roman Catholic liturgy. David was the grandson of Henry Hobson Richardson, the architect who designed UVM’s Billings Library—now the home of Silver Special Collections and its medieval manuscripts.

Spanish gradual.

The final category of our manuscript books includes the four that we have purchased since 2010. Manuscripts are still expensive, and their market value has soared over the last several decades as rare books have increasingly come to be seen as investment opportunities. Nevertheless, with careful management of funds from a variety of sources, we were able to acquire two important manuscripts in 2013 and 2016, Letters Patent to the Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem (UVM MS 13), a document that outlines the privileges of the Knights Hospitaller as confirmed by the French crown, ca. 1465; and a book of sermons by Johannes Nider (ca. 1380-1438; UVM MS 14), copied in Germany ca. 1445-1450. In 2018 and again in 2019, former UVM President Tom Sullivan allocated funds for the Libraries to purchase books to support teaching and research in the humanities. We were able to make two significant purchases, Les roys de la très crestienne maison de France (The Kings of the Very Christian House of France) (UVM MS 15) and the Book of the Confraternity of the Holy Name of Jesus (UVM MS 16).

The decision to purchase manuscripts marks a distinct shift in our acquisitions policy. While it didn’t make sense to buy medieval manuscripts in the past, we now have several reasons to do so. Our distinguished faculty of medievalists in multiple disciplines is making a concerted effort to promote medieval studies at UVM. At the same time, we have been developing an instructional focus on book studies in Special Collections, so these manuscript books fit into the spectrum of materials we are trying to provide for our students and faculty. On a more abstract level, we regard it as part of our mission to support research and teaching in the Humanities. Although our resources are limited and must serve a number of collecting areas, we hope that we can continue to meet the interests of faculty and students in this area.

You can see many of these items in our Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts digital collection.

Posted in Events, Rare Books | Tagged medieval manuscripts | Leave a comment

Baking with Substitute Flours: A Patriotic Sacrifice

Pullin’ in the New Year!

Hygge* in My Vermont Kitchen

Racing to Ratify

Traveling with Caroline Crane Marsh

Billings Library: A Most Delightful Place for Dancing

Twisting the Night Away

Work of Art: Dancing Together in Vermont

Polly Nulty: “A Strong and Impressive Style”

Lorette Sousie: Developing the Love of Dance

George Washington’s Bold, Clear Signature

Medieval Manuscripts in the Green Mountains

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