Farming and farm life, rural community

Farming and farm life, rural community

Farming

This is the largest body of material in the archive, and it includes VFC folklorist Gregory Sharrow's dissertation research on the culture of farm life, research for a radio series on contemporary farm experience, research for the exhibit "Making and Remaking Vermont Farmsteads" (supported by an NEH grant), as well as interviews documenting change in the rural countryside. These materials span the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the present and document farm culture, the fabric of community, dairy farm operation, and the trajectory of the massive changes that occurred over the course of the past century. They offer an in-depth personal look at the ways in which individual farmers responded to the challenges of increasing mechanization, new management strategies, depressed milk prices, the loss of farm community--to name only a few examples. Thus these interviews represent a critical mass of information that is an extraordinary research resource because they touch on an array of social, cultural, political, economic, and technological issues.

Vermont Folklife Center Archive

Vermont Folklife Center Archive