Where we are
This year we celebrate 40 years of partnering with Vermonters to document, share and sustain the cultures of the Green Mountain State. Beginning as a program of the Vermont Arts Council in 1978, Vermont Folklife became an independent nonprofit organization in 1984. We’re deeply grateful to our donors and partners for supporting our mission over all these years. As we look toward the future, we are excited to cultivate local expertise within Vermont communities, so that they can join us directly in this transformative work.
– Kate Haughey, Executive Director
“Vermont Folklife is a critical and valued partner in Vermont’s cultural sector. Here at Vermont Humanities, we rely on their deep expertise, breadth of analysis, and strong community connections to enhance our own programming and make it much stronger than it would otherwise be. We have partnered with Vermont Folklife for many years now and we are grateful for their seemingly inexhaustible ability to say ‘Yes! We’ll help!’”
– Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup, Vermont Humanities
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1978 Vermont Arts Council hires Jane Beck as State Folklorist and establishes Folk Arts program
Beck’s research materials form the heart of what will become the Vermont Folklife Archive
1982 Beck curates the exhibit “Always in Season: Folk Art and Traditional Culture in Vermont” – the first exhibit of its kind
1983 Governor’s Conference on the Future of Vermont’s Heritage calls for establishment of an organization dedicated to researching and documenting traditional culture in Vermont
Beck meets the 100 year old Daisy Turner of Grafton, VT and begins recording the saga of her family from enslavement, the Civil War, and freedom in Vermont
1984
Vermont Folklife Center officially founded and archive established; Jane Beck is executive director
1988 Folklorist Gregory L. Sharrow hired as first Director of Education
1990 Audio documentary, Journey’s End: The Memories and Traditions of Daisy Turner and Her Family, by Jane Beck, wins the prestigious George Peabody Award for Documentary Radio Programming
1992 Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program established
Many Cultures, One People: A Multicultural Handbook About Vermont for Teachers published
1993 Audio documentary Never Done: Farm Life in Vermont by Greg Sharrow and Ev Grimes wins the Gold Award in Public Affairs from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
1995 Annual publication, Visit’n: Conversations with Vermonters, begins
2000 The Two Brothers, the first in a series of picture books drawn from interviews in the Vermont Folklife Archive, published. Six more titles follow
2007 Founding director Jane Beck retires
2014 VT Folklife adopts a five-year Strategic Growth Plan—staff increases from 6 to 10 people
2019 First Archive Listening Party held at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro, VT
2020 In response to COVID-19 pandemic, Listening in Place program launched
2021 With partner the Open Door Clinic, The Most Costly Journey: Stories of Migrant Farmworkers in Vermont Drawn by New England Cartoonists published. The following year it is selected for Vermont Humanities’ “Vermont Reads” program
2022 Young Tradition Vermont programs become part of VT Folklife
The Non-Fiction Comics Festival launches with Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library
VT Folklife adopts a new strategic plan prioritizing state-wide programming
2024
VT Folklife celebrates its 40th year!
With partner Conversations from the Open Road, statewide Community Fellows Program launches
Vermont Folklife Today:
Our work, by the numbers, July 2021 to June 2024
Public Programs Across the State
30 Exhibit installations around the state
26 Workshops or trainings
9 Listening parties
7 Festivals and 92 concerts
30 Youth and family music programs
21 Other public events
Partnerships
Vermont Folklife partners with organizations, communities, and individuals across the state to conduct ethnographic research, sustain cultural practices and traditional arts, and create and host exhibits and events.
31 Exhibit, Workshop, or Event Partners
35 Contracts and Research Partners
22 Community Partners
9 Statewide and National Partners
Research and Exhibit Partner
From 2021 to 2023 Vermont Folklife partnered with the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) on an interview project to better understand Vermonters’ experiences of poverty, and collaborated with participants to shape an exhibit that shares their lives and stories—in their words—with a wider public.
“As a community action agency we know that we are all connected in community and that these connections are best expressed, not in data and numbers, but in stories, pictures and through the words of our team and the people we serve. Vermont Folklife has brought our world at CVOEO, and these connections, to life.”
– Paul Dragon, Executive Director, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity
Living Traditions
7 Young Tradition Vermont (YTV) programs became part of Vermont Folklife in 2022
~3,500 Youth engaged in YTV programming, between July 2022 and June 2024
Partnered with ~200 Performers and Instructors
Supported 45 Traditional Arts Apprenticeships
Vermont Folklife Program
Touring Group offers teen musicians the opportunity to explore traditional music in depth, hone skills through performance, and keep these art forms vital and relevant by imbuing them with their own perspectives.
“The Touring Group has a positive impact on Vermont’s traditional music scene by inspiring and educating young musicians to greater heights, both with musical technique and etiquette as tradition-bearers…. it opened my eyes to an entire world that I didn’t know existed.”
—Eleanor Freebern, 2024 Touring Group Member
Community Partner
Through the Vermont Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and a 2022 Vermont Afterschool grant, Vermont Folklife has partnered with Rolyang Lobling School of Tibetan Performing Arts to support youth participation in Tibetan music and dance.
“It's also nice to know that you're making the older generation proud. I feel like a common concern between them is how they're going to be able to continue the culture and continue it without a country to call home. So I think being able to help with that cause is really meaningful.”
—Member of Rolyang Lobling
Archives & Research
The Vermont Folklife Archive holds 358 distinct collections that include manuscripts, photographs, and audio and video recordings that document over 7,000 interviews, musical performances and events. The oldest physical recordings in the collection date to the late 1940s, with the majority created from the late 1970s to the present. Interviews in the collection relate family and personal experiences dating back as far as the mid 19th century.
Vermont Folklife staff conduct up to 100 interviews a year. Between 2021 and 2024 we added 24 collections to the Vermont Folklife Archive that include recordings of 264 separate interviews and performances, as well as personal papers, ephemera, and still images.
Research Partner
Working with VT Fish & Wildlife and the National Wild Turkey Federation, Vermont Folklife conducted nine interviews, joined an early morning turkey hunt, and hosted two listening parties to mark the 50th anniversary of the return of wild turkey hunting to Vermont.
“At the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department our day to day is steeped in the history of this place and its inhabitants, but we’re not equipped to capture that history or share it. Vermont Folklife stepped in to fill that gap… Memories about a common species’ incredibly uncommon past that would likely otherwise be lost are now preserved in Vermont Folklife’s Archive, and we are so grateful.”
—Josh Morse, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department
