Hill Farms
Hill Farms
Surviving Modern Times in Early Twentieth-Century Vermont
There is a stubborn myth that has persisted for almost two centuries: the narrative of the abandoned farm in the rural American northeast. In Hill Farms, historian Dona Brown confronts this myth of rural decline with a focus on Jamaica, Vermont, a small town in the hills west of Brattleboro. Through this town’s history, she reveals a more complex economic and environmental narrative, a story of the continued use of traditional farm methods despite the growing power of modernization and demands for increased efficiencies.
Brown examines the records of a 1930 study by the University of Vermont’s now infamous Eugenics Survey, part of a flood of problematic investigations of Vermont rural life at the time, wherein eugenicists interviewed residents in every Jamaica household about crops, incomes, and housing conditions. These researchers from various disciplines saw in Jamaica and towns like it poverty and ignorance rather than a commitment to farming as a modest but sustainable way of life. Extensive handwritten notes from the Eugenics Survey provide a remarkable glimpse into the daily lives and practices of these upland farmers, revealing the value in maintaining older, less intensive farming practices and shedding new light on the social and environmental history of the time. As debates around farming and rural life intensified during the Great Depression, advocates beyond Vermont rose to the defense of traditional farms. Though industrialized agriculture ultimately prevailed, the old farming strategies cultivated by these upcountry residents continue to attract adherents in the face of new challenges to traditional farming in our own times.
‘This is an impressive and polished work of scholarship. The depth and detail of the research in primary sources is particularly strong. The author’s deep empathy for these historical Jamaicans and commitment to the stories of Vermont’s hill farmers shines through.’—Kathryn Morse, author of The Nature of Gold: An Environmental History of the Klondike Gold Rush
‘Brown frames this 1930 Eugenics Survey in Jamaica, Vermont, with the history of the state’s hill farming, while reading through the eugenics team’s own problematic notes to get at the world view of the hill farmers themselves. She nicely ties this story into the scholarly literature on 20th century modernization of agriculture and rural life, and then into the back-to-the-land movement through to the next generation of regenerative farmers going at it today. Brown’s writing is deft and knowing as she tells this fascinating story, adding humorous asides.’—Brian Donahue, author of The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord
