Enriching Local Lives While Attracting Cultural Tourism
Senator Leahy and State Tourism Head Laud Impact
6 May 2021, Brattleboro, Vermont: From Abenaki petroglyphs and the first known African American poet Lucy Terry Prince, to Nobel Laureates like Saul Bellow, Jody Williams, Rudyard Kipling and a pantheon of colorful characters with impressive ‘firsts’ along the way, many have shaped the Brattleboro area into ‘something special’ that’s hard to define. Now a product of a multi-year National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) backed exploration of ‘People, Places and History of Words in Brattleboro, Vermont’ offers a new way to make their stories accessible to all: the Brattleboro Words Trail, community-created audio stories linked to places in and around Brattleboro.
The public is invited to listen to these stories on their phones while viewing large, hand-carved clay maps commissioned for the Trail at ‘Exploring Our Storied Landscape: Brattleboro Words Trail Murals, Maps and Sound.” The multimedia exhibit opens on Friday, May 7, 2021 at 118 Elliot, 118 Elliot Street in Brattleboro. An opening reception will happen out back from 4 to 8 pm (raindate is Saturday May 8 same time). The exhibit will remain through September 2021, and a larger Summer Trail exhibit will open July 2 at 118 Elliot, but the best way to listen is to hit the streets with the new app.
Visitors can download the free Brattleboro Words Trail mobile app or website to hear audio pegged to sites featured on the Downtown murals and maps. Hear the story of Dr. Robert Wesselhoeft and the writers who stayed at his famous water-cure at today’s fire station across the street. Stroll down the block to hear how T.P. James, ‘channeled’ Charles Dickens to ‘complete’ Dickens’ last novel, or walk up the hill to hear Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams’ story at the Green Street School where the Trail placed a plaque in her honor. Keep walking to hear all 45 Downtown tour sites.
Another 52 sites depicted on the regional mural offer biking or driving destinations from the Brattleboro hub throughout Windham County, New Hampshire and one very important site just over the state line in Massachusetts. (Clue: the author of the first Native American autobiography was born there). Free printed maps made from the murals feature Abenaki place names alongside contemporary names. Thanks to Zak Grace, maps will be illuminated at night, visible from 118’s windows so passersby can interact with the exhibit even when the Gallery is closed.
The Brattleboro Words Trail not only enriches the life of locals, offering fun outings that help us connect with the histories of the places we share, but will be useful in attracting cultural tourism to the Brattleboro area. The state of Vermont plans to highlight the Trail on its Vermont Vacation website and the Trail team will help with its own marketing push.
Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing Heather Pelham says: “In harnessing its community’s creativity to tell the diverse and entertaining stories that make this town a nationally significant literary hub, the Brattleboro Words Trail is an exceptional resource and attraction for tourists and locals alike, offering multiple destinations around an intriguing central theme for those who seek a unique Vermont experience.”
The Brattleboro Words Project was a collaboration of the Brattleboro Historical Society, Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro Literary Festival, Write Action, and Marlboro College led by a 14-person Project Leadership Team, but its products will go on to be managed at two state-wide organizations.
The Trail’s new advisory board includes former Words Project leadership team members William Edelglass PhD, Shanta Lee Gander, Starr LaTronica, Rolf Parker and Lissa Weinmann who will oversee its continued development with the support of the Vermont Folklife Center.
“The Vermont Folklife Center’s focus on ethnographic interviewing, oral history and community audio-making opens up amazing opportunities for the future of the Words Trail,” Lissa Weinmann, Director of the Brattleboro Words Project, said. Weinmann led a mostly volunteer audio production team including Reggie Martell, Sally Seymour, Donna Blackney, with final mastering from Dave Snyder at Guilford Sound. The team worked with more than 140 community members to contribute to audio segments for the Trail. Research and audio development is ongoing, with a couple of the regional sites still under development; The Trail welcomes those who wish to help with the 20+ sites already identified for future work, or who may have ideas of their own.
Project partner Joe Rivers headed-up the student audio production for 19 of the 97 sites as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Brattleboro Historical Society and the Brattleboro Area Middle School. Several other area schools participated in audio creation, work that continues at BAMS and which organizers hope to expand to other schools over time.
The Vermont Historical Society is publishing and managing the Project’s other main product, Print Town: Brattleboro’s Legacy of Words, a 297-page, richly illustrated book written by 32 local authors, edited by longtime W.W. Norton editor and Brattleborian Michael Fleming with a forward by Dummerston’s Tom Bodett. The $40 book is sold at the exhibit, Everyone’s Books and the BrattleboroWords.org website.
“Print Town is a great addition to the Vermont Historical Society’s publication offerings as it fills a gap in telling the unique story of Brattleboro as a vital center of printing and publishing, as well as the who’s-who of writers the town has attracted,” Stephen Perkins, Executive Director of the Society said. “We are grateful to the Brattleboro Words Project for spearheading this wonderful contribution to the history of our state and nation.”
“Marlboro College provided financial and administrative support, as well as a community of scholars and students interested in the kinds of questions that are explored on the Brattleboro Words Trail,” says William Edelglass, a professor of philosophy at Marlboro College, now the Marlboro Institute of Liberal Arts at Emerson College in Boston, who wrote the original NEH proposal with Weinmann in 2017 and created a class at the college around the Project. “It is one of the very many ways in which Marlboro College contributed positively to our community and for which we are grateful.”
“The Brattleboro Words Trail provides a true model of how communities can come together to explore the hidden histories that often exist in plain sight,” says Trail Advisory Board member Shanta Lee Gander, who produced an audio segment and wrote a Print Town chapter on Guilford’s Lucy Terry Prince, the nation’s first African American poet. Gander, who sits on the Vermont Humanities Council board, is working with unanimous support from the Guilford Historical Society and Selectboard leading the Trail’s effort to place a state roadside historic marker for the Abijah and Lucy Terry Prince at the Guilford Welcome Center to extend the state-wide African American Heritage Trail to this ‘Gateway to Vermont.’
Mural artist Cynthia Parker-Houghton, lead designer at Natalie Blake studios, used sgraffito to carve the two large clay murals of Windham County and Downtown Brattleboro with eight ceramic portraits of key personalities on display. “The landscape unifies all the histories and stories,” Parker-Houghton said. “We will add markers to the regional and downtown maps for each new story as the project expands.” A great 9-minute video on Cynthia’s process produced by Donna Blackney for the Words Project is here.
In addition to the Trail, book, murals and maps, over three years, a part time staff of Weinmann, Jen Austin, Executive/Creative Director leading book, map and website/app creation for the second half of the Project, along with important early support from Reggie Martell (producer of the unique Abenaki West River Petroglyphs ‘Words on the Water’) event and Assistant Director Desmond Peeples, and a leadership team of 14 volunteers: Coordinated more than 140 community researchers, scholars, audio producers, writers, students, musicians, teachers and students to produce audio segments; led 18 monthly Roundtable Discussions; placed historical markers for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams (see video here) at the Green Street School she attended as a child; placed a state roadside marker for writer Mary E. Wilkins Freeman in West Brattleboro working with the West Brattleboro Association; donated digital recording equipment to 10 area public schools and libraries; led audio storytelling workshops; mounted special local history events at three annual Brattleboro Literary Festivals and two on the history of printing and publishing at Brooks Memorial Library, among other events.
Foundation and local support came from: the Windham Foundation, the Thompson Trust, the Crosby-Gannett Fund, the New Hampshire Community Foundation’s Putnam Foundation, the Dunham-Mason Fund, 118 Elliot, Guilford Sound, the New England Grassroots Fund, Edward Jones, Brattleboro Savings & Loan, Friends of Brooks Memorial Library, the Marlboro Town Committee and many other businesses and individuals listed on the BrattleboroWords.org website, as well as literally thousands of in-kind hours contributed by community members.
“I want to congratulate everyone involved in the launch of the Brattleboro Words Trail and the Print Town book that celebrate the rich literary legacy of the region,” Vermont U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy said. “I learned the importance and the majesty of words at a very early age, growing up with parents who published a local newspaper and ran a family print shop. So I’m especially proud to support the good work of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Brattleboro Words Trail is proof of how an entire community can be lifted with the help of NEH investments.”
The Brattleboro Words Trail Google and Apple apps can be downloaded or found online at BrattleboroWords.org. Tax-deductible donations to support growth and marketing of the Trail can be made online at BrattleboroWords.org or by mailing a check to Words Trail, 118 Elliot, Brattleboro, VT 05301. For information about how to help create audio, volunteer in many ways or other feedback, write to brattleborowords@gmail.com. Our Facebook page is at: https://www.facebook.com/BrattleboroWords