CGYHU for March 2023
As part of the Carmine Guica Young Historians (CGYH) program, the Cavendish Historical Society (CHS) provides teachers, students, families and the community with information on town, state and national history for the month ahead.
GENERAL INFORMATION
• If you have questions, want to arrange for a program or need more information, call 802-226-7807 or e-mail margocaulfield@icloud.com
• To learn more about the various programs that CHS offers for students and community, as well as opportunities close to Cavendish, go to the Resource Page.
• The CHS Cares Closet, located next to the steps of the Museum is free, open 24/7, and offers a wide array of things to do, read etc. for both children and adults.
The CHS Winter 2023 newsletter is now available on-line and contains the first part of the 1975 Bicentennial Jeep Tour. Fun project to do with kids. Could be an interesting walking tour just in the village of Proctorsville
March is both National Women’s History Month as well as Irish-American Heritage Month. This year St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, is on a Friday. If teachers want programs that day, please contact CHS ASAP.
NATIONAL WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: This year’s theme is “Celebrating Women who Tell Our Stories.” Throughout 2023, the National Women’s History Alliance (NWHA) will encourage recognition of women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, TV, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts, and more. The timely theme honors women in every community who have devoted their lives and talents to producing art, pursuing truth, and reflecting the human condition decade after decade.
For the most part, it’s been women that have written and recorded Cavendish’s history. These books are available from CHS and in the Cavendish library:
• “Chubb Hill Farm and Cavendish Vermont: A Family and Town History” by Barbara B. Kingsbury (excellent resource document for Cavendish History
• “Cavendish Hillside Farm 1939 to 1957” by Sandra Stearns (suitable for all ages and enjoyable for younger ages as a read aloud book).
• “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Writer Who Changed History” by Margo Caulfield (suitable for students in grades 4-7)
• “Cavendish Families: Volumes 1-4” by Linda Farr Welch (genealogy-note that volumes 3 and 4 are no longer available for purchase)
In addition, Margo Caulfield, writes the weekly Cavendish Update, maintains the Cavendish VT Facebook page, keeps the Cavendish Historical Timeline current and writes the quarterly CHS newsletter. Sharon Huntley, who recently moved to Maine, was a reporter for the Vermont Journal for years, and prior to that owned the public relations firm, “Digital Flannel.” Shannon Devereux has been working with multi-media for many years and is currently the Instructional Technology Services Manager at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Natalia Solzhenitsyn served as her husband’s editor and continues to deal with publishers, reporters and readers for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s work. Her mother,Yekaternia Svetlova, an aeronautical engineer in Russia, helped in preparing her son-in-law’s books for print by painstakingly turning English letters into Cyrillic script. Learn more this mother/daughter team at Cavendish Women You Should Know-N.Solzhenitsyn & Svetlova.
Another mother/daughter group of writers is Cecile Shapiro, and her daughters, Anna and Deborah. Anna, who spends a lot of time in Cavendish, was a regular book reviewer for The New Yorker, and has written about books for The New York Times, The Guardian (England), The Nation, and many other journals as well, and also published editorials. Her one volume of nonfiction is a collection of essays about fiction (Proust, Mann, Tolstoy) in which food is pivotal to the plot or as a central metaphor. Her sister Deborah Krasner has written a number of cookbooks. Cecile wrote for various magazines, and even wrote a piece on fellow Cavendish resident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
In the early 1900s, Fanny Bacon and Carrie. Spafford, job printers, started the monthly publication “The Scribbler.” This was a place where local writers could see their poetry, essays or short stories in print.
While not a year round resident, Cornelia Otis Skinner, writer and actress, spent many summers in Cavendish at the family home, now the Golden Stage. She wrote for The New Yorker, as well as wrote screen plays (Our Hearts were Young and Gay) and the books Nuts in May, Dithers and Jitters, Excuse it Please! and The Ape in Me.
The CHS blog has been running a series for the last several years called Cavendish Women You Should Know and we will be adding to it this coming month.
• March 8 (Wednesday): International Women’s Day: This year’s theme is #Embrace Equity.
• Download a free copy of Think Like a Girl: A Coloring Book of Women Pioneers in STEM
• Women’s History Month: The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in commemorating and encouraging the study, observance and celebration of the vital role of women in American history.
• National Women’s History Museum The Museum offers free 30 minute electronic field trips for classes on a wide variety of historic topics, posters and much more for students and teachers.
IRISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH: March, with St. Patrick’s Day, is a good time to talk about the influence of the Irish on Vermont and Cavendish.
• National Archives Irish American Heritage Month
• Samhain in Vermont from the Burlington Irish Heritage Festival. This includes an hour long film including dance and music from Ireland performed by local
• Pre-Famine Irish in Vermont, 1815–1844 Vermont History 74 (Summer/Fall 2006): 101–126.© 2006 by the Vermont Historical Society.
HISTORICAL DATES FOR MARCH
• March 5,1770: The Boston Massacre The first man killed was Crispus Attucks, an African American.
• March 10, 1862 - The first issue of U.S. government paper money occurred as $5, $10 and $20 bills began circulation.
• March 11, 1918: The 'Spanish' influenza first reached America as 107 soldiers become sick at Fort Riley, Kansas. One quarter of the U.S. population eventually became ill from the deadly virus, resulting in 500,000 deaths. The death toll worldwide approached 22 million by the end of 1920.
• March 17: Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
1776 – During the American Revolution the British completed their evacuation of Boston following a successful siege conducted by Patriots. The event is still commemorated in Boston as Evacuation Day.
• March 29, 1974 : After having been expelled from Russia, the Nobel Prize winner and Soviet dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, was reunited with his wife and family after a six week exile in Switzerland. The family would ultimately settle in Cavendish in 1976. Read an account of his arrival from the New York Times
• March 31, 1933 - The Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC, was founded. Unemployed men and youths were organized into quasi-military formations and worked outdoors in national parks and forests. One of the CCC camps was located in the Proctor Forest in Proctorsville. There is a hiking trail that goes by the sites. If there is interest, CHS can arrange for a walking tour there in the spring.
No comments:
Post a Comment