Browse Items (48 total)

  • Collection: Vermont Black History Archive

Rev. Low seeks housing for Negro children

LowSeeksHousing.pdf
Newspaper article about Rev. Low visiting Bennington county seeking housing for visiting African American children. According to later articles, he ultimately had more hosts than children.

100 Negro children arrive here in tolerance experiment

HarlemChildrenArrive.pdf
Newspaper article about arrive of Black American kids from Harlem in Vermont as part of Rev. Ritchie Low’s “Vermont Plan” experiment

All Star minstrel show, in Gaysville, Vt.

AllStarMinstrelsBethel.pdf
Minstrel shows in which white men appeared in blackface were popular in Vermont as well as other areas of the country. This article describes one such show in Gaysville, a village of Stockbridge, Vt., in 1932.

Minstrel revue in St. Johnsbury

MinstrelRevueStJohnsbury.pdf
Minstrel shows in which white men appeared in blackface were popular in Vermont as well as other areas of the country. This article describes one such show at the Cray's Star Theater in St. Johnsbury in 1932.

All-Star minstrel show in Vermont

StarMinstrels.jpg
Minstrel shows in which white men appeared in blackface were popular in Vermont as well as other areas of the country. This photograph shows the "All- Star Minstrels," a group of 14 men on stage, twelve of them in blackface. Most of the men in…

Young Black American Girl with Man

WhiteMan&BlackGirl.jpg
This photograph shows a young Black American girl in fancy clothing posing with an old man. We do not know the identity of these two people or their relationship.

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Black American Girl in School Group

BerlinSchoolhouse.jpg
This photograph shows Gertie Brooks, a Black American school girl, with her classmates on the steps of a school house in Berlin, Vermont, ca. 1875. Next to Gertie is Eugenia Selina. In the door in front of the teacher are Eugene Smith and Eldon…

Vermont delegation, National VFW Encampment, Philadelphia, 1930

VeteransOfForeignWarsAugust1930.jpg
This photograph was taken at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Encampment (i.e., convention) in Philadelphia in August 1930 where veterans advocated for increased benefits at the beginning of the Depression. The Vermont delegation is identified…

1st Vermont, National Guard, 1892

CampGovPage1892.jpg
After the Civil War, the Vermont national Guard was a popular activity for Vermont men. This photo was taken at Camp Governor Page in Montpelier. According to the caption on the back it shows the "Big 4" leaders of the unit: left to right,…

The Buffalo Soldiers in Vermont, 1909-1913

BuffaloSoldiersInVermont.pdf
In July 1909, the Tenth United States Cavalry Regiment, one of four regular army black regiments collectively known as the Buffalo Soldiers, arrived in Burlington, Vermont, to begin a four-year tour of duty at Fort Ethan Allen in neighboring…

The strange career of Benjamin Franklin Prentiss, antislavery lawyer

VHS7902BenjaminFranklinPrentiss.pdf
A nineteenth-century genealogist alleged that Prentiss, the young St. Albans amanuensis of Jeffrey Brace's 1810 memoir, The Blind African Slave, practiced law in Richmond, Virginia, and ran a plantation in Wheeling, West Virginia. Although this…

African Americans in Addison County, Charlotte, and Hinesburgh, Vermont, 1790-1860

VHS780102_15-42.pdf
Black Vermonters were, by definition, oddballs -- a tiny minority who chose the country over the city. How did they fare in this rural environment? What sort of work did they find in Vermont's agrarian economy? Did they own farms or homes? Were they…