Oral history interview with Louise Andrews

Oral history interview with Louise Andrews

Louise Andrews speaks growing up in the Boston area, becoming pregnant as a teenager, getting married and following her husband, Charles Pratt, as he pursued his academic career. She discusses the isolation of raising a child in student housing, and of her growth as a feminist after her meeting with Jim and Barbara Nolfi and Mary Pat Palmer. She also speaks of working on an alternative newspapers, the Vermont Railroad, while living in Winooski, Vermont. The bulk of the interview relates to her life at Earthworks, a commune in Franklin, Vermont, and she describes daily life, the nightly meetings, the effect of the sexual revolution on relationships, child rearing, and farming. As well, she speaks of attending women's conferences and anti-war demonstrations, and building ties with other communes She talks of the relationship of the communards with the local farmers, and how living on the commune affected her children, particularly when they were sent away to a kids collective after the Earthworks farmhouse was destroyed in a fire.

30 September 2015

AudioFile1970s-20

MP3

Audio File

Franklin (Vt.)

Permission to publish material from the Vermont 1970s Counterculture Project must be obtained from the Vermont Historical Society.

Blofson, Kate

Andrews, Louise, 1943-

Burlington (Vt.)

1 hr., 44 min., 59 sec.

Vermont Historical Society Library, 60 Washington Street, Barre, VT 05641-4209