About Us

But it’s really About You!

This Center will be firmly built on community input. We are committed to including the voices of people of many ethnicities, social classes, genders, ages, talents, and abilities to reveal a comprehensive and complex story of Burlington. There are close to 200 historical societies throughout Vermont’s cities and towns. Burlington is not one of them. It’s time to change that!
Hotels Vermont (left) and Van Ness – Corner of St Paul and Main. Courtesy UVM Landscape Change Program.
Church St with a Greek Sweet Shop on the right corner, now Honey Road. Courtesy Champlain College.
The famous “Genesee 12 Horse Team” from Genesee Brewing Company, 1935, in front of Henry’s Diner. Notice truck from the Champlain Fruit Company. Photo by John H. Couture, Henry’s son.

Our Purpose

The purpose of the Burlington History & Culture Center is to fill an enormous gap in the Queen City, which has no historical society. Our one history museum, Ethan Allen Homestead, does a fine job presenting the long history of the Intervale. Our new Center will broaden that history to the rest of the city.

George W. Williams, 1909 graduation picture from the University of Vermont Medical School. Dr. Williams was the first Black Vermonter to graduate from the medical school. Courtesy Elise Guyette. George W. Williams, 1909 graduation picture from the University of Vermont Medical School. Dr. Williams was the first Black Vermonter to graduate from the medical school. Courtesy Elise Guyette.

Too few of us see ourselves as active participants in Burlington’s history. Knowing our diverse history could help change that. However, because Vermont is described as one of the whitest states, many historians, filmmakers, curriculum writers, and museums focus on the history of powerful people (like politicians, industrialists, and military leaders) masking our ethnic and economic diversity and the positive role immigrants have played in Burlington’s history. The Center will broaden our historical knowledge, celebrate our historical diversity, and present the overlooked stories of the men and women who built Burlington and are still building it.

Anna Grenier at her “speeder” in the Chace Cotton Mill, Burlington, May 7, 1909. Photograph by Lewis W. Hine, Library of Congress
Source: https://www.loc.gov/item/2018675128/Anna Grenier at her “speeder” in the Chace Cotton Mill, Burlington, May 7, 1909. Photograph by Lewis W. Hine, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2018675128/.

A major focus will be the universal human activity of migration, including the push and pull factors of migrations and immigrants’ effects on their new homeland.  Building Burlington was not a totally white enterprise. Indigenous people, Black people (Burlington was 3% people of color, 1810-1820), a variety of ethnic groups including Yankee, Irish, French Canadian, Greek, Lebanese, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, and those newly arriving today, like Bosnians, Somalis, Nepalese, Mexicans, Ukrainians and more have all added to Burlington’s cultural diversity. We intend to place their stories front and center.

Young boys working for Hickok Lumber Co. in Burlington, Vermont. Photograph by Lewis W. Hine, September 1910. Library of Congress
Source: https://www.loc.gov/resource/nclc.04584/Young boys working for Hickok Lumber Co. in Burlington, Vermont. Photograph by Lewis W. Hine, September 1910. Library of Congress

You may be wondering

How will we gather wide and diverse community input?

The Center will be firmly built on community input and will include the voices of people of many ethnicities, social classes, genders, orientations, ages, talents, and abilities to reveal a comprehensive and complex story of the city. Over the first 18 months, we are holding focus groups involving 200 participants, interviewing experts in various fields, and making presentations at all Burlington Wards, as well as at community events. We are distributing surveys to hundreds more. During our first year, which began in January 2024, we held 12 focus groups. Among the 130 participants were refugees and other new Americans, high schoolers, a self-advocacy neuro-diverse group, blind and visually impaired individuals, local historians, innovators, politicians, artists, musicians, social justice advocates, preservationists, and members of the media. Participants responded to specific content and presentation questions with excitement, and offered fresh ideas for outside spaces, music, installation prototypes, and walking, bicycle, and virtual tours.

When & where will we build the center?

We have a three-year plan to put the Center on a firm foundation using input from across the city. Only then will we begin building upwards. The specific site will be determined based on the recommendations of our Advisory Council. The Center will be on a bus line and not take any housing off the market. The Center will contribute to the local economy through job creation and cultural tourism while promoting a deeper understanding of our shared history and bringing renewed pride to the Queen City.

How are we raising funds?

The non-profit Center is seeking funding from varied sources, including individual and business donations, state and federal funds, foundation grants, and a kick-starter campaign. In addition, our four co-founders have begun the planning process by donating hundreds of hours writing grants and other fundraising, conducting interviews, running focus groups, and seeking publicity for the project. We have secured a Vermont Humanities Partnership Grant of $10,000 per year for three years. In the spirit of equity, all donors who give $10 or more during the first two years of our planning phase (through 2025) will be recognized as Founding Funders without donation categories in digital and print materials and on the future Center’s walls.

How will we deal with controversial issues?

At this time of national cleavage, the Center offers stories of the diverse and continuous flow of immigrants into our communities and an appreciation of their role in building Burlington. While preserving stories of conflict between existing residents and newer residents through the centuries, we will also highlight human commonalities, such as the need for food and shelter and the love of music and art. Since food carries culture, we hope to have a kitchen to provide aromas of traditional foods, whether Yankee and French Canadian or newer traditions abounding in Burlington today. Controversial subjects are often ignored in schools and at public sites. This contributes to our misunderstanding the origin of current issues, sometimes resulting in uncivil discourse in handling differences. The Center will contain communal spaces for civil discussions of serious issues. Thoughtful collaboration leads to intelligent action that can solve contemporary problems. We aspire to have a resource room for educators to discuss and write diverse history curricula. The Center will present wide diversity in our historical stories to help bring an understanding of the issues we now face.

How are we doing?

Our performance will be measured through a results-based accountability framework. Key performance indicators focus on the level of community engagement through focus groups, interviews, and survey responses, and on respondents’ diverse demographics, i.e., ethnicities, social classes, genders, orientations, ages, talents, and abilities. We will analyze historical and cultural themes and ideas that emerge to shape our plans. Our professional evaluator, donating his time, will help transform qualitative community input into quantitative data and develop robust measures to track our progress and successes.
Newspaper Carriers - Louis L. McAllister Photographs, Box B02, Folder 24, Item 03. University of Vermont Libraries. Special Collections.
Source: https://digitalcollections.uvm.edu/view/21715/burlington-daily-news?q=must,any,contains,paper%20carr