The American Guide Series, produced by the Federal Writers’ Project, is one of the most well-known WPA projects. Written as a collection of travel guides, the series included suggested tour routes as well as essays on the history and culture of each U.S. state and territory. Major U.S. cities and several regions were also given their own separate guidebooks.
The state guides give a fascinating snapshot of American life in the 1930s. Written in a lively and approachable style, they detail and celebrate the rich diversity that our country displayed at that time. The writers’ enthusiasm is infectious and their guide is as much fun to read today as it must have been for travelers in the 1930s.
Several historians have written about the American Guide Series over the past 80 years, but no one, to my knowledge, has used them as current-day travel guides. That is just what I set out to do. I am an American historian, art photographer, and enthusiastic traveler. I have read each of these guides. I love them for their wonderful enthusiasm and their curiosity about every aspect of regional life—from food, to linguistics, to folklore, to statistics, to geography, to environment, to history—and especially for their liberal attitudes and respect for diversity. In this series, I will be posting photo essays and articles based upon tours recommended in the guides.
Fern L. Nesson
In the 1930s , Brattleboro was a scrappy industrial town, known for the Estey Organ factory and other assorted manufacturing businesses. The Vermont Guide mentions a few artists who were born and (pretty quickly) left the town and praises the architecture of a few of its buildings. But, in a state where beauty both natural and architectural abound, Brattleboro was not suggested as a place in which it might be found:
“Brattleboro spreads along the Connecticut from its junction with the West River south to Whetstone Brook, and climbs an irregular chain of plateaus to the west. The rocky wooded height of Wantastiquet Mountain on the New Hampshire shore of the Connecticut presses down upon the town from the east. Main Street passes from the brief charm of the Common into one of the most crowded business sections in Vermont, winds steeply down between darkened brick buildings to the native stone railroad station, south of which lie the yards and factories of the industrial flats along the river […] From the semi-circle of terraces that rise west of Main Street, houses look down upon the jumble of shed roofs and smokestacks […] [The town has] something of the loud, unlovely industrial atmosphere of Bellows Falls, where the Connecticut is even more sharply walled-in by hills.
In 1771, Stephen Greenleaf, from Boston, opened what is believed to have been the first store in the present State. Not of much significance in itself, the fact exemplifies the zeal for trade and industry that Brattleboro has always manifested to a degree equaled by few other Vermont towns. Of the many manufacturing firms that came into being during the last century, the most widely known was the Estey Organ Company […] The ‘parlor organ’ is almost as obsolete as the top buggy, but the Estey Organ Company now leads in the manufacture of multi-manual pipe organs for churches and private homes. Other commercial products of Brattleboro include cotton goods, pen-holders, brush handles, lacquer, heels, bathroom accessories, finished woods, toys, overalls, paper, soft drinks, and granite monuments and memorials.”
Vermont Guide, p. 95-7.
Almost 100 years later, Brattleboro the town looks remarkably similar to its 1930s aspect but the nature of the community has changed radically. Instead of factory workers and mills, Brattleboro is now the center of a thriving arts community. The town’s red brick and granite buildings have been repurposed into art galleries, artisanal coffee shops, sophisticated farm-to-table restaurants, music venues, and bookstores.
In one of the most radical changes, the original railroad station has become The Brattleboro Museum and Art Center. This transformation was accomplished in 1972 by a group of volunteers from the town without sacrificing either the dignified exterior or the elegant, airy interior. The waiting room still contains the original ticket windows with their extraordinary dark wood moldings and a multitude gallery spaces have been carved out of the space.
Currently, the museum is displaying the work of six artists. I was especially impressed with the work of two of the artists: Keith Haring, “Subway Drawings” and Cathy Cone, “Portals and Portraits.” Haring and Cone take radically different approaches. Haring is all about surface. His drawings fill the page with energetic outlines of figures who dance with each other in a burst of energy. They have no depth, no shadows, no mystery. Everything that Haring wants you to know about them is right there for you to see. The life that they have is one of motion, openness, and joy—and they’re eager to share it with you.
Cathy Cone’s subjects, however, are all about depth and mystery. They are masked or veiled, shaded, half—or even more than half—hidden. They keep their secrets, reminding us that we can never truly know another fully. Try as we might, there will always be something that remains hidden. This is disquieting but also reassuring. Even in an age when all seems to be public and exposed, we can take reassurance that we can keep a certain amount private, choosing to divulge some but never all of who we are.
While Haring and Cone take such different approaches, they have one essential quality in common. They are both exquisite artists. Their command of their medium and their ability to convey meaning through the visual is unsurpassed. Early spring is mud season in Vermont. You might want to skip a sightseeing drive through the Green mountains. But a trip to Brattleboro to see these exhibits, to browse in art galleries, to hear some folk music, and to eat superb fresh farm cuisine is an utterly satisfying way to spend a spring weekend.
May, 2023.
