Night-Rider Legacy: Weaponizing Race in the Irasburg Affair of 1968
512 pages, 6 x9, ISBN: 978-1935052722
$30.00 paperback.
A study of the impact and consequences caused by the use of inflammatory racially-related language during a police investigation conducted by the Vermont State Police. Beginning in 1968 with the Irasburg Affair when a White man fired shotgun blasts into a home occupied by a Black family, the story describes in detail the course of the investigation. Adverse publicity about the Vermont State Police’s work alleging racism within its ranks ensued resulting in its managers withdrawing from public view and refusing to work with the legislature in the next years causing significant internal problems.
They finally came to the forefront in 1979 when a despondent trooper committed suicide at the state house in Montpelier in an event called the Router Bit Affair that led to significant reforms beginning in1980. Includes bibliographical references and an index.
By the Wand of Some Magician: Embracing Modernity in Mid-Nineteenth Century Vermont
Paperback, 6 x 9, 442 pages, illustrations. $25.00
By the Wand of Some Magician addresses the severe impact of railroad technology upon its arrival into Vermont in the mid-nineteenth century that introduced an unprepared, rural population to the effects of modernity. It is conveyed through the debates that legislators had following the destruction of their statehouse in 1857 when they considered various factors able to influence their decision in whether to relocate the capital to someplace other than Montpelier. The story revolves around three important aspects of Vermonters’ lives that the solons considered: how the railroad changed one particular community (Rutland); agriculture; and the health of the state’s inhabitants. Each of these topics is covered, with an emphasis on health. That issue has never been touched on before and includes drug addiction, abortion, and infanticide that increased substantially after the technology arrived. Additionally, new forms of business (corporations), debtor-creditor relations (grab laws), and the influence of out-of-state financiers on the direction of Vermont government and policy are discussed. Finally, there are many images that accompany the text to provide further context to the story.