The Counterculture’s Impact on Vermont

In the late 1960s and ’70s, thousands of young migrants, largely from the cities and suburbs of New York and Massachusetts, turned their backs on the establishment of the 1950s and moved to the backwoods, small towns, and cities of rural Vermont, spawning a revolution that impacted the state’s politics, agriculture, education, business practices, and culture.

While the movement brought hippies, organic farmers, political radicals, and free thinkers to what was then one of the nation’s most conservative states, the newcomers were in turn influenced by longtime residents and their practical lessons in rural living.

The result is a most interesting state, one that blends progressive and conservative values and ideas.

Yvonne Daley is the author of more than 5000 news, feature, and magazine stories and six nonfiction books, including An Independent Man (with Senator James Jeffords), Vermont Writers: A State of Mind, Octavia Boulevard, and, most recently, Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks and Radicals Moved to Vermont.

This is a Vermont Humanities Council Event. Thank you to the Town of Springfield for sponsoring this program. Any questions contact Tracey at 885-3108.

This program will be a hybrid event join us at The Selectman’s Hall 96 Main St. Springfield VT. If you would like to join us through zoom a link will be sent to you prior to the event.