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Title: Negotiating Community Values: The Franklin County Agricultural Society Premium Lists, 1844-1889
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2017
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Abstract: This article explores the dynamic tension at play between fair organizers, local community members, and larger commercial and cultural forces through an examination of selected premiums at the Franklin County Fair in northwestern Vermont. A record book held at the University of Vermont’s Special Collections documents the Franklin County Agricultural Society and its successor, the Franklin County Agricultural and Mechanical Society, from its founding in 1844 to 1889. This study illustrates how the relative importance of agricultural and domestic labor were highlighted and renegotiated in the premium list for this community during the second half of the nineteenth century. As Leslie Prosterman, in a study of modern agricultural fairs, has noted, “by locating in a time and space dedicated to a special purpose related to but removed from everyday life and by adopting stylized procedures, judging and exhibition reorder, highlight, and comment on the everyday occupational and domestic experiences of fairgoers’ lives.”
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Burns, Chris
Publisher: University of Vermont
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Other
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