Black and white photo of a horse pulling a small cart across a wooden trestle bridge in a rural area.
A large, old mansion with classical architectural features including columns, multiple balconies, and ornate decorations. The house is surrounded by leafless trees and is accessed by a set of stairs with a curved railing.
Historical illustration of a factory with smokestacks, multiple buildings, and horse-drawn carriages in the foreground.
Black and white sketch of two women in Victorian dresses, a man in a tuxedo, and an older man in a suit, as one woman hands a glass of drink to the older man.
Black and white photo of a construction site showing wooden arch supports and scaffolding.
Black and white photo of an old wooden building with a covered porch, multiple windows, and some tables or workbenches outside.
An old sepia photograph of a large, historic house with a portico, multiple chimneys, and several windows, surrounded by leafless trees and a decorative wooden fence in the foreground.
Black and white photograph of a large tree overlooking a landscape with a river, hills, and a person standing near the trees in the foreground.

In the 1850's the voice of industry first became an effective power. It signalized a new trend in American history, for with the coming of age of the factory system the Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian republic receded into the background. Industrialism with its handmaid, science, moved America into a different world from that of the pre-Civil War generation. The California Gold Rush (1849) and the publication of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859) exemplified the new trend. The spread of a belief in evolution and the espousal of the scientific attitude profoundly affected the course of theology. 

SOCIAL FERMENT IN VERMONT

1 7 9 1 - 1 8 5 0

BY DAVID M. LUDLUM

Columbia University Press

From Cabinets of Curiosities to Science / clearing the land, exploiting the soil, sheep, and dairy

Vermont growers are a hardy lot with long winters, short growing seasons, and small tracts of soil-depleted land. They are now supported by a robust science that spearheads research and innovative responses to climate change and a sustainable agroecology, in many ways thanks to the Land Grant Act and the University of Vermont’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Our agricultural heritage is truly Morrill’s legacy as he brought the science of production to the traditions of the land.

In the 19th century, however, the sciences of agriculture and industrial technologies exploited the land to compete against the slave labor of the South and the European economies that had colonized Africa, South Asia, and South America, as America aspired to take its place in international trade. The Horticultural Movement sought a moral justification for the centralization of wealth in a handful of Northern Industrialists. In this conflicted morality and the shifting economic realities, the drums of War sounded their relentless rhythm.

The smoke of industrialism, now beginning to blacken the towns and cities of the seaboard, failed to cloud the skies above the Green Mountain communities. Factories were few and the proletariat small. Nevertheless, the industrial revolution brought important change to local economy in the 183o's and 1 84o's. The mills of southern New England demanded raw materials, and the hill country of Vermont and New Hampshire were admira­bly adapted to sheep-raising. A wool craze swept over the region, a mania as powerful as any religious fanaticism of the earlier decades, transforming the system of agriculture and reweaving the social pattern. In their eagerness to produce more and more wool the wealthy and more enterprising farmers bought up mar­ginal land and turned it into huge sheep pastures. This system of inclosure or land monopoly, as it was called, added fresh recruits to the streams of Vermonters already pouring Westward. Emi­gration, in itself a form of Utopia-seeking, indicated that a losing struggle against a hostile environment was being waged. The spiral of economic prosperity for a majority of Vermonters was downward, and the realization of this made ready converts to the schemes of social amelioration abroad in the 184o's.

SOCIAL FERMENT IN VERMONT

1 7 9 1 - 1 8 5 0

BY DAVID M. LUDLUM

Columbia University Press

1939

from collecting to inquiry

“few concepts are as mysterious and enchanting as the cabinet of curiosities. These early collections, known as wunderkammer or kunstkammer, were treasure troves of the rare, exotic, and downright strange…bringing together fossils, art, and artifacts in a celebration of discovery and wonder. These collections served as a celebration of the continued fascination with the unknown and the beautiful, a nod to the antiquarians who heralded human advancements, and a reminder that curiosity-driven design can marry history, science, and art into the living present.” M.S Rau

Cabinets of curiosities were essential precursors to modern museums and played a crucial role in the development of emerging science during early modern period. These "wonder rooms," or Wunderkammern, provided the material and intellectual foundation for empirical observation, systematic classification, and early natural history

Initially, these cabinets were personal collections of royals, merchants, and scholars, combining art, artifacts, and natural specimens with an emphasis on rarity and wonder. However, this practice of stockpiling diverse and exotic objects directly influenced the shift toward a more empirical, scientific worldview.

As collections grew, the focus shifted from a general sense of wonder to more systematic attempts at organizing the natural world.

While some cabinets included mythical artifacts, the growing demand for empirical evidence pushed collections toward verifiable, observable natural objects. The "wonders" gave way to a more disciplined focus on classification and scientific inquiry.

Anna Rubin, Director of External Relations, Fairbanks Museum & Planetarium

The Fairbanks Museum was founded in 1891 based on a Victorian "cabinet of curiosities" collected by Franklin Fairbanks, and the exhibits remain rooted in this tradition.

…settling in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, in 1824, Erastus Fairbanks formed a partnership, E. & T. Fairbanks & Co., with his brother Thaddeus for the manufacture of scales, stoves and plows. Thaddeus Fairbanks later invented the first platform scale, which made it possible to calculate the weight of farm products and other goods shipped by wagon and railroad car; the device proved so successful that the renamed Fairbanks Scales company became the largest employer in the state. Fairbanks, along with Morrill, was one of the founders of the Republican Party. He was 26th Governor of Vermont from 1860 to 1861.

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Outline of a decorative arrow with an arrowhead, shaft, and feathered tail, featuring intricate design elements.

In the need to impose order, and to attach order to morality, agriculture, industry, and science emerged as the 19th century’s embodiment of the Enlightenment. Preceded by a cacaphony of cults and moralizing, there rose a new dominant class in the industrial era. Government and sciencew were tuned to benefit the concentration of wealth, and material gain became the goal of social order, replete with theories of manifest destiny and the inherent superiority and righteousness of the dominant class. The moralism of the Horticultural Movement served in many ways to justify and embellish this domination of the land at the expense of small farms and industrial workers.