 Welcome, all of you. This is a real pleasure to see so many people. We had no idea, especially on a nice day after the rain. We thought everybody would be in their gardens or whatever you do outside. I don't go outside, so I wouldn't know. I'm Mark Greenberg. I'm on the board of the labor hall. And a couple quick things. This is one of the occasional talks in the Tom Davis public issues series. And if you have any suggestions for speakers or people to give talks or topics, let us know here at the hall. We have a website, which is easy to access. And we have a Facebook page, if you're into that kind of thing. And our news is usually posted more or less on time on those places. We do. We're a nonprofit organization. And we have no paid staff. And we live entirely by the money. We can scrounge up from people like you and others. So here's the donation jar. It'll be on the big table over there. No, no, I have it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Thank you. It's very obedient. It minds itself. So there you go. There we go. Thank you very much. We have a close here. Really an easy crowd. Here's the most important thing of the day. So pay attention. The chairs that you're sitting in have to go on. Those racks after everything is over. And we really appreciate whatever help you can give us. It makes things go much more smoothly for all of us. Quick question. I'm curious as to how people know about this. So that we can publicize things properly. How many know from the Times-Argus? That's what I thought. Oh, a couple. Oh, some. Oh, good. How about from Facebook? How about from emails? How about from Front Porch Forum? That's interesting. OK, got it. How about Django? How about that? How about Washington? Washington. Washington. Washington. The world. The world. Oh, the world got it in. They weren't sure they were going. Good. All right. Good to know. Now I forgot what I was going to say. About three years ago, Ben started telling me about this project that was engrossing him more and more. To look into the life and writing and times of Dorothy Canfield Fisher in response to her name being eliminated from the annual prize that the Vermont Department of Libraries gave out in her name. And so over the course of many of the times we get together to play music and talk, he kept telling me more and more about this project. And I kept thinking more and more this is something that people have to hear about. And it's nice to be able to say this is really the first public sharing that Ben will be making of his research and his ideas. I think it's a very, very timely topic. Three years ago was in the midst of talking about all the taking down of statues, the changing of names of buildings, and the various things that were going on in efforts often, not always, but often to make things a little more just and fair and historically accurate even. But it's a complicated, complicated issue as I'll bet you all know and I'll bet you that's why you're here. How many, I meant to ask, how many people are librarians who are here? And I suspect that, all right. Well now that we know, Ben and I have been friends for a long time. We play music together, we bullshit together. And he has the best book shop in Vermont in Plainfield, opened by appointment. So you can speak to him about that. But let's hear what he has to say. Please make welcome. Ben came in. Thank you, Mark. And what it is, so wonderful to see so many people here. Thank you, I didn't expect this. I expected, oh, about maybe 10 if I was lucky. And here we are. So it's very nice, thank you for coming. I'm gonna read some of this, some of it I'll speak. But sometimes I just don't wanna get the facts wrong or I don't wanna leave out a fact that I think should be here, so. But several years ago, as Mark just said, I began to research the life and times of Dorothy Canfield Fisher. I was interested in the controversy that wound up surrounding her name. Can you all hear me? I mean, can I understand what I'm saying? Okay. It led me on a very fascinating journey. And this afternoon, I'd not only like you to know the results of my journey, but if possible, I'd like you to maybe, maybe I can reconstruct some parts of the journey so maybe you can come along with me. This tale that I'm gonna tell you this afternoon is about three people. Dorothy Canfield Fisher, famous author, she's the first. There's another woman named Judy Dow, she's the second. And I'm the third. I'm the guy who's trying to make sense of all of this. But first, let me give you some background. When Dorothy Canfield Fisher, when she died in 1958, she was respected and admired not only for her writing, but also for her activism. The New York Times said this about her. Writing was only one of the many facets of her energetic life. She worked in many causes, urging women to use their newfound freedoms, championing the rights of children, promoting new educational ideas, and defending humanity wherever she thought it was oppressed. Robert Frost, the poet, added this. He said, Dorothy Canfield was the great lady of Vermont. There was nothing she was happier in, than storytelling in prose and speech, unless it was doing good to everybody and anybody. Now let me back up a bit. Since 1974, when I started my book business, I've sold many books by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. But I didn't really know anything about her. Actually, there's many authors like that in my shop. I mean, you just sell the books. But every once in a while, someone would come in and they'd say, yeah, I'm collecting books by this author, Dorothy Canfield Fisher. I know she was a Vermont author. She lived somewhere south of here, somewhere way down somewhere. And then I bought some books that were signed by her. And in my business, that means you gotta do some research and find out who they were signed to, why they were signed, and how much is her autograph worth, that kind of thing. So I started to do some research. And that's when questions, I didn't realize they were there, but these questions came into my head, like out of the air. Who was this woman? Isn't there a disturbing fact about her? Wasn't she accused of something? You know, these were just out there. I didn't realize even why they were coming into my head. But I began to look for answers. In 1957, many of you know, the Vermont Department of Libraries honored Fisher by creating the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award. Vermont children were asked to read five books, excuse me, and then to vote on their favorite authors. 60 years later, in 2017, seven days, the Burlington newspaper, they had an article which they published, and it had this headline. It said, Vermont considers dumping Dorothy Canfield Fisher over ties to eugenics movement. And the article talked about a woman named Judy Dow, a French-Canadian Abonacke woman, who was quoted as saying that Fisher's writings were harmful, they were hurtful, and the article said that Fisher was a possible supporter of the Vermont eugenics movement. Dow wanted Fisher's name removed from the Children's Book Award. Six months earlier, and this one pains me a little bit, I must say, being my own political background, the Burlington Peace and Justice Center took Judy Dow's words at face value. They asked their members, quote, to take action, and they wanted them to write to the state librarian, and to use a sentence which they gave their readers to send. And the sentence was, I support a program that encourages children to read, but not one honoring the name of a eugenicist, racist, and elitist. Then came a petition on the website change.org. It was signed by nearly 200 people. It had a picture of Judy Dow, and it called Fisher, quote, an avid eugenicist, an accuser of being a white supremacist, and disdaining immigrants and the poor. In 2019, after all of this, the Vermont Department of Libraries removed Fisher's name from the award, and they renamed it the Golden Dome Award. The department distanced itself from Fisher by saying that her name was not what made the award important. And when I contacted the state librarian, Jason Broughton, he admitted that they had a very hard time with this decision, and it had been very difficult, but he added, and this is a quote, I believe your paper is one that should be directed to Miss Judy Dow. I spoke with Nancy Gallagher, who wrote a book on Vermont eugenics, and she also suggested to me that I would do well to contact Judy Dow. So I began to realize that none of this would have happened if Judy Dow had not made these allegations. In 2020, after Fisher's name had already been removed from the award, Dow added an allegation saying she was an anti-Semite. Today, the Middlebury College Library, if you go to their website, where they have some words about Dorothy Canfield Fisher, you will find that they say on there, this is their words, Dorothy Canfield Fisher may have been involved in the eugenics movement in Vermont during the 1920s and 1930s. If you Google Fisher, near the top of the list always is something about eugenics or changing the name of the award. Well, there's serious allegations. I mean, was she a eugenicist, anti-Semite, was she, you know, any of these things? You have to take them seriously, but are they true? Was Fisher really a eugenicist? Was she, quote, against the immigrant, the poor and indigenous people? Was she as evil as Dow and her followers are portraying her? Well, my journey began by reading two biographies. There are only, I believe, two full-length biographies of her, they're both on here. And by the way, these books, they're not for sale, but when we finish, I mean, if you wanna go looking through them, they're kind of interesting, the books about and by Fisher. So the first thing I did was to read these two biographies. Fisher came up with those two biographies as a saint, okay? I'm a skeptical guy. And when I was reading this book, these books, I thought, this can't be true. I mean, nobody is this good, nobody does this. And so, in fact, I began to think that Judy Dow's allegations might be true. Maybe, because nobody can be that good, and maybe these things really were, maybe she was right about them. But I kept reading, and as I was reading, more facts came out, and they added to the picture of Dorothy, and so it wound up that I began to realize that she could not be accused of what she was being accused of. Let me talk a little bit about Dorothy, I can't feel Fisher. In her day, she was a very famous and a best-selling author. Today, maybe her contemporaries are better known, people like Willa Cather or Virginia Woolf. But certainly, and so they're on a higher level, you would probably say today. But still, Fisher is noted as a New England writer, and she was a children's author, and she's noted for those things. And remember today in that way. Here are a few facts from her life, because she led an incredible, absolutely incredible life. Many of the things in those biographies that I've read were true. With Eleanor Roosevelt, she was one of two white women who served on the board of the Black University, Howard University. And Eleanor Roosevelt said of her at that time, Dorothy Canfield Fisher probably has exerted a greater influence on the average American through her books than any other single individual. She was on the selection committee for 26 years of the Book of the Month Club. I'm assuming, looking around, that most of you know what the Book of the Month Club was. But I mean, they would send you a book every month and the selection committee chose those books. That meant that she furthered the career of the African American author, Richard Wright. She furthered the career of the Pulitzer Prize winner, Pearl Buck, and many other authors. Because she was, so she was really influencing the reading habits of the American public. She broke barriers. She was the first woman to get a PhD from Columbia University. She was the first woman to serve on the Vermont State Board of Education. She was a scholar. She spoke five languages fluently. She received multiple honorary degrees. She was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Dartmouth College or University. There's a dormitory named at my alma mater, Goddard College after her. And she was served on the first board of Goddard College first when it was a seminary here in Barry and then when it moved to Plainfield. She was also on the first board of Bennington College when it opened. In 1911, she went to Rome and visited Maria Montessori, the innovative educator. She wrote the first American book on Montessori. She wrote four other books on that subject on Montessori's methods. Fisher and her husband, John, sort of looking ahead to the future, I would assume, planted 10,000 white pine trees on their land in Arlington, Vermont. It's a forest today, by the way, as you can imagine. During the First World War, her husband joined the American Ambulance Field Service. He was a Quaker and so was involved in that kind of service. She left Vermont and she joined her husband. She brought her two young children and she accompanied him to Paris and she brought along a printer that could print in braille and she used it for soldiers who had lost their sight during the war. This is the First World War. When her daughter came down with typhoid fever, she left Paris with her children and went to the southern part of France, where it was warmer. And soon after that, Paris actually was bombed and when it was bombed, her friends sent a dozen children out of Paris for her to take care of in the southern part of France and then she founded a home there for 40 children and she found shelter for 200 more children there. You can see why I was thinking this can't be real, but she did these things. During the Second World War, she experienced some tragedy when her husband, who was a surgeon, died in the Philippines during the war. And after the war, she chaired the Committee for Amnesty for all objectives to war and conscription. She and the group gained pardons and prison releases for conscientious objectors after the war. Now, here's one that I love. Surely before we got into World War II, a couple of children in Vermont here came up with an idea to collect pennies which they would then send to children overseas to help them because of the war. And well, Fisher took that idea and she formed an organization called the Children's Crusade for Children. And this is the best part. She convinced the American publishers of Hitler's Mein Kampf, she convinced them to give $35,000, this is in the 1940s, to give $35,000 from the profits of the book to handle all of the administrative costs of this crusade. And therefore, every penny that the kids collected would go to children in war-torn countries overseas. And presumably, Hitler would get a little less money, by the way. This Children's Crusade was publicized across the nation. President of the United States supported it and it raised over $130,000 and that would be almost $3 million today. But then, it represented 13 million pennies. The kids collected these pennies. So, now all of these facts that I'm telling you are true. They can be verified, they're all true. This is Dorothy Canfield Fisher. She was an active, energetic woman who used her life, her intellect and her time to do as much good as she possibly could. Now, as I learned more about Fisher, I was also learning about Judy Dow. Dow was emerging as a source of all of the Fisher accusations. She was the first and the foremost critic. Now, let me tell you some things about Judy Dow. First of all, and I want you to understand this and remember it, she's not an ogre, all right? She has a belief that the eugenics movement targeted French Canadians and Abonacchi, of which she is both. And she has done a lot of research about the eugenics movement and she has actually educated us about that kind of very low time in Vermont's history. She's on the butchee, but she also serves on the board of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. She's also a director of an organization that plants and harvests Native American heirloom seeds. And not long ago, I watched her address a group called Standing Trees. It's a group that works to protect and restore New England's native forests. Her knowledge of agriculture, land use, climate change, those kinds of things is actually quite extensive. And so although, I should tell you that earlier, I contacted her early on. She reminded me that we have actually met a number of times over the years and she was kind enough to send me some information that I've used for my research. So although I maintain the right to criticize Judy Dow about the accusations she has made against Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and you will see I feel very strongly about that, I also want you to know that she is more than just those accusations. As any of us should not be judged by any one thing that we do in our life, okay? Keep that in mind, because I think it's a very important point. And I would have hoped that people thinking about Dorothy Canfield Fisher would have thought the same way. So anyway. Well, Judy Dow's accusations took on a life of their own. They appeared on TV, newspapers, in public interviews, they were online. The Department of Libraries debated them. The state library board struggled with them. And the charges are very serious. Most often Judy Dow calls Fisher a eugenicist. So was Fisher a eugenicist? This is the question that occupied me, and certainly in the first part, but it still occupies me today. Let me talk about eugenics. I have found, by the way, that there are many people who don't know what you do. It's like accusing somebody of something that nobody knows what it is, but they think it must be a bad thing. Well, eugenics has to do with this either. It's to make the human race better. That was the idea. You're gonna discourage reproduction by people who have kind of undesirable traits. And we're gonna encourage people to reproduce who have desirable traits. It seemed like a helpful idea in the beginning. People like Helen Keller, Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander Gray and Bell, Clarence Dara, a lot of people sort of thought it was a pretty good thing in the beginning. But it turns out that that has some awkward questions about it, right? I mean, what does an improved human being look like? Does it have the same skin color? Do we all have the same skin color, or do we all have the same religion? I mean, what is this person gonna look like? And who's gonna make the decision as to what we're all gonna look like and what's gonna be an improved human being? But in the beginning, I was trying to see whether eugenics and Dorothy Canfield Fisher got together somehow. Where did they intersect? And a typical example, one of the books right here actually is Edwin Black's book War Against the Weak Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. In it, he never mentions Dorothy Canfield Fisher. And in all of the books about eugenics, you don't find her showing up. But he does mention Vermont's real eugenicist, a guy named Henry Perkins. And Perkins was a university of Vermont zoology professor, and he taught eugenics in his classes. He founded an organization called the Eugenics Survey of Vermont. And he directed it for 11 years. So he was very much involved in all of this. In order to root out defective, so-called defective bloodlines, this survey would do sort of genealogies of degenerate families, people they consider degenerate families. So they would see whether this degeneration or degenerates, whether they would kind of come through the line and make other people defective as well. And it also publicized, and they were very interested in how much tax money was going in to caring for defective people, okay? So they're gonna save us some dough by finding these degenerate families. Perkins is the person most responsible for injecting eugenics into Vermont society. In 1931, he helped to convince Vermonters to pass a law for human betterment by voluntary sterilization. But today, no sane person really believes that Perkins did anything to improve life for people in the Green Mountain State. In 2021, you may remember that both houses of the Vermont legislature voted unanimously to apologize for Vermont's sterilization law. If we say both houses unanimously, I want you to remember we're talking about both Republicans and Democrats, right? And independents, everybody voted this way. It can be done every once in a while. State Senator Brian Cullamore, if I'm pronouncing his name right, this is how he explained it. And by the way, he's a Republican. It was thought that we could study everyone from every walk of life and determine how we can make a better stock. But significant harm was done in the name of human betterment. We did not apply these same principles of delinquency, dependency, and deficiency to everyone. Only the poor, those deemed by others to have defects, and those who were clearly of a different ethnicity than those making the determinations. I love the way he phrased it, and I wish he was a Democrat, but what can I do? Anyway, currently sterilization is a form of birth control. I'm here to report to you that I've been sterilized, right? When I had enough kids and decided not to have any more, I was sterilized to make reasons. So it didn't happen. But in the, so it didn't happen again. But in the large part of the 20th century, it was used abusively. It became a weapon instead of a choice. All of us is to say that Judy Dow and I, and our elected officials apparently, are in total agreement about the atrociousness of the eugenics movement. We agree about that. But there's still the question, was Dorothy Canfield Fisher a eugenicist? This has become the most publicized charge against Fisher. Let me give you some history. When the country life movement, there was a rural movement, the country life movement across the United States, and its mission was to improve rural life, evening up city life and rural life. That was their mission. They were gonna have better roads, better schools in the rural areas. In 1928, it came to Vermont. And Perkins created a new organization. I remember he had already created the Eugenics Survey of Vermont. This was a different organization. And because he was connecting with the country life movement, it was called the Vermont Commission on Country Life. Many well-known Vermonters joined committees, and they all began to find what the problems were, what the opportunities were gonna be in Vermont. And they put out a book finally. It's out there somewhere. There's a book called Rural Vermont. And it was a program for the future by 200 Vermonters. It contained all of the final reports of those committees. And there were governors and politicians, but also just regular people on those committees at 200 Vermonters. It was a big deal. Because of its eugenic, rich origins, and because Fisher served on two committees, Judy Dow believes that Fisher's participation in the Vermont Commission on Country Life is proof that she was a eugenicist. As it turns out, however, the book itself is less about eugenics and more about lots of other rural topics. For example, there was a Committee on Rural Government, or a Committee on Topography and Climate in the States. There were committees on forestry in the woodworking industry, or committees on tourism and things like that. So there was all kinds of committees looking at all aspects of life in Vermont. As the eugenics itself, there were contradictions in many sections. Because Judy Dow speaks about her French-Canadian heritage, and many people in Vermont have that heritage. And also in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan, believe it or not, was active in central Vermont especially. And so, and they were against, we didn't have too many black people here, but they were against Catholics and against French-Canadian Catholics coming down from Canada. So, I thought I'd be seeing some denigrating of French-Canadian Catholics in the book. It seemed like a natural for this, if it was eugenics they were talking about. But instead I found something like no one can doubt but that the Catholic Church is earnest in its desire to make good American citizens as well as good Catholics of these newcomers. Residents were being asked to integrate people into their communities. And here's one that I happened to find personally enjoyable, but this was a way to get people in. It said folk songs, dances, and other forms of artistic expression are in the blood of these people. If they could but be given a suitable outlet and receive the appreciation they deserve, they could add greatly to the enrichment of rural life. Let's get them in. They've got things to add. Their immigrants who might be good for us. Now remember, this is a direct quote from this book that's supposedly advocating against these defective people so on these recent immigrants. There are two chapters in the book about eugenics. One is called the people of Vermont and one is called the care of the handicapped. And these chapters do tell us to be aware of our ancestry, choose our mates wisely, have lots of children to keep up quote the good old Vermont stock. Importantly, Dorothy Canfield Fisher contributed nothing and wrote nothing for either of the two eugenics committees. And this point is very important because now often uses the phrase two subcommittees as an implication that Fisher was a eugenicist because of the two committees she served on. Her committees were the conservation of Vermont traditions and ideals, that was one committee, and a committee on educational facilities for rural people. One committee expressed, among other things, putting French books into libraries for our new population here in Vermont. And the other committee published a series of anthologies of Vermont writers and things of that sort that they put out and folk songs, they put out a book on folk songs. They advocated to preserve Vermont's history, architecture, and its culture. There's only one book that's devoted solely to Vermont eugenics, it's got the greatest title of all. Nancy Gallagher wrote a book called Breeding Better Vermonters, the eugenics project in the Green Mountain State. Gallagher makes two references, two short references to Dorothy Canfield Fisher. She says she was probably the most famous person to be part of that group and in that book. And she also says that since Fisher wrote a book condemning anti-Semitism that she couldn't believe that she was a eugenicist. This is Nancy Gallagher's thoughts about it. Gallagher adds another thing which is very important. She says probably many, if not most, of the participants in the rural survey paid little attention to eugenics and used rural Vermont as a forum to promote their own agendas and an opportunity to renew their commitment to the traditions of the state. That's pretty much what Fisher was doing. Using rural Vermont, Gallagher tries to paint Fisher as a eugenicist when Fisher was compared to the prominent eugenicists of that era or when we analyze the committees that she served on, we can see that Dow's assertion is untrue. In fact, before Judy Dow made, became involved in this, no one thought that Fisher was a eugenicist and the historians still don't. Search for Fisher's name in relevant books, read her published letters or peruse as I have peruse over 560 citations in the New York Times of Dorothy Canfield Fisher. And if you look at all of those, you'll find that her name is never attached to any eugenics enterprise. And yet, the explosive headline in seven days proclaimed that eugenics was the major reason to remove Fisher's name from the Children's Book Award. And Dow has often called her a eugenicist. Now, if she wasn't a eugenicist, she would have been celebrated in 19, celebrating in 1907 because Indiana, the state of Indiana, passed the first law in the world making sterilization mandatory for quote, criminals, idiots, rapists and imbeciles. Short of actually killing defective, so-called defective citizens, the American eugenics movement at that time, 1907, had now concocted its cruelest conception. Nancy Gallagher writes, sensitively, that sterilization deprived certain vermonitors of their humanity and demanded of them that they sacrifice their parenthood for the presumed benefit of other people's children. Addressing his support for eugenic sterilization, a Vermont state senator named Gaylord Baldwin proclaimed that the feeble-minded quote, breed like rats. And this apparently convinced him to vote in 1931 for Vermont's sterilization law. Eventually, over 250 vermonters, we don't have an exact number, over 250 vermonters were sterilized under that law. By the way, it was supposed to be a voluntary law, but voluntary sometimes meant that if you were in jail and you wanted to get out, they would say to you, well, you get sterilized and we'll get you out, you volunteer to be sterilized. So it was used really abusively. Some questions come to my mind, were Fisher and Senator Baldwin of the same mind did they both think like that about breeding like rats? Was Fisher in favor of sterilizing vermonters? The fourth annual report of the eugenic survey of Vermont declared this, defects do not actually breed out ever. And I love this, but they may be kept in abeyance indefinitely by favorable matings. So you can marry the right person, you can be saved. Well, only one year after the sterilization law went into effect in Indiana, Fisher wrote a story called At the Foot of Hemlock Mountain. At first, she describes the town of Hemlock of Hillsborough as an idyllic Vermont village, but we find out there's a problem there because a guy named Nelson's petting group is out drinking with his buddies and his mother wants him to come home and sober up. Well, Nelson's late father we find out was an alcoholic and Nelson seems to be on the same path. A eugenicist would have wanted to sterilize Nelson so that he wouldn't be passing his quote defect onto his own kids. So here's what Fisher wrote about that subject. Now imagine if you can, for I can even faintly indicate to you our excitement when Nelson begins to look about him for a wife. It occurs to us that perhaps the handsome fellow's immense good humor and generosity are as good inheritance as someone who never drinks a drop. Perhaps at some future date, all people who are not perfectly worthy to have children will be kept from it by law. In Hillsborough, we think that after such a decree, the human race would last just one generation. I mean, if I'm understanding, apparently you understood her already. If I'm understanding her correctly, she's saying that probably we all have defects and therefore if there's a law that says you can't reproduce if you have defects, it's gonna wipe us all out. Fisher famously advocated for many causes, but we find no proof that she ever advocated for sterilization. Her words are not those of a eugenicist. Let me look at another Dow accusation because after rural Vermont came out, Fisher and this Vermont Traditions and Ideals Committee, they had a series of Green Mountain pamphlets and the second one is called Tourists Accommodated. It was attacked in seven days in this way. More unflattering references to French Canadians come in Tourists Accommodated, the play that Fisher wrote in 1932 to help popularize tourism in Vermont. When a French-speaking man and woman knock at the door of a Vermont farm that has just started taking in lodges, Aunt Nancy, the lady of the house, urges them to go home. All right, this is what is being reported. Well, in the 1930s, you can imagine that we were in the beginning of the Depression and citizens were searching for financial ways to keep the state going and Vermont was a beautiful state, it's still a beautiful state. So why not attract tourists? Everyone would get some money that way. One day, Fisher and her neighbors decided to concoct a humorous play poking fun at tourist tourism and also the Vermonters themselves. Tourists Accommodated is a play and it's a comedic farce. In one scene, some city folk inquire about purifying water that they're gonna drink and the farmer they're talking to says, looking for laugh, I guess, it says, no, we drink it raw. Or newlyweds, tired of people teasing them when they go looking for a bed, they bring along a doll eventually and they say it's a real baby and then at some point they throw the doll into an off of a bridge and the people think that they're killing the baby, that they're murdering this baby. So building on that kind of silly stuff, which I would say is pretty silly, a French Canadian mother and a son arrive just before they enter, there's a monologue that says it explains tourists all talk the same way. They ask the same questions, they all talk the same way and suddenly these Canadians arrive and they're speaking French. They're clearly not talking the same way. So and eventually, because of problems with the English and French language that can't translate, I mean this is part of this play, Aunt Nancy does come in and she tries to settle the situation. She says, treat them gentle but firm, don't ever cross crazy folks. And then she tells the Canadians has been reported, go home, she says, home. Now it's at this point that I think Judy Dow forgot that the dialogue continues. If you were to stop there, you would agree with Judy Dow but it doesn't stop there. Her Aunt Nancy's family continued and they correct her and they say they're not crazy, they're French. And she answers and she said, oh, is that all? So this scene is supposedly presenting the charge that Fisher wants French speaking Canadians to go back to Canada. In reality, it's a punchline. In a light evening's entertainment, a witty rural comedy meant for a Saturday night perhaps in the Arlington Town Hall. It isn't one of Fisher's best, this is my opinion but it's not one of her best works but it certainly is not denigrating French Canadians. Multiple times, Judy Dow has accused Fisher of being a racist and a white supremacist. One indication that this is incorrect is that in the 1920s, Fisher got a special invitation to go down to New York and to appear in a Harlem theater. She found herself to be the only white woman in that theater, all the rest were black. And she was asked to give an award to a young woman who had won this award and was going to Paris to study art. And she explained to the audience that she had seen French award ceremonies and she was gonna present the award the way the French would. She pinned the award on the woman's dress and then she kissed her on both cheeks. The audience was reported to have gasped and then to have burst into applause. You know, maybe she wouldn't have described herself this way but Fisher, all of the evidence shows that she was a social activist, she agitated against race discrimination. In addition to her service on the board of Howard University and her advocacy for black writers, Fisher spoke at meetings of the NAACP alongside black leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and others. A racist, a white supremacist. It's another false fact. It's another, now I'm just trying to take some of these accusations and work through them. I hope you're with me here. There is a Fisher short story entitled In New New England. It has a positive Native American theme. Fisher describes two 18th century sisters who are traveling in seek of a medical cure for the older sister. They're looking for, their destination is an Indian herb doctor whose specialty was curing girls who had gone into decline. Frankly, I don't know exactly what that means but that's what they were looking for. It was in the 18th century, it takes place. The older sister describes her feelings about this Indian healer and she says, I like Maston across it, she says. He is a good old man and I know that he will cure me. He makes me feel very rested when he comes near. Eventually, they name a river in honor of this Native American healer. However, the Seven Days article highlights a phrase that Fisher's novel Bonfire, a very complex novel that she wrote in 1933 and Judy Dow believes that this phrase is insulting to her ancestors. A man who abuses his wife and doesn't provide for his family is described by a character in the book and this is what he says, he's earned enough work and for me winters in the woods to take care of him if he wanted to but he's half hound, half hunter, all Indian. Although a rural for Monter at that time might have said that, unfortunately, might have spoken that way, Judy Dow claims that by writing this phrase, Fisher was insulting and denigrating all Native Americans. Claiming that, if you claim that a fictional phrase represents an author's, if it's coming out of one of the characters in a book, you can't really do that, you can't say that's so. Here are some of Fisher's, an interpretation that Fisher gave about fiction, which he said about fiction, because Frederick Wakeman's novel called The Huxters was chosen in 1946 as a book at the Month Club selection and a young mother was very upset by the book and she wrote to them and she said that she thought the sex scenes in that book were disturbing to her young daughter. Fisher wrote back to her as a member of the selection committee and she said that the horrible course details are a part of telling truthfully this story. We need these course details even if we disagree with them. Without them, we will be producing very superficial and unreal fiction. It's hard with fiction and you can pull a phrase out as Judy Dow has done and sometimes I must say I probably have done too and it speaks to you but it may not actually be the thoughts of the author. You don't always know. If we're looking for a novelist's true beliefs, the overall essence of a fictional story should be considered. Extracting certain words or phrases without taking the entire work into account only gives us a partial window in which to understand or misunderstand an author's thoughts. Another method that I would say to search for an author's opinions outside would be to look outside their actual fictional writings. In Fisher's case, her beliefs were not a secret. She led a very public life and she donated time, effort and the use of her name to a long list of humanitarian and educational organizations. I'm gonna apologize in advance for reading this list but I'm gonna read you a list of the organizations that she worked for and subscribed to. I got all of the names of these out of the New York Times archives so they're actually, they're real. They're in alphabetical order. The American Association of Adult Education. The American Society for Race Tolerance. The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. The Child Study Association. The Child Welfare Information Service. The Children's Crusade for Children. The Council Against Intolerance in America. The Council for Democracy. The National Association for the Advancement of Colon People but the NAACP. The National Conference of Christians and Jews. The National Mental Health Foundation. The National Youth Administration. The New York City Federation of Women's Clubs. The Nonsectarian Foundation for Refugee Children. The Presiding Bishops Fund for World Relief. The Social Legislation Information Service and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and there were others besides that. Fisher committed herself to all of these organizations advocating for a world without war, seeking enhanced educational opportunities for all citizens, strengthening our democratic institutions and speaking out in favor of racial, religious, and gender equality. In 1943, she wrote to Pearlbuck, a famous author, and she said this, about the Jew-hating, Negro-baiting, ignorant mob, I say nothing, because they are nativism, unqualified by any intelligent thought at all. Such members of the mob were supporters of Hitler, exist alas in all nations, and are only kept from power by the concerted efforts of more civilized people. That's Fisher. Perhaps you can see why I'm having such a hard time with Judy Dow's accusations. Sometimes I'm angry, sometimes I'm sad, sometimes I'm confused. Let me just journey on a little bit further. Excuse me. Another constant accusation is that Fisher is supposed to be an elitist. I use that word, elitist. In 1949, in Holiday Magazine, she published an article that was she was issuing a warning to wealthy people who might want to visit Vermont. If you assume the manner of those who think the people who make beds and fry eggs are not as good as you, they'll hardly hope you will move on. Everybody in sight is as human as you are. She believed that people who thought their wealth made them more deserving of a place than others, that they should perhaps vacation somewhere else. She never directly excludes people because of race, creed, nationality, skin color, or religion. But wealth, that was a problem for her. I don't know if she would identify herself as a socialist, but she was very friendly with all the socialists, and certainly her feelings were headed in that direction. Now, broadening on the subject of wealth, Judy Dow has said this about Fisher, quote, and the reason she did not want bankers to come to Vermont is because they were primarily Jews. Dow's implication is that Fisher was an anti-Semite. Now, being Jewish, this caught my eye. Here are some Jewish facts about Fisher. Fisher's 1939 novel called Season Timber portrayed a school administrator standing up to a wealthy anti-Semite, another one. During World War II, she actively worked to get the American government to ease its immigration restrictions and admit more Jewish refugees who were trying to escape the Holocaust. Fisher also was the honorary chairperson of the Women's Advisory Council of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In 1936, she wrote her literary agent, and this is what she said. I hope I've made myself clear on the Jewish question. I think race prejudice is creeping in insidiously to American life. For instance, I bet you a nickel at the country club of your own town of Scarsdale is closed to Jews. I'm ashamed of it, she said. Once again, I can't fathom why she's being maligned in this way. She certainly was not an anti-Semite. Here's an example of Fisher on poverty. In 1935, Eleanor Roosevelt and Fisher, and about eight other women, not about eight other women, contributed essays to the book Why Wars Must Cease. This was 1935. They were looking ahead at what was coming. Although she was an anti-war advocate, and she's writing in an anti-war book, right? Fisher's essay tells us to bring empathy and understanding to poverty-stricken people who join the armed forces to escape the difficult lives. Then she talks about poverty, and this is what she says. Poverty is not so much a moral crime as a fatally stupid mistake. A nation she'd call itself disgraced if even one of its citizens is living so poorly, so unbeautifully, so hopelessly, that war, war was an exclamation point. War can even for an hour seem a change for the better. Now compare, I mean that's vintage Fisher, OK? Compare it with Judy Dow's online quote. She says, Fisher's writing is permeated by racist and elitist ideas. You must be gathering by now my thesis that Judy Dow's remarks totally misrepresent Dorothy Canfield Fisher's actual beliefs. So what do you make of all this research that I've done? Let me give you some of the final thoughts here. As I write this, librarians, authors, teachers, and elected officials are being threatened because of the contents of books, often in this charged atmosphere, if I don't identify with one group, I'm going to be accused of being on the other side with another group. There are no comfortable places anymore between extremist point of views. Also, political correctness is sometimes preventing frank discussion. And Judy Dow's assertions are a good example. Why aren't they challenged more often? Could it be that a question of my fear being labeled as anti-Abonaki or just being on the wrong side of the fence? Excuse me. Describing his expertise in spreading untruths, Adolf Hitler once wrote, the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down. Today, inaccurate information online is often difficult to refute. It lives on maybe forever. When she decided to condemn Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Judy Dow had choices. She could have simply disagreed with some of Fisher's words. Instead, she decided to destroy Fisher with labels. Fisher herself once wrote about these labels. She said, no matter how mixed up the human problem we are trying to understand, we can clap down on it one or another of these ready-made labels, bad, good, schizophrenic, introverted, and we pretend that we have the answer by putting that label on. But eventually, we're baffled by a page and an account book which, no matter how you figure it, never jibes with the cash on hand. I love the way she writes. That was a wonderful writer. And that's how I feel about the accusations against Fisher, although they don't add up. They are being hardened through repetition, and they will probably continue to exist, despite the injustice that they have caused. Given the overwhelming evidence of Fisher's good works and good intentions, Judy Dow could have truthfully admitted that Fisher was deserving of praise for those admirable activities, despite some reservations. It would have caused less turmoil. It would have been more honest. Fisher's commendable efforts and Dow's reservations could have coexisted. But Dow's approach, heavy-handed accusations, amplified by the media, and pressuring a board into action is becoming disturbingly common. I've read about it almost every day in the papers. A verdict under pressure might end a public controversy, but it can also produce an unjust result. That's why I'm so disheartened by the Vermont Department of Library's decision to remove Fisher's name from the Children's Book Award. Even though it was based on questionable, I would call it questionable information, it has permanently stained her reputation. If Fisher's life is viewed as a whole, there is really no way she can be defined by all the names that she is now being called. The staff of the Vermont Department of Library's chose to become fellow travelers with Judy Dow. They didn't perform the in-depth research that would undoubtedly have led them to a different outcome. Instead, they became participants in the character assassination of Fisher. It doesn't take us long to discover that Vermont's eugenics movement was deplorable, but Dorothy Canfield Fisher was not a eugenicist. With more time, more care, and more understanding, this entire episode would have concluded differently. I also find it particularly distressing that the Burlington Peace and Justice Center has accepted Judy Dow's assertions without question. Stated on its website, the Center's admirable purpose is to quote, work on the interconnected issues of peace, human rights, and economic, social, and racial justice. Fisher spent the bulk of her life advocating for those very same issues. Instead of peace and justice, this group enhanced Dow's malicious accusations. Finally, the question remains, why has Fisher been singled out and accused of eugenics leanings? Unfortunately, I don't have a clear answer for that. There are certainly others who are more deserving of that negative label. Perhaps her accusers don't fully understand the activist life that she led, or how indirect was her connection to eugenics. Today, it has become too easy to make a judgment based on partial information, put out the big lie, have others amplify it, and convert groups of people into believing a falsehood is actually the truth. And alarmingly, because of how social media operates today, apparently a single person can put out some misinformation and have it speed up and become unstoppable. Earlier, I mentioned that Judy Dow spoke to the Standing Trees organization. It reminded me that Fisher and her husband had planted 10,000 trees near their home in Arlington. And this is ironic to me, but if Fisher were alive today, she and Judy Dow would probably find themselves allied in their common desire for a more peaceful, respectful, and responsible use of our planet's resources. They would also be united in their eagerness to end all forms of prejudice and discrimination. Given Fisher's unquestionable, unquestionably, sorry, given Fisher's unquestionably positive qualities, I think her life should not be distorted or erased. In fact, it should be celebrated. Young people, especially young women, would benefit from studying and learning from her example. Or better still, we all could use a good dose of a life like hers. She published 22 works of fiction, 18 works of nonfiction, numerous magazine articles and book reviews. She also appeared on public stages vocally advocating for the many humanitarian causes she supported. She worked to eradicate racism, end the cycles of war, strengthen educational opportunities, and help the state of Vermont. She also labored to improve the lives of the poor, the immigrant, and the unjustly disadvantaged. If she is to be judged, let her be judged on that. Thank you. First of all, anyone that has to leave, please do so. If you've got to use a bathroom, please do so. If you have any questions or if you have anything that you'd like to talk about, let me know. Yes. Yes. Hi, I'm Mary Alice Bissby. I grew up in Watesfield, and if you've read any of those and Nancy Gallagher's book, you'll find that Watesfield was the good town, and there was another town that was mostly French-Canadian, and Dupes was a poor cow in that magazine. But I wanted to say that I wrote back with this whole library fiasco, which is going on, and said that I did not want to have her taken off with the children's book, say, whatever. But my aunts went to Boston University back in the 1920s, she was a big, she was their mom. She was a wonderful person for them. And during World War II in Watesfield, she started the Camp MacArthur Players, and the Camp MacArthur Players, if you've ever been to the Ballet Theater over there, it's the same place. And she started the Camp MacArthur Players, they were New York high school students that came up from, was it back street one of the big private schools down there, and they came up here and they picked vegetables for the farmers because all the soldiers had gone off, all the young people had gone off to work. So these teenagers came up here, picked vegetables, and then they put on a wonderful place for those kids. So I just wanted to say that, and to say that she was a wonderful writer. At that time, I mean, now we talk about abortion as a vacation, and abortion is not mentioned in this whole query, but I think the French, Canadian, and the Native, those of us on Yankee, these steps, who came over in the 1600s in my family, you know, there was a kind of a difference between them, like a lot of things are now. But my mother was an Irish Catholic, and my father was a Yankee. So I was right in the middle of all that, but I just thank you then for bringing this all up. Thank you, Mary Alice, and Mary Alice, I've read you a letter, but I researched all the letters that were written at that time, including yours. Yes. I was just wondering if you would give consideration to have a detailed speech of your presentation here as delivered to the library committee for their education. Yeah, I mean, I really think what you said about them not doing individual research is pretty apparent. It is the board of libraries for our state, and even if it's not made a matter of their minutes for one meeting, if it was submitted in that reason to have them able to chop this thing over and flush more of it out. Well, there's a camera back there that's been looking at me, and a cameraman has been looking at me, and some microphones around me, so but. I think it was actually directed. Yeah, we could do that, I guess it could be done. Yeah, thank you for that suggestion. And on a similar note, have you sent that paper to the seven days? I haven't sent it to seven days, and I haven't sent it directly, even though I corresponded with Judy Dow in the beginning when I first started. I haven't done it lately, but that's a good idea. I should, yeah. Do you understand what Guck has started on this? Judy, Judy Dow? What, say it again. Do you understand why she started on this campaign against this? I'm not sure. Well, here's the thing. So when I first read her accusations, and I hadn't read a lot by Dorothy Canfield, so I started reading Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and you can do this with any author, but if you have in your head that there's something bad gonna come out, you look for that. And I did, I started reading, and I would find phrases that, she was a writer and she lived from 1879 to 1958. So, I mean, we're talking about not so long after the Civil War, through World War I, through World War II. I've left out some parts. She also was against the McCarthy, against McCarthy and she advocated against the House on American Activities Committee. So, she covered quite a lot of ground. And so, I would say that, the original question, I'm sorry, I got talking about this now. What questions did you have, sir? What got her started, I'm not sure, but I can imagine that had she begun to look for these phrases and stuff, she would find them. You'd find a phrase, but making a mistake, as I've said, of judging a whole person's idea, a whole person's thought processes, by the words that come out of a character in a book, is unfair to the author. I mean, otherwise, we'd never have odd characters in books, right? I mean, I think, yep. Hi, my name's Debbie Woodman, and I asked Judy Dowell starting this because she had family members that were part of the eugenics survey, 600 and some odd members that were traced. It's true, right? And she was upset about that. At the same time, her going after Dorothy Canfield Fisher upset me greatly. My great aunt took care of the Canfield Fisher family for five generations. So I knew the history, and I just, you did a wonderful job what you have said. She's one of the most treasured. And on another note, I questioned Judy Dowell. She has made a living off what she's been doing. She's an educator of indigenous people. Judy Dowell is also my husband's first cousin, and she does not have ending Indian blood in her. She has been portraying herself as indigenous. And it's just not true. So everything you see here, taken at face value, that makes you ignorant. For water, when I'm a genealogist, I do my family genealogy. Growing up after my mom died, my dad gave me some papers. I had names, no days, no places. And I thought, who would these people be? But there were notes at the bottom and one of the notes said, Mary Montgomery, my maiden name is Montgomery. Mary and a man named Gutson Gordlow. Gutson Gordlow carved my brushmore. And I read this page and I said, no way. Because my mom told me only to read half of what I saw here and read. The part you choose is up to you. That got me into genealogy, so I started doing work. Mary Williams, my family's father was born in Walden, Vermont. And she did Mary Gutson Gordlow. She was his second wife. At the same time, you may think of Water Gutson Gordlow because of her not brushmore. He also had ties to the KKK. So, if you pick your friends, can pick your family. Yeah, thanks for pointing out. I've got a book here that she's my dad. I've got Thomas Georgian, no pictures. And he autographed me in 1930. He was a patient at the Fitzords Initarium and my Aunt Burt used to go get him and bring him to spend time with her when she was at Burt. Wow, what a connection you have. The sister would not have taken therapy, then. She loved children. Thanks for pointing out. And she was also told to death. Yeah. Oh, she was deaf. She was deaf and she was very short. And she always said that when people would invite her to speak and they were always surprised when she showed up because she was so short. She needed to have some kind of a stand to her. But she was deaf. And in fact, in A Tourist Accommodated, one of the funny characters in that play that she wrote is deaf. It's a deaf old woman in funny clothing that she put into that thing. She was making fun of her own thing, so. Yes? Just a little question about the suggestion that instead of making you do all the work, maybe if everyone here go to the Department of Libraries and vote for the Peace and Justice Center in seven days to make this argument, that might have enough to do it. Spoken as a former representative that they sound very political here. Organized. Well, thank you. That's a good suggestion. Anyone else? Yes, Tom? Yeah, thank you for doing this, because finally, after five years, I'm going to be able to get rid of the power force around my neck. This story with Judy Dowd and the Department of Libraries was front-page news in the seven days. And there were two public meetings up at the State Library in Berlin. It's now Fisher Game Building. And I attended both of those meetings. And there were, I think, an handful of people, six people, maybe a whole of these people were there. The outcome might have been different. But anyway, I attended those two public meetings. And then I went to see Scott Murphy, who was then the State Librarian in the Pavilion building. I had long conversations with him about it. And he stutely, for two years, decided to do nothing. And then when the new one came in back, the deal was done. But because you've done this, I have, what the gentleman over there said, I have a briefcase full of research that I did for years. And at one point, I said, you know what? I'm just going to throw this stuff out, because it's just just a chain around my neck. What good is it? And then at other times, I took out the throw it out. And then I saw the poster with your thing. And I'm gone. I'm not going to be able to throw it out all because I'm sure there's some stuff in here that could be of use to your thing. I should like to add there's so much in there. But I just want one thing is like when you were referring to the tourist accommodated thing. And in the introduction of the tourist accommodated there's a passage which really reveals how in fact, did Dorothy Canfield Fisher's name become associated with this, the commission of Vermont Country Life and whatnot. This guy Perkins was real sneak. I have letters of his to various individuals. I'll give them to you. Quarantine, like, well, we can't do this because we can't arouse suspicions and this, that, and the other thing. He was the secretary of that thing. So he compiled the 16 committees, and they were like potato farmers, apple orchards, all kinds of what? And he split in his eugenics survey in there, on, you know, and so all the other people involved. But here's the, this is regulatory. Can you talk about Carpets? I'm sorry? Can you talk about Carpets? I'm talking about Carpets, yes. So this is like she got together with some neighbors and they're creating this force play and this is going to be funny and whatnot. And she says, you know, we still left for ourselves, we might never have ventured to get it printed. But we were not left to ourselves, the printed being the tourist accommodated play. Just as our typewriter copies were wearing out entirely, they were appeared on the scene. The group of Vermont was known as the committee for the conservation of Vermont traditions and ideals. I must not fail to mention the fact that I have frequently heard members of this committee a little apologetic for its mouth-filling title and the unromantically grandiolical statement of its purpose, murmuring dryly when the name was pronounced a lot. None of them, none of them had a word with the server. Their experience and their observation of life in the state had made them feel that one of its needs is more simple, dramatic, suitable for the use of ordinary people. Tourists accommodated came to their notice and they honored it by selecting it as one of the publications made under their auspices. So here it is, it's published there. Yeah, so it's quite evident. It wasn't like someone approached or the campus officials and said, hey, look, we're from the United Society, we're doing this thing and it's like after-drawers and tater farmers. And you give us something. And they were like totally surprised that someone approached them in this fashion. And she was on that, that was her committee. She was on that committee. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, I'd be very interested to sit down and talk to you at some point. And some of the members of that committee, that formed her, there was a Catholic priest, the Catholic Church was adamantly opposed to the sterilization of the whole thing. Yeah, Helen Hart was Flanders of our premier folks on collector in Vermont. She was on that committee. Sarah Clegg Horne was on the committee poet. But one aspirant that made that. Oh, you can't hear me, huh? That one aspirant made that. It's time for a hearing, yeah, I suppose. That one aspirant I'd like to hear. As far as the culpability, really, of seven days and how they just piled on along with everyone else. The quarter of all, at one point said, and what an unfortunate coincidence that the acronym of Dorothy and Hill Fisher also coincides with the Department of Children and Families. DCM. And if you go and you look at what the Department of Children and Families does, yeah, one of their my new administrative duties is to look into cases of trial abuse, but it's mostly about making sure that there's three square meals a day. And it was just. That one was a very simple. They thought DCF was going to, some kids would be upset because Dorothy Canterbury Fisher Children's Book Award would have this DCF connected with it, yeah. Yes, sir. As I'm sitting here trying to think about writing a letter to any number of people to summarize this point and thinking if I could only have a copy of that paper in front of me, I'd be happy to have your person. And do you have plans for some kind of publication or distribution of written work? Yes. Well, you and Wilfrid, you and Wolfgang Meeder, who was here earlier, maybe still here, have been trying to get me to publish it somewhere. And I always want to get my facts all in order and get all that done. But yes, I would love to publish it somewhere. And hopefully it will be. And you'll be able to have it in front of you. What? Lawn history drive. Well, Michael Sherman said that I should look at the Lawn history drive. I will take a look. Thank you. All right. One last one, maybe. Oh, Nancy, you've got it. I came partly because I'm interested in working in Phil Fisher. And I've read a couple of his books, and I liked what I read. I thought he was very sensible and a good writer. But I also came because I can't remember how the write-up was for your talk. It was something about questioning what you hear. And like in the last three years, at least, we've had what I regard as a propaganda campaign. And now we're in another one. We did the Ukraine War. And so it makes it very hard for people to sort out what is really true. So I think your research is a good example of, I mean, everybody doesn't have time to do that, but at least that's an example of what can be done. The research is very, very important to Michael. Well, listen, thank you very much, all of you for your work.