Vermonters have strong ideas about the importance of their mountain topography. Where did our pride in Vermont’s landscape come from, and why is it that we see our shared identity as rooted in the land? Evolving human ideas about the Vermont mountains form the base of this lecture.

The story begins with the state’s founders and moves forward through Vermont history to explain how environmental understandings changed over time. This lecture by historian Jill Mudgett is timely and relevant in its relationship to current interdisciplinary scholarship and offers us tools to understand the origins and meaning of our own strongly-held attachments to the Vermont landscape.

This talk is free, open to the public, and accessible to those with disabilities. The Hills of Home is a Vermont Humanities program hosted by Bennington Museum. (Supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the NEH or Vermont Humanities.)