Not to overstate the case, but this is one of the most important Vermont history books ever written. Vermont for the Vermonters by Mercedes de Guardiola tells a sweeping tale of eugenics in our state, and makes it clear that the story is much longer and deeper than we’d like to think. She also reveals that much of the story has yet to be told and may never be, thanks to poor record keeping and lax oversight. (The newly established Truth and Reconciliation Commission has a hell of a job on its hands.)
The back cover blurb refers to eugenics as “one of Vermont’s darkest chapters.” That’s a massive undersell of the book. We might like to think of it as a single chapter at some remove from the rest of our history, but it’s more like the dark underbelly of Vermont’s character, always lurking about and always influencing our politics and policies.
Two big takeaways from the book. One, we have always “othered” the less fortunate, portraying them as somehow alien to solid, hardworking “real Vermonters.” Two, we have a long and horrible history of failing the people we’ve chosen to institutionalize. Both points were true long before Gov. John Mead brought eugenics into the center of Vermont politics or Henry Perkins became head of the Eugenics Survey, and both still resonate in the present day. (On the former, see our reaction to homelessness and substance use. On the second, see Joe Sexton’s exposé of abuses at the laughably named and now mercifully defunct Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Facility.)
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The Vermont Political Observer. 