6655 Shelburne Road
Shelburne, Vermont 05482
U.S.A.
Company Perspectives:
Rooted in the enduring Vermont values of hard work and quality craftsmanship, The Vermont Teddy Bear Company earns the confidence and trust of its customers with friendly, reliable service and the best Bears in the universe. Our Bears are alive with personality, attitude, and a touch of the unexpected to bring people together in a totally different and fun way. We, the Bear Crew, are people who are passionate about our work, are willing to take risks, reinvent constantly, and above all ... we love Teddy Bears.
History of The Vermont Teddy Bear Co., Inc.
The Vermont Teddy Bear Co., Inc. (doing business as The Vermont Teddy Bear Company) provides a new twist on the classic plush toy that originated in 1903 and was named after President Theodore Roosevelt. It is the leading manufacturer of hand-crafted teddy bears in the United States. Its Vermont-made 'Bear-Gram' gift service, pioneered in 1990, delivers personalized teddy bears dressed in one of more than 100 different costumes. Bears are shipped in boxes with airholes and accompanying hand-written notes from 'Bear Counselors.' The company has positioned its products as a gift alternative to flowers and candy and advertises its Bear-Grams through live reads with radio personalities in all 50 states.
Launching a One-Man Business: 1981
The Vermont Teddy Bear Company was created in 1981 when 30-year-old John Sortino began sewing cloth bears on his wife's sewing machine for his newborn son. His first creation was named Bearcho because its thick black eyebrows and mustache resembled those of Groucho Marx. Later bears were machine washable and dryable with movable arms and legs and were cuddly and safe for children. They had, according to Sortino, personality.
Teddy bear lore is fuzzy on the question of who made the first stuffed bear. The Steiff Co. of Germany displayed its stuffed toy at a fair in Leipzig in 1903, but credit generally goes to Thomas Michtom of Brooklyn, New York, for naming his creation after President Theodore Roosevelt, who had refused to shoot a bear cub on a hunting expedition in Mississippi. Sortino, whose son's many stuffed animals were manufactured in countries other than the United States, was determined that 'there should be a teddy bear made in America.' He saw himself and his company as 'stewards of a uniquely American tradition based on the best American virtues: compassion, generosity, friendship and a zesty sense of whimsy and fun,' according to a 1996 article in the Daily Telegraph.
Sortino had moved to Vermont from New York state, where he held a series of jobs after graduation from Plattsburgh College with a degree in mathematics: He was a scrimshaw artist, a United Parcel Service driver, and worked for the Boy Scouts of America. In 1981, Sortino sold 50 bears. That number increased to about 200 in 1982. In 1983, Sortino gave up his two part-time jobs to start peddling his bears on Burlington's Church Street Mall. 'Everyone thought I completely lost my mind,' Sortino was later quoted in a 1992 Montreal Gazette article, but while standing behind his pushcart, he dreamed of 'getting big.' With a small network of home workers, he began buying equipment and finding U.S. suppliers for materials. He recycled plastic from the wholesale ice cream tubs used by Ben & Jerry's, a Waterbury, Vermont. ice cream maker, for his teddy bears' joints. 'I wanted to be part of the re-industrialization of America,' he explained to the Washington Post in 1994.
Sortino's company lumbered along for its first six years. In 1987, a private investor put $1 million into the fledgling company, most of which the company had lost by 1989. At this point, the bears were marketed principally through wholesalers and the company's own retail outlets in several northeastern locations. In 1989, with sales of $351,000, Sortino was faced with either going out of business or making a drastic change in operations. The company's own president and chief operating officer, Spencer Putnam, recommended declaring bankruptcy. Instead, Sortino chose to break out of the Burlington area and begin promoting his bears directly in the New York market. 'I took what was practically the last of our money and went to New York and began a radio campaign two weeks before Valentine's Day of 1990,' Sortino recalled in the Washington Post. Well-known radio personalities, such as Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, and Howard Stern, were enlisted to ad-lib pitches to sell the teddies. A toll free number in New York City was set up to receive calls.
Sudden and Spectacular Growth in the Early 1990s
Immediately the sales started rolling in. In two weeks, the company payroll increased from ten employees to 50. By the end of 1990, sales were up fivefold to $1.75 million as a result of the 'Bear-Gram,' the company's new telephone gift service. By 1993, sales had reached $17 million (91 percent of which were due to phone orders), and the company was named national winner of the 'Best of America' awards sponsored by Dunn & Bradstreet Small Business Services and the National Federation of Independent Businesses Foundation. Inc. Magazine ranked it 21st among America's fastest-growing public companies. The company went public in December 1993, reaping $10 million in paper profits. With its old-fashioned-looking bears, complete with movable limbs and lifetime warrantee, The Vermont Teddy Bear Company had made its mark in a market dominated by Gund, Dakin, and more established bear makers. In 1994, the Smithsonian offered two Vermont mohair teddies, Smithson T. and Alice R. Bear, for sale in its catalogue. According to the Smithsonian's spokeswoman, in a 1994 article in the Washington Post, the Vermont teddy bears recalled one of the original bears in the museum's collection.
At The Vermont Teddy Bear complex, business was moving right along. In a maze-like building whose departments were separated by picket fences, workers sewed and stuffed new teddies. There was a one-of-a-kind department with bears dressed in custom-made clothing--Charlie Chaplin garb, a Vermont state trooper's uniform, a scuba diving outfit--and a bear hospital, where bears sporting casts, crutches, and arm slings sat side by side customers' ailing bears waiting to be repaired. On the other side of the building, 'Bear Counselors' answered telephones and took orders--Bear-Grams--from customers who, absent this alternative, might have sent flowers. The atmosphere was laid back, with Frank Sinatra music pumped in through loudspeakers, an employee pinball machine, and mobile massage service. The company's factory and retail store became one of the hottest tourist spots in the state, attracting 80,000 visitors in 1994.
In fact, while the teddy bear remained a staple childhood companion, about 80 percent of all Bear-Gram recipients were adults. According to Putnam, in a 1994 Washington Post, the success of The Vermont Teddy Bear Company occurred because the company redefined the teddy bear as a gift item appropriate to all ages and occasions. 'We married a cuddly, appealing creature with the concept of an impulse purchase,' he was quoted as saying. Where once a husband might have sent flowers or chocolates to his wife for Valentine's Day, he now sent a teddy bear. Women, who were by far the company's greatest repeat customers, sent teddy bears to friends and family to commemorate personal occasions throughout the year.
The success of the Bear-Gram stimulated another growth period for the company. In 1994, bears, which sold for $60 to $250, began to be marketed in high-end retail outlets such as FAO Schwarz, Bloomingdale's, Henri Bendel's, and 250 smaller gift stores across the country, as well as in catalogues such as Spiegel. Television and billboard advertisements complemented the company's own catalogue, which went out to a mailing list of one million and featured other Vermont-made products such as children's books and toys to accompany specific bears. Down the road from the original factory, the company began construction on its new 62,000-square-foot, $7.5 million headquarters on a 57-acre parcel of land, complete with giant beanie hat and whirring propeller atop garishly painted farm-style buildings. Sortino, projecting a continued rise in sales, stockpiled somewhere between $3.5 and $4 million worth of bears and accessories. In 1995, the company moved into its new complex, set up a warehouse and fulfilment center in Livingston, England, and was on its way toward launching a manufacturing plant in the United Kingdom.
Losses Lead to New Leadership in the Mid-1990s
However, all did not follow happily ever after for the fairy tale-like business. While the company had grown more than expected in 1994, expansion was at times chaotic and even precipitous. Marketing by radio to the New York, Boston, and Chicago markets was expensive--30 percent of the company's revenue in 1994--and resulted in a $54,000 loss for that year, despite sales of $20.6 million. The attempt to break into the overseas market was aborted shortly after Vermont Teddy Bear began marketing its bears in Britain in 1995. The company was left with a huge excess of bears. In August 1995, the company's board of directors, disturbed about losses of $330,000 per month and the company's $2 million debt, asked John Sortino to step down as chief executive officer. R. Patrick Burns, who had been a marketing executive at L.L. Bean and Disney Direct Marketing, took over the company.
Burns's agenda focused on reducing advertising and manufacturing costs, while relying more heavily on catalogue sales and sales at company stores, which he planned to open in New England and New York. At his initiative, the company signed a licensing agreement with Tyco Toys Inc. to make lower-priced miniature replicas of the company's hand-made toy bears to be sold at Wal-Mart and Toys `R' Us stores. Under his stewardship, Vermont Teddy Bear also fired 16 percent of its 200-employee workforce to offset continued losses in 1995 of more than $2 million.
In 1996, the $17 million company opened its first outlet on Madison Avenue. A second store followed in Freeport, Maine. Neither of these stores proved very successful, however, and after losses of $2 million in 1997, both stores closed in 1998. The company also put more of its marketing dollars into its catalog operations, increasing circulation and expanding its offerings beyond teddy bears to everything from snowglobes to t-shirts and knapsacks.
However, the improvement in sales was only slight, and Elisabeth B. Robert, the company's chief financial officer since 1995, who replaced Burns as chief executive officer after he resigned in 1997, redirected The Vermont Teddy Bear Company to focus its efforts once again on Bear-Grams and radio advertising. Robert had prior experience in finance, manufacturing, legal affairs, and systems management. Since earning a graduate degree in business from the University of Vermont in 1984, she had worked as an executive for Vermont Gas, as a campaign manager, and for a fledgling high-tech firm. 'Radio ads are great for encouraging impulse buys,' Robert told the Boston Globe in a May 2000 article. Complementing the company's decision to return to its roots was its web site, where potential customers could view what they would get for their $85 Bear-Gram. By 1998, although stock prices were still at a low of 31 cents, Vermont Teddy Bear produced 195,000 stuffed bears and tallied sales of $17.2 million. To keep up with growing demand, the company added a second sewing shift and, in 1999, a second manufacturing facility in Newport, Vermont.
The company sewed 260,000 bears to produce revenues of $21.6 million in 1999, surpassing its prior peak in sales of $20.5 million set in 1994. Driving the expansion, according to Roberts in her annual letter to stockholders, was the company's radio advertising campaign in new markets across the country, backed by the company's web site, which received 25 percent of total orders by June 1999. The company also closed its remaining satellite stores in 1999 and entered into its first wholesale partnership with leading toy retailer Zany Brainy, Inc. to market its Make-A-Friend-For-Life concept via kiosks in toy stores nationally. The plan called for Vermont Teddy Bear to supply Zany Brainy with the necessary bear components, outfits, and accessories so that customers might construct customized teddy bears onsite.
By 2000, Vermont Teddy Bear was well on its ways to implementing the five-year plan it established in 1999, expanding and diversifying its markets, distribution channels, and product lines. In April, it reported 50 to 60 percent growth for the year to date and announced plans to lease a new 60,000-square-foot facility next to its Shelburne factory. In 1999, it had expanded its product line to include lower cost, imported teddy bears designed and manufactured for corporate customers. It also debuted its PreFUR'd Member service, offering discounts to repeat customers to coincide with slower business periods. The strategy seemed to be successful. While Valentine's Day (followed by Christmas and Mother's Day) remained the company's busiest holiday, online purchases, boosted by Yahoo's decision to feature the Bear-Gram on its new Internet mall, began to account for about 30 percent of total Vermont Teddy Bear sales. The company was now advertising on more than 500 radio stations and was aiming for a 'hipper, edgier' product.
Principal Competitors: Dakin; Gund; 1-800-FLOWERS.COM; Applause Enterprises.
Related information about Vermont
pop (2000e) 608 800; area
24 899 km²/9614 sq mi. New England state in NE
USA, divided into 14 counties; the ‘Green Mountain State’; explored
by Champlain, 1609; first settlement established at Fort Dummer,
1724; 14th state admitted to the Union, 1791; capital, Montpelier;
largest town, Burlington; the Green Mts run N–S through the C;
rivers drain W from the mountains into L Champlain which forms much
of the W border, and E into the Connecticut R which forms much of
the E border; highest point, Mt Mansfield
(1339 m/4393 ft); forestry and timber products, arable
farming, grazing, dairy products, maple syrup (largest producer in
USA), marble and granite.
For other meanings, see Vermont
(disambiguation).
Vermont (pronounced ) is a state in the New England region of the United States, located in
the northeastern part of the country. The only New England state with no
coastline along the
Atlantic Ocean,
Vermont is notable for the Green Mountains in the west and Lake Champlain in the
northwest. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east,
New York to the west,
and the Canadian
province of Quebec to
the north.
Originally inhabited by Native
American tribes (Iroquois, Algonquian and Abenaki), the territory that is now Vermont was claimed
by France but became a
British possession after France's defeat in the French and Indian
War. Settlers who held land titles granted by the Province of New
Hampshire, through their Green Mountain Boys militia, eventually prevailed.
Vermont became the 14th state to join the United States, following
a 14-year period during and after the Revolutionary
War as the independent Republic of Vermont. Vermont is one of only three
U.S. states to have once been an independent nation, the other two
being Hawaii and Texas.
Famous for its scenery, dairy products and maple syrup (it is the leading producer of maple syrup
in the United Stateswww.ers.usda.gov/briefing/sugar/data/table44.xls),
Vermont has a long history of independent political thinking (see
Ethan Allen,
Matthew Lyon,
George Aiken,
Jim Jeffords and
Bernie Sanders.).
The state capital is Montpelier, and the largest city is Burlington.
Geography
Vermont is located in the New England region in the eastern United
States and comprises 9,614 square miles (24,902 km^(2)),
making it the 45th largest state. Of this, land comprises 9,250
square miles (23,955 km^(2)) and water comprises 365 square
miles (948 km^(2)), making it the 43rd largest in land area
and the 47th in water area.
The west bank of the Connecticut River marks the eastern border of the state
with New Hampshire (the river itself is part of New Hampshire).
Lake Champlain,
the major lake in Vermont, is the sixth-largest body of fresh water
in the United States and separates Vermont from New York in the
northwest portion of the state. The state's geographic center is
Washington, three miles (5 km) east of Roxbury.
The origin of the name Green Mountains (French: Verts
monts) is uncertain. Other authorities say that they are so
named because of the predominance of mica-quartz-chlorite schist, a green-hued metamorphosed shale. In the south
of the valley is Lake
Bomoseen.
Several mountains have timberlines: Mount Mansfield, the
highest mountain in the state, as well as Killington are
examples. the rest is covered in meadow, uplands, lakes, ponds and
swampy wetlands.
Areas in Vermont administered by the National Park
Service include the Appalachian
National Scenic Trail and the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical
Park in Woodstock.
Vermont is known for its mud season in spring followed by a generally mild summer
and a colorful autumn, and particularly for its cold winters. The
northern part of the state, including the rural northeastern
section (dubbed the "Northeast Kingdom") is known for exceptionally cold
winters, often averaging 10 °Fahrenheit (6 °Celsius) colder than the southern areas of the
state. Annual snowfall
averages between 60 to 100 inches (150–250 cm) depending on
elevation, giving Vermont some of New England's best cross-country
and downhill ski areas.
In the autumn, Vermont's hills experience an explosion of red,
orange and gold foliage displayed on the sugar maple as cold weather
approaches. The western part of the state was originally home to a
small population of Algonquian-speaking tribes, including the Mohican and Abenaki peoples. Between
8500 to 7000 BCE, at the time of
the Champlain Sea, Native
Americans inhabited and hunted in Vermont. Sometime between
1500 and 1600, the Iroquois drove many of the smaller native tribes out of
Vermont, later using the area as a hunting ground and warring with the remaining Abenaki.
In 950, the Viking explorer, Olaf Tomsson is alleged to have reached the Northern
part of the state, where he settled for several years before
leaving because of war with the local Abenaki.
The second European to
see Vermont is thought to be Jacques Cartier, in 1535. On July 30, 1609, French
explorer Samuel de Champlain claimed the area of what is now
Lake Champlain,
giving to the mountains the appellation of les Verts Monts
(the Green Mountains).
Colonial
France claimed Vermont as part of New France, and erected Fort Sainte Anne on
Isle La
Motte in 1666 as part of the fortification of Lake Champlain. This was the
first European settlement in Vermont and the site of the first
Roman
Catholic Mass.
During the latter half of the 17th century, non-French settlers
began to explore Vermont and its surrounding area. In 1690, a group
of Dutch-British
settlers from Albany under Captain Jacobus de Warm established the De
Warm Stockade at Chimney Point (eight miles or 13 km west of present-day
Addison).
This settlement and trading post was directly across Lake Champlain
from Crown
Point, New York
(Pointe à la Chevelure).
In 1731, the French arrived. One year later a group of Mohawks burnt the
settlement to the ground, leaving only chimneys, which gave the
area its name.
The first permanent British settlement was established in 1724,
with the construction of Fort Dummer in Vermont's far southeast under the command
of Lieutenant Timothy
Dwight. This fort protected the nearby settlements of Dummerston and
Brattleboro. These settlements were made by the Province of
Massachusetts Bay to protect its settlers on the western border
along the Connecticut River. The second British settlement was the
1761 founding of Bennington in the southwest.
During the French and Indian War, some Vermont settlers, including
Ethan Allen, joined
the colonial militia assisting the British in attacks on the
French. Fort
Carillon on the New
York-Vermont border, a French fort constructed in 1755, was the
site of two British offensives under Lord Amherst's command: the
unsuccessful British attack in 1758 and the retaking of
the following year with no major resistance (most of the
garrison had been removed to defend Quebec, Montreal, and the western forts). The British renamed
the fort Fort
Ticonderoga (which became the site of two later battles during
the American Revolutionary War). Following France's loss in
the French and
Indian War, the 1763 Treaty of Paris gave control of the land to
the British.
The end of the war brought new settlers to Vermont. A fort at
Crown
Point had been built, and the Crown Point Military Road
stretched from the east to the west of the Vermont wilderness from
Springfield to Chimney Point, making travel from the
neighboring British
colonies easier. The Province of New York claimed Vermont based on land
granted to the Duke of York (later King James II) in
1764. The Province of New Hampshire also claimed Vermont based
upon a decree of George II in 1740.
Independence, the Vermont Republic, and Statehood
On January 18,
1777, representatives of
the New Hampshire Grants convened in Westminster and declared the
independence of the Vermont Republic. For the first six months of the
republic's existence, the republic was called New Connecticut.
On June 2, a second
convention of 72 delegates met at Westminster, known as the
"Westminster Convention." At this meeting, the delegates adopted
the name "Vermont" on the suggestion of Dr. Thomas Young of
Philadelphia, a supporter of the delegates who wrote a
letter advising them on how to achieve admission into the newly
independent United States as the 14th state. On July 4, the Constitution of the Vermont Republic was drafted during
a violent thunderstorm at the Windsor Tavern owned by Elijah West
and was adopted by the delegates on July 8 after four days of debate. The Windsor tavern has
been preserved as the Old Constitution House, administered as a state
historic site.
The Battle of
Bennington, fought on August 16, 1777,
was a seminal event in the history of the state of Vermont. General
Burgoyne never recovered from this loss and eventually surrendered
the remainder of his 6,000-man force at Saratoga, New York,
on October 17.
The Battles of Bennington and Saratoga are recognized as the turning point in
the Revolutionary War because they were the first major defeat of a
British army and convinced the French that the Americans were
worthy of military aid. Thomas Chittenden, who came to Vermont from Connecticut in 1774, acted
as head of state, using the term governor over president. In 1791,
Vermont joined the federal Union as the fourtenth state–the first
state to enter the union after the original thirteen colonies, and
a counterweight to slaveholding Kentucky, which was admitted to the Union shortly
afterward.
Vermont had a unicameral legislature until 1836.
An 1854 Vermont
Senate report on slavery echoed the Vermont Constitution's
first article, on the rights of all men, questioning how a
government could favor the rights of one people over another. The
mid to late 1850s saw a transition fron Vermonters mostly favoring
slavery's containment, to a far more serious opposition to the
institution, producing the Radical Republican and abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens.
The Civil War
During the American Civil War, Vermont sent more than 34,000 men
into United States service, contributing 18 regiments of infantry and cavalry, 3 batteries of light
artillery, 3 companies
of sharpshooters,
2 companies of frontier cavalry, and thousands in the regular army and
navy, and in other states? Vermonters, if not Vermont units,
participated in every major battle of the war.
Among the most famous of the Vermont units were the 1st Vermont Brigade,
the 2nd Vermont
Brigade, and the 1st Vermont Cavalry.
The northernmost land action of the war, the St. Albans Raid, took
place in Vermont.
See the main article Vermont in the Civil War
Postbellum era and beyond
The two decades following the end of the American Civil War
(1864-1885) saw both economic expansion and contraction, and fairly
dramatic social change. The first election in which women were
allowed to vote was on December 18, 1880, when women were granted limited suffrage and were first allowed
to vote in town elections, and then in state legislative
races.
Large-scale flooding
occurred in early November 1927. Another flood occurred in 1973,
when the flood caused the death of two people and millions of
dollars in property damage.
On April 25, 2000, Vermont legislators passed
and Governor Howard Dean signed into law HB847, a law providing the
state sanctioned benefits of marriage to gay and lesbian couples
under the title Civil Union. font-size: 95%;">
Historical
populations
|
Census
year |
Population
|
|
| 1790 |
85,425
|
| 1800 |
154,465
|
| 1810 |
217,895
|
| 1820 |
235,981
|
| 1830 |
280,652
|
| 1840 |
291,948
|
| 1850 |
314,120
|
| 1860 |
315,098
|
| 1870 |
330,551
|
| 1880 |
332,286
|
| 1890 |
332,422
|
| 1900 |
343,641
|
| 1910 |
355,956
|
| 1920 |
352,428
|
| 1930 |
359,611
|
| 1940 |
359,231
|
| 1950 |
377,747
|
| 1960 |
389,881
|
| 1970 |
444,330
|
| 1980 |
511,456
|
| 1990 |
562,758
|
| 2000 |
608,827
|
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2005, Vermont has an estimated
population of 623,050, which is an increase of 1,817, or 0.3%, from
the prior year and an increase of 14,223, or 2.3%, since the year
2000. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net
increase of 4,359 people, and migration within the country produced
a net increase of 3,530 people.
Race and sex
Vermont's population is:
Among the 50 states and the District of
Columbia, Vermont ranks:
- 2nd in its proportion of Whites
- 41st in its proportion of Asians
- 49th in its proportion of Hispanics
- 48th in its proportion of Blacks
- 29th in its proportion of Native Americans
- 39th in its proportion of people of mixed race
- 28th in its proportion of males
- 24th in its proportion of females
Ethnicity
The largest ancestry groups are:
- 23.3% French
or French Canadian
- 18.4% English
- 16.4% Irish
- 9.1% German
Residents of British ancestry (especially English) live
throughout most of Vermont. These communities have grown to include
non-refugees and in some cases are several generations in the
making.
Religion
Like many of the neighboring states, Vermont's largest religious
affiliation in the colonial period was Congregationalism. The
Congregational United Church of Christ remains the largest Protestant
denomination and Vermont has the largest percentage of this
denomination of any state.
Today about three-fourths of Vermont residents identify themselves
as Christians. A
Catholic Church survey in 1990 reported that 25% of Vermonters were
members of the Catholic Church, although more than that
self-identify as Catholics.
Overall, Vermont's current religious distribution is:
-
Christian –
Only Washington State has a higher percentage.
More than one-third of Vermonters are self-identified
Protestants.
The largest Protestant denomination in the state is the United
Church of Christ, and the second largest is the United Methodist
Church, followed by Episcopalians, and Baptists.
Joseph
Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young—the first two leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—were
both born in Vermont. The 2001 Shengold Jewish
Encyclopedia reported that the state has 5,000 Jews—3000 in Burlington and 500
each in Montpelier-Barre and Rutland—and four Reform and two
Conservative congregations. It is notable that in
Burlington, a Jewish and Muslim congregation share the same
building, an example of Vermont's culture of tolerance and
mutual respect.
Other religions such as Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism have very few adherents. Today, most of
Vermont's forests consist of second-growth.
Of the remaining industries, dairy farming is the primary source of
agricultural income.
An important and growing part of Vermont's economy is the
manufacture and sale of artisan foods, fancy foods, and novelty
items trading in part upon the Vermont "brand" which is managed
by the Vermont Secretary of Agriculture and fiercely defended
by the Vermont Secretary of State and Attorney General.
Examples of these specialty exports include Cabot Cheese, the
Vermont Teddy Bear Company, Vermont Butter and
Cheese Company, several micro breweries, ginseng growers,
Burton
Snowboards, Lake Champlain Chocolates, King Arthur Flour,
and Ben and
Jerry's Ice Cream. Vermont's Agency of Agriculture, Food
& Markets maintains the highest dairy standards in the U.S.
Only France's Minister of Agriculture, Food, Fishing and Rural
Affairs (see Minister of Agriculture (France)) has standards for
butterfat content equal to Vermont's.
Captive
insurance plays an increasingly large role in Vermont's
economy. According to the Insurance Information Institute,
Vermont in 2004 was the world's third-largest domicile for
captive insurance companies, following Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
Tourism is the state's largest industry. In the winter, world
famous ski resorts like Stowe, Killington Ski Resort, Mad River Glen,
Sugarbush,
Stratton, Jay Peak, Okemo, and Bromley draw skiers from around the globe, although
their largest markets are Boston, Montreal and the New York
metropolitan area. In the summer, resort towns like Stowe, Manchester,
and Woodstock draw visitors looking for a mountain
vacation. Trout
fishing, lake fishing and even ice fishing draw outdoor enthusiasts to the
state, as does the excellent hiking on the Long Trail. Golf courses are springing up
with spas to service
the weary client. One major fashion outlet mall isn't really a
mall but the old town of Manchester gentrified.
The towns of Rutland and Barre are the traditional centers of marble
and granite quarrying and carving in the U.S. For many years
Vermont was also the headquarters of the smallest union in the
U.S., the Stonecutters Association, of about 500 members.
In recent years, Vermont has been deluged with plans to build
condos and houses on what was relatively
inexpensive, untouched land.
Vermont collects personal income tax in a progressive structure of five
different income brackets, ranging from 3.6% to 9.5%. Greyhound Lines
services a number of small towns and Amtrak serves stations in Rutland and Fair
Haven (off the Ethan Allen Express) and St. Albans, Essex Jct.,
Waterbury, Montpelier, Randolph, White River Jct., Windsor,
Bellows Falls and Brattleboro on the Vermonter line.
Interstates I-89, I-91, and I-93 are major highways in Vermont.
Vermont is served by two commercial airports:
- Burlington International Airport is the largest in
the state with regular flights to many major cities including
Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington,
DC.
- Rutland State Airport is the only other commercial
airport in the state and has regular flights to Albany and
Boston.
Vermont's local community public and private
transportation.
- Addison county has the ACTR (Addison County Transit
Resources) out of Middlebury, also serving Bristol and
Vergennes.
- Bennington county features the GME (American Red Cross
Green Mountain Express) out of Bennington and the YT (Yankee
Trails) running out of Rensselaer, New York.
- The RCT (Rural Community Transportation) runs out of
Saint Johnsbury and services Caledonia, Essex, Lamoille and
Orleans counties.
- Burlington (home of University of
Vermont) has CCTA (Chittenden County Transportation
Authority) and CATS (University of Vermont Campus Area
Transportation System).
- Colchester in Chittenden county is serviced by the SSTA
(Special Services Transportation Agency).
- The Network (Northwest Vermont Public Transit Network,
NVPT) running out of Saint Albans, services Franklin and
Grand Isle counties.
- Stowe, in Lamoille county, is serviced by STS (Stowe
Trolly System, Village Mountain Shuttle, Morrisville
Shuttle).
- STS (Stagecoach Transportation Services) out of Randolph
in Orange county also serves parts of Windsor
county.
- Rutland county has the Bus (Marble Valley Regional
Transit District, MVRTD) out of Rutland.
- In Washington county the GMTA (Green Mountain Transit
Authority) runs out of the capital city,
Montpelier.
- Brattleboro in Windham county is served by the BeeLine
(Brattleboro Town Bus). Windsor is also served by Advanced
Transit (AT) out of Wilder and the CRT (Connecticut River
Transit) out of Springfield which also serves parts of
Windham county.
- The Burlington and Grand Isle areas are connected to New
York State by ferries operated by LCTC, the Lake Champlain Transportation Company.
Law and government
The Constitution of the State of Vermont
Provision is
made for the following "frame of government" under the
Constitution of the State of Vermont: the executive branch, the
legislative branch, and the judicial branch.
Executive branch
Vermonters independently elect a state
governor and
lieutenant
governor every two years (as opposed to every four years,
which is the most common term length for a governor of a U.S.
state). The current governor of Vermont is Jim Douglas, who assumed
office in 2003.
Vermont does not have a term limit for the governor.
Legislative branch
Vermont's state legislature
is the Vermont General Assembly, a bicameral body
composed of the Vermont
House of Representatives (the lower house) and the Vermont Senate (the
upper house).
Judicial branch
The Vermont Supreme Court is the state
supreme court,
made up of five justices who serve six year terms. Appointments
to the state supreme court, superior court, and district courts are
made by the governor, from a list of names submitted by the
state's Judicial Nominating Committee and then are confirmed
by the Senate. At the end of each six year term, the Gereral
Assembly votes by joint ballot (each member, senator or
representative, getting one vote) on whether to retain the
judge or justice (known as a judicial
retention vote). The Vermont Constitution spells out the process of
judicial appointment and retention in Chapter 2, Sections 32
thru 35, 50 and 51 www.leg.state.vt.us/statutes/const2.htm.
Federal legislative representation
In the U.S. Senate,
Vermont is represented by Senator Patrick Leahy, a
Democrat, and Senator James Jeffords, an
independent. Jeffords was a Republican but left the party in 2001 as a result of political
disagreements and now caucuses with the Democrats. in the U.S. House of Representatives, Vermont's single
at-large congressional district is represented by Bernie Sanders, an
independent representative and Social Democrat who
served as the mayor of Burlington. Among Vermont's
distinguished public servants, U.S. Senator Winston Prouty (R)
gained national prominence as an early critic of Senator
Joseph
McCarthy. He is perhaps best known for his proposal that
the United States declare victory in Vietnam and leave.
Vermont is an Alcoholic beverage control state.
The age of
consent in Vermont is 16. Vermont is one of the few states
that was an independent republic, and has a long history of contrarian
voting in national elections. Notably, Vermont is the only
state to have voted for a presidential candidate from the
Anti-Masonic
Party, and Vermont and Maine were the only states to vote
against Franklin D. Another case involves the recent controversy
over the adoption of civil unions, an institution which grants same-sex
couples nearly all the rights and privileges of marriage. Vermont (1999),
the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that, under the Constitution of
Vermont, the state must either allow same-sex marriage
or provide a separate but equal status for them. At the same
time, Vermont is one of only two states in the Union to allow
any adult to carry a concealed firearm without any sort of
permit.
Vermont is the home state of the only two current members of
the United States Congress who do not associate themselves with
a political party: Representative Bernie Sanders and Senator
Jim
Jeffords.
Attempts by out-of-state candidates (so called "flatlanders")
to be elected to office in Vermont have often been thwarted by
locals. In 1998, a 79-year-old farmer named Fred Tuttle received
national attention by defeating a Massachusetts
multimillionaire in the Republican Primary for Senate. With a campaign budget of $201,
Tuttle garnered 55% of the primary vote, then promptly
announced his support for the Democratic incumbent, Patrick Leahy. In the
early 1960s many progressive Vermont Republicans and newcomers to the
state helped bolster the state's small Democratic Party. Until
1992, Vermont had supported a Democrat for president only once
since the parties founding—in Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide victory
against Barry
Goldwater. The Vermont Progressive party is similar to the
Green Party in
its environmental policies but operates more center-left
similar to the Social Democratic Party of Germany
(Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands ? The party is similar
in spirit to an earlier Vermont party called the Liberty Union
Party based upon the ideas of Social Democrat Eugene V. It has had
official recognition as a political party by the state government since
1999.
Vermont's liberal/libertarian views do not coincide with the
general American political stereotype that rural states tend
toward conservatism (the red
state phenomenon). The contradiction is thrown into great
relief when it is observed that Vermont's longtime doppleganger neighbor,
New Hampshire,
is consistently Republican in its politics (although New Hampshire
leans more toward libertarianism than toward standard
Republicanism).
Some have attempted to explain away Vermont's contradictory
politics by arguing that the state is a haven for affluent
vacationers and retirees from strong liberal metropolitan regions such as Boston and New York, and that the
financial power of such persons dominate the politics. Others
argue that Vermont, which borders Canada, is a main thoroughfare of land travel
to major Canadian
cities such as Montreal and Toronto, and the influence of liberal Canadian
thought and Canadian city-dwellers on vacation also affects the
political climate. Castleton Academy became Castleton State
College, the Lamoille County Grammar School became Johnson State
College, and the Addison County Grammar School became
Middlebury
College. Experimentation at the University of Vermont by
George Perkins Marsh, and later the influence of Vermont born
philosopher and educator John Dewey brought about the concepts of electives
and learning by doing. Today Vermont has five colleges within
the Vermont State Colleges system, UVM, and
fifteen other degree granting colleges. The largest
professional franchise is the Vermont Lake
Monsters, formerly the Vermont Expos, a single-A minor league
baseball team based in Burlington. The Vermont Frost
Heaves are a franchise of the American
Basketball Association, and will be based in Barre starting in
fall 2006. Vermont also has a semi-professional football team
in the Vermont Ice Storm,
based in South Hero, which plays its home games at Colchester
High School. The Vermont Voltage is a USL
Premier Development League soccer club that plays in
St. Albans (city), Vermont.
The University of Vermont is the only state university in the
nation not to have a football team.
Miscellaneous topics
Vermont is the birthplace of
former presidents Calvin Coolidge and Chester A. The town
of Killington is currently trying to secede from
Vermont and join New Hampshire due to what the locals say is an
unfair tax burden.
Vermont has many festivals, including the Vermont Maple
Festival, the Enosburg Falls Dairy Festival, the Apple Festival
(held each Columbus Day Weekend), the Marlboro Music
Festival, and the Vermont Mozart Festival. Montpelier is home to
the annual Green Mountain Film Festival.
In the Northeast Kingdom, The Bread and
Puppet Theatre holds weekly shows in Glover in a natural
outdoor amphitheater.
One of Vermont's best known musical exports is group Phish, whose members met while
attending school in Vermont. The state has always held great
importance for Phish—for example, lead singer and guitarist
Trey
Anastasio built a studio in Vermont used by the band and
others, called The Barn. Phish ended their tenure together as a band with a
farewell concert weekend in the state's Northeast Kingdom,
which was dubbed "Coventry" after (in part) the venue city of
Coventry,
Vermont, on August 16, 2004.
Vermont was the last state to get a Wal-Mart (there are four,
as of June 2006), is currently the only state without a Lowe's
(as of June 2006), and it remains the only state without a
McDonald's restaurant or big box store within the city limits
of the capital.
Largest cities in Vermont
Largest cities (2003
est.):
- Burlington, 39,148
- Rutland, 17,103
- South Burlington, 16,285
- Barre, 9,166
Largest towns in Vermont
Although these towns are large
enough to be considered cities, they are not incorporated as
such.
Largest Towns (2003 est.)
- Essex, 18,933
- Colchester, 17,175
- Bennington, 15,637
- Brattleboro, 11,996
- Hartford, 10,610
- Milton, 9,924
State symbols
The state song and state symbols are
designated by act of the state legislature and confirmed by the
governor.
Vermont's state
song is "These Green Mountains," composed by Diane Martin and
arranged by Rita Buglass Gluck. This song was officially
designated as the state song on May 22, 2000, when Governor Howard Dean signed No. This song
replaced "Hail to Vermont!," which was written by Josephine
Hovey-Perry and made the state song in 1938.
The state bird is the hermit thrush (Catharus guttatus). 1 of
the Acts of 1941, effective June 1, 1941. Many legislators favored the blue jay (Cyanocitta
cristata) or the crow.
The red clover
(Trifolium pratense) was designated as the state flower by No. 159
of the Acts of 1894, effective February 1, 1895. The red clover is often seen in the
countryside of Vermont hosting the state insect, the honeybee, but was
originally naturalized from Europe.
Vermont has two official state fish, both adopted by Joint Resolution R-91 of
the Acts of 1978 and effective on May 3, 1978: the cold-water fish, the brook trout
(Salvelinus fontinalis) and the warm-water fish, the
walleye (Sanders
vitreous vitreous).
The state tree is
the sugar maple
(Acer saccharum), adopted by the Acts of 1949, effective
March 10, 1949. The sugar maple is the
source of maple
syrup, Vermont's most famous export.
The state mammal is the Morgan horse, designated as such by No. 42 of the
acts of 1961, effective March 23, 1961. The Morgan horse is a horse breed originally
from Vermont.
The state insect is the honeybee (Apis mellifera), designated by No.
124 of the Acts of 1978, effective July 1, 1978.
The state amphibian, adopted by No. 126 of the Acts of 1997, is
the Northern Leopard Frog (Rana pipiens).
Vermont has also designated an official state mineral (talc), pie (apple pie), soil ("Tunbridge Soil Series"), beverage (milk), gem (grossular garnet), and fossil (the beluga skeleton at the University of Vermont's
Perkins Geology Museum.)
Crime
Vermont is one of twelve states that have no
death penalty statute. There are nine prisons
in Vermont:
- Caledonia Community Work Camp
- Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility
- Dale Women's Facility
- Marble Valley Regional Correctional Facility
- Northern State Correctional Facility
- Northwest State Correctional Facility
- Southeast State Correctional Facility
- Southern State Correctional Facility
- St. Johnsbury Regional Correctional Facility
Notable Vermonters
- Ethan
Allen, commander of the Green Mountain
Boys
- Chester
A. Arthur, twenty-first president of the United
States
- Warren Robinson Austin, early U.S. Ambassador to
the United Nations
- Wilson
Bentley, scientist and photographer
- Calvin
Coolidge, thirtieth president of the United
States
- Thomas
Davenport, inventor of the electric motor
- John Deere,
inventor
- John Dewey,
philosopher, educator
- Dorothy Canfield Fisher, writer
- Richard Morris Hunt, architect
- John
LeClair first native born Vermonter to play in the
National Hockey League
- Horatio
G. Loomis, one of the organizers of the Chicago Board of
Trade
- Philip
Maxwell, physician and politician and the person for whom
Chicago's famous Maxwell Street was named
- Justin
Morrill, sponsor of the Land Grant College Act
establishing "public ivies"
- Moses
Pendleton choreographer
- William Lamb Picknell, nineteenth century painter,
member of the National Academy of Design
- Julian
Scott, nineteenth century painter and muralist
- Joseph
Smith, Jr., founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints
- Alexander Twilight, first African American to
receive a college degree, and to be elected to public office
in the United States
- Royall
Tyler, playwright and first Chief Justice of the Vermont
Supreme Court
- Brigham
Young, early church president of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints
- John Deere,
blacksmith and manufacturer who founded Deere & Company -
one of the largest agricultural and construction equipment
manufacturers in the world
Notable living Vermont residents
- Trey
Anastasio, vocals/guitar for Phish, a popular jam-band
- Howard
Dean, current Democratic National Committee
Chairman
- Louise
Glück, Pulitzer Prize winning poet
- Luis
Guzmán, actor
- Jamaica
Kincaid, novelist
- Edward
Koren illustrator and cartoonist for the The New
Yorker
- Felicity
Huffman, actor
- Madeleine M. Kunin, seventy-seventh Governor of
the State of Vermont, U.S. Ambassador to
Switzerland
- William H.
Macy, actor and director
- David
Mamet, playwright
- KT
Tunstall, musician
- M. Emmet
Walsh, actor
- Jody
Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, for efforts
to clear away and ban anti-personnel mines
See also
- Scouting in Vermont
- Vermont
media
- Music of
Vermont
- The
Vermont State Colleges
Sources and further reading
- Albers, Jan. Hands on the Land: A History of the
Vermont Landscape. MIT Press: 2000.
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