Vermont Historical Society's New Book Celebrates Jamaica, Vermont, of Nearly 60 Years Ago
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RECEPTION FOR ALMOST UTOPIA: SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Almost Utopia, Reception, meet the authors, and book signing in celebration of Vermont Historical Society’s publication of Almost Utopia, The Residents and Radicals of Pikes Falls, Vermont, 1950. In the Snelling Room of the Pavilion Building, 109 State Street, Montpelier, next to the State House. Open to public. Lepkoff and Joly will be there to sign books and talk. Books will be available for purchase.
PRESS RELEASE
BARRE, VT: The Vermont Historical Society has recently published Almost Utopia: The Residents and Radicals of Pikes Falls, Vermont, 1950. This is a book of photographs taken in Southern Vermont in the summer of 1950 by Rebecca Lepkoff, a native New Yorker, known for her photographs from the Lower East Side in the 1930s and 1940s.
In Almost Utopia: The Residents and Radicals of Pikes Falls, Vermont, 1950, Lepkoff captured the lives of the local Vermonters and the people “from away” at work and play during this historic time, as the Korean War made national headlines. Many of Lepkoff’s photos chronicle the lives of former urbanites Scott and Helen Nearing, who had purchased land in Jamaica, Vermont, with the vision of creating a homesteading lifestyle and teaching others to live simply in a troubled world. The Nearings later published Living the Good Life in 1954, documenting their homesteading experiences and lifestyle philosophy of non-exploitation, and the book became a classic.
Thirty-four-years-old at the time, New Yorker Rebecca Lepkoff had already made a name for herself as a member of the Photo League, which viewed photography as a tool for social change. Lepkoff’s photographs from the Lower East Side of the 1930s and 40s were already known. Lepkoff and her husband Gene were drawn to the communitarian ideals of the Nearings, and they bought land in Jamaica, Vermont in 1950. Lepkoff’s intimate images from that summer are the work of an artist at the peak of her craft, and they portray a rural Vermont town at a moment in time just before paved roads and postwar development would alter its character forever. Lepkoff’s photographs also serve as a cultural memoir of the start of a significant social movement that swept the land in later decades.Lepkoff is now 92 years old and spends her time between Vermont and New York City. Joly, who wrote the text for Almost Utopia, is a Vermonter and a Nearing scholar. “What she captured was a very fragile moment in the history of Vermont,” he says. “The intentional community people had just started coming. The people who were native looked down on that group, or they were afraid of them. Rebecca caught that moment right before the tension.”
The Vermont Historical Society is a nonprofit organization with offices in Barre and a museum in Montpelier, engaging both Vermonters and "Vermonters at heart" in the exploration of Our state's rich heritage. The Vermont Historical Society's purpose is to reach a broad audience through outstanding collections, statewide outreach, and dynamic programming.
For information on the Vermont Historical Society, call 802-479-8500. To receive a
review copy, contact Alan Berolzheimer at 802-649-2857 or
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Almost Utopia: The Residents and Radicals of Pikes Falls, Vermont, 1950. (ISBN: 978-0-934720-53-3, paper, $32; 978-0-934720-54-0, cloth, $42.
Call 802-828-1417 to order or
