RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

Rutland in transition

The railroads, which had helped to make Rutland so important in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, started their economic and strategic decline in the middle of the twentieth century.

Transportation, so central to Rutland's development in the 19th century, now impeded it. A modern interstate highway connection between Rutland and Burlington, then to Montreal following the earlier railroad road systems now was thwarted by Massachusetts, which wanted an interstate connecting to one of its major cities, Springfield, in the western part of that state. The interstate system was instead built west and east of Rutland, leaving the city stranded with its outdated transportation system.

Development of an international airport in Burlington further isolated Rutland. The geography of the mountains and the valleys, which had made railroad construction difficult but possible for Rutland, now proved a significant barrier for a major airport. Rutland developed a small commuter airport that struggled against the larger economy of the north.

In the past, Rutland was able to shift from one economic base to others that helped it to remain in the forefront of the state's economy. No new vision, no new economic base or entrepreneur has emerged to move Rutland to a new prosperity. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, no engine of growth emerged comparable to those in its early history.

The most dynamic and most extensive of these engines, and the one that had given the region its greatest influence locally and nationally, was the marble industry. The region's own sense of identity came from the marble influence and the rich deposits of marble. The fragmentation of Rutland into separate towns, once looked on as a favorable move in the 19th century, now retarded growth in the 20th and the 21st centuries.

Instead of cooperation in the region, the divided towns competed with one another for increasingly scarce resources. The bitterness of the 1935-36 strike divided West Rutland and Proctor, making West Rutland the butt of many jokes, especially anti-Polish jokes.

Local mythology tends to show Vermont Marble Co. in a poor light, spreading the 1930s-era turmoil over the entire lifespan of the firm. A significant portion of that character blackening can probably also be traced to the longevity of P.W. Clement's earlier influence on the Rutland Herald, which negatively colored any mention of the Proctor family. This local negative view is echoed in some of the historical scholarship on the Marble Valley.

Leon Fink, in "Workingmen's Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics," grants enormous political and economic power to Redfield Proctor. Fink's narrative, a New Left interpretation, portrays Proctor in a harsh light. Unquestionably, Fink zeroes in on the power that Proctor had and did exert. Fink also provides insight into the power of the local marble elites.

A careful examination, however, shows that the record of the Proctors is more complicated. The first and second generation of Proctors, more so than the other elites of the time, helped to transform the valley with a sense of corporate and civic responsibility.

P. W. Clement, for instance, for all his wealth and influence, did not contribute civically in the way that families such as the Proctors, for that matter, or the Dorrs did. Workers were also involved in this public, private and civic dialogue.

The initial board of the Proctor Hospital, for instance, had top management, middle management, office workers and members of the community, including women on the board. Unlike in the 1850s and 1860s, the later generation of workers, up until the 1920s, identified with the company even while workers sought their own political voice.

Unlike Leon Fink's critical view, Robert Gilmore, in his work "The Vermont Marble Company: An Entrepreneurial Study, 1869-1939," focused on the business ability of Redfield Proctor and lauds Proctor's skills, seeing him in a more benign light. Gilmore has, admittedly, a narrow focus, and in so doing he helps us to understand Proctor. His analysis shows Proctor as more a captain of industry than a robber baron. Chester Winston Bowie's "Redfield Proctor: A Biography," based on his doctoral thesis, places Proctor in a wider career context as a soldier, businessman and politician. Bowie's biography gives a well-rounded understanding of the man. Bowie's scope is larger on Proctor, but not, I think on Rutland and its workers.

My concern here has been to examine the essential context of place in helping to understand the people of the Marble Valley, especially its marble workers. I have sought to draw these into the narrative to show how they, as well as local elites, acted from their own interests and, from the sense of place, and at times joined forces with others who shared larger common goals.

Class position and a sense of place were important to workers as they tried to shape events. The political battles over place were fought precisely because the wealth came from particular locales within Rutland. The defensiveness and the aggressiveness shaped the political argument around place and explain the division of Rutland today. Local elites — the urban and the rural — themselves divided on important issues, and conflicts and their opposition and alliances with the working class help to get at the complex and fascinating story of the struggle. The very splintering of Rutland into Proctor, West Rutland, Rutland City and the leftover Rutland Town was one result. The workers were the catalyst that galvanized all the groups into action. To tell the story of the Marble Valley, and specifically Rutland, without that voice and the struggle of place is to miss an essential part of the story.

For now, the valley awaits another transformation. Unlike the earlier activism of the citizen-worker who not only voted, but also organized and ran for office, the current low participation of the citizen in national politics shows a dismal sense of alienation and perhaps hopelessness.

The earlier model of participatory democracy and corporate responsibility can serve as guides to renewal. The political voice and the economic contributions of the earlier marble worker helped to shape the valley and form a community in which thousands of citizen-workers lived, worked, voted and sought office as part of their social contract of citizenship. Their choices, despite all the obstacles, like the marble they extracted, shaped and finished, contributed to an exceptional sense of identity and place in which the worker-citizens were justifiably proud.

They left a legacy, which, in their terms, could be appropriately finished.

Marble Minutes is designed to show the history of the marble industry in Vermont and its importance in shaping the identity of our region. It is part of the Dimensions of Marble program, which through its distinct projects, will bring together the history of the marble quarries and workers, the communities in which they lived, the artistry of sculptors, past and present and the people, who through generations, created a multitude of new projects and brought prosperity to the region.

For more information on Dimensions of Marble, visit www.dimensionsonsofmarble.org or e-mail Megan Smith, executive director at info@dimensionsofmarble.org. Mike Austin, Ph.D., is project director of Teaching American History at Castleton State College.

For more information about Teaching American History, check out www.tahvt.org.