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Considering an Accumulation of Events By GREGORY SANFORD

The State Archives is routinely asked to identify the most significant Vermont people and events of the past century. Pulling people or events from the complex fabric of our past, anointing them as "most significant," does violence to the archival perspective. Individuals and events, often obscure or unnoted, incrementally create contexts within which each generation responds to the continuing issues of society. Rather than "great" individuals or "significant" events we are an accumulation of small decisions and unremarked events.

Consider these extraordinarily ordinary 20th century events and people drawn from government records. (presented in no particular order):

Jack McMullin, the 1998 U.S. Senate candidate of tenuous residency. Probably no other individual in the last half century has made Vermonters, whether newly arrived or third generation, think about what it means to be a Vermonter or about the nature of political representation.

Act 218, 1921, provided $2 a week child support for women whose husbands were "incapacitated by an incurable disease." This, the first act sponsored by a woman, gave notice that a new perspective now had a direct voice in government.

Carroll Page's 1900 U.S. House campaign was marked by paid pollsters and a "literary bureau" to create publicity. These innovations, one local paper editorialized, "will mean that a young man looking into the future must expect to be possessed of wealth before he can enter the political race with any hopes of success against a wealthy rival." Enough said.

Act 107, 1949, provided $7,000 to survey and cut down trees affected by Dutch elm disease. We are not alone. Twentieth century industrialization and transportation systems routinely expose Vermont's ecology and landscape to global influences, from Dutch elm disease to zebra mussels and global warming.

In 1992 Caleb Pitkin was elected to the Vermont House, the first Cabot resident to serve since reapportionment in 1965. Twenty-five years after reapportionment 30 percent of Vermont's municipalities had not been represented by a resident. Keeping elected officials close to those they represent is one of the enduring issues of self-government.

Under World War II's military draft nearly 50 percent of Vermont's males were declared ineligible for physical or mental health reasons. Through the century we have debated the scope, and costs, of public health.

Act 2, 1971, and Act 188, 1982, comprehend our changing environmental awareness. Act 2 repealed bounties on "noxious animals;" Act 188 protected endangered species. And yes, most animals we once paid bounties on now roam the endangered species list.

The campaigns of Frank Partridge (U.S. senator, 1931) and Robert Stafford (lieutenant governor, 1956) were the first to report expenditures for, respectively, radio and television. Mass media changed the nature and cost of campaigning and challenged our unique sense of Vermont with a placeless mass culture.

In 1905 Whitingham was again a receiving town under the statewide property tax to equalize educational funding. Throughout the century we have sought to equalize the burden of funding essential public services.

House bill 415 of 1949 sought to improve school bus safety in light of tales of children riding to school in homemade wooden vehicles heated by kerosene stoves or being padlocked inside converted vans. The bill passed, but not before provisions requiring towns to use vehicles "of proper factory design" were deleted. Local vs. state control debates have taken many forms this century.

In the 1906 case "Clement v. Graham," the Vermont Supreme Court declared that citizens have a right to inspect public records. That essential right has been debated from the paper records of 1906 to the computerized records of the 1990's. The right to know is essential; don't leave the century without it.

Gregory Sanford has served as the Vermont state archivist since 1982.