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justlikethewwdove t1_jbfjsn5 wrote

Reply to comment by wampastompa09 in Vermont vs New Hampshire by Lucky-Specialist-790

I think people would be really surprised at the level of small-scale mechanized industry there used to be in nearly every rural village in northern New England in the 19th century. This area is often romanticized as a bucolic agricultural region but the truth is that agriculture was never that lucrative here, we'd never be as developed as we are without the machinists and blacksmiths. The steam-powered automobile was invented in Hinsdale, NH in the 1890s, and the guy who created the prototype of the modern elevator that enabled the construction of skyscrapers grew up in tiny Halifax, VT

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Loudergood t1_jbg2c3i wrote

There are still a lot of high end custom mechanical engineering firms dotted around the state.

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justlikethewwdove t1_jbg64s6 wrote

Oh definitely I was just saying that the popular image of old-timey Vermont is something like Currier and Ives or Norman Rockwell when it was surprisingly cutting edge for its time and place. If people took a time machine to any rural town here in the 19th century, it would probably be unrecognizable in many places because of the sheer number of small mills and workshops. Nowadays only the farmhouses and mill city manses have survived and so they dominate the popular imagery of the historical landscape.

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Loudergood t1_jbg8anb wrote

Yeah, the Stowe, Manchester, and Woodstock effect.

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