Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to speak at Williams College
Williamstown — Former Vermont governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Howard Dean will speak at Williams College on political leadership at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 12. Dean’s talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place in Room 3 of Griffin Hall.
Dean was governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003, serving five two-year terms, making him the longest-serving governor in Vermont’s history. He unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president in 2004, and then served as chair of the DNC from 2005 to 2010. His successful 50-state strategy as head of the DNC is credited with Democratic congressional victories in 2006 and 2008, as well as President Barack Obama’s victory in 2008.
He is the author of “You Have the Power: How to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America” and “Winning Back America,” about his life and the people and events that shaped him beginning with his upbringing in New York and moving through his medical career, his service as governor of Vermont and his presidential campaign.
Dean pioneered Internet-based fundraising and grassroots organizing, which is centered on mass appeal to small donors and is seen as more cost efficient than the approach of contacting fewer potential larger donors, and it promotes active participatory democracy among the general public. He used these methods when founding Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee, in 2004.
For building locations on the Williams campus, consult the online map or call the Office of Communications at (413) 597-4277.
–E.E.
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Winter Studio Festival of Plays at Shakespeare & Company
Lenox — Shakespeare & Company will hold a Winter Studio Festival of Plays on Saturday, Jan. 14, and Sunday, Jan. 15, in its Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. The weekend of staged readings will showcase a diverse array of playwrights and feature both emerging and established Company artists.
Festival titles will include “St. Petersburg: 1913” by local playwright Robert Sugarman, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist “The Clean House” by Sarah Ruhl, OBIE Award-winning dark comedy “Curse of the Starving Class” by Sam Shepard, “Beyond the Veil” by Berkshire native Emily Devoti, and the Anton Chekov classic “The Cherry Orchard.” Each reading will be followed by a post-show discussion.
Individual tickets are $15 to $35 and festival passes are available. For tickets and more information, see the Berkshire Edge calendar or call the Shakespeare & Company box office at (413) 637-3353.
–E.E.
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‘Who Was Festus Campbell?’
Pittsfield — On Thursday, Jan. 12, at 10:45 a.m., the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires will present author and Edge columnist Bernard A. Drew, who will share the historic story of an African-American who lived and owned businesses in Pittsfield in the 19th century. The free program commemorating Martin Luther King Day is titled “Who was Festus Campbell?” and will take place at Congregation Knesset Israel.
A Berkshire man of African descent, Festus Campbell (1822-1910) ran restaurants at Pittsfield’s train station and on North Street in the 1870s. Campbell arrived in Pittsfield in 1849 as a runaway slave, entered the employ of Dr. Robert Campbell, and traveled to Europe and the Holy Land as a valet in the company of Judge Thomas D. Colt, George P. Briggs and others. He became fluent in Italian and French. He and his common-law wife, Mary Jane Quincy (1829-1909), disappeared from the public record here after 1875 only to reappear in Olympia, Washington, where he again worked as a cook and gardener and became an ordained Baptist minister.
Drew is senior associate editor of the Lakeville Journal newspapers in Salisbury, Connecticut. He has also written columns for the Berkshire Eagle and has published 50 books, more than half of them Berkshire histories.
For more information, call the Jewish Federation of the Berkshires at (413) 442-4360 x10.
–E.E.
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2017 Local Farmer Awards accepting applications
Agawam — The Harold Grinspoon Charitable Foundation (HGCF) and Big Y have announced the third year of the Local Farmer Awards, which provide local farmers with monetary support for equipment and physical farm improvements that will help them compete in the marketplace. The regional farm advocates Berkshire Grown and Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, will provide insight and assistance.
HGCF launched the Local Farmer Awards in 2015. The 2016 awards were distributed to 47 of 128 applicants. In an effort to have the widest impact, individual award recipients will be given up to a maximum of $2,500 per award for a total of over $110,000 in awards.
The application deadline is Tuesday, Jan. 31. An online application is available.
–E.E.
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‘The Perils of the Petrolette’ at Ventfort Hall
Lenox — On Saturday, Jan. 14 at 3:30 p.m., Ventfort Hall Mansion and Gilded Age Museum will present “The Perils of the Petrolette, or the Lenox Motor Wars,” a talk by author and historian Cornelia Brooke Gilder. A Victorian tea will follow the talk.
No technological change was more disruptive to the rural way of life in Lenox than the advent of the motorcar. The battle, begun in the late 1890s, was polarized in Lenox between two local patricians – the conservative Richard Goodman Jr. and the dashing upstart Cortlandt Field Bishop – whose summer cottages faced each other across Old Stockbridge Road.
Gilder’s new book, “Edith Wharton’s Lenox,” is due out in the spring. Her earlier works are “Houses of the Berkshires” with Richard S. Jackson Jr. and “Hawthorne’s Lenox” with Julia Conklin Peters. A member of Ventfort Hall’s program committee, Gilder co-authored “A History of Ventfort Hall” with the late historian Joan Olshansky.
Tickets are $24 in advance and $29 on day of the event. Reservations are recommended as seating is limited. For more information or reservations, contact Ventfort Hall at (413) 637-3206 or info@gildedage.org.
–E.E.
