Participants will hear the reasons why a particular passage from a 1777 letter to the Inhabitants of Vermont was selected to be reprinted for this event. During the session, attendees are invited to read and discuss the entire letter and decide for themselves whether this chosen passage, to be letterpress printed on unique handmade paper, is recognizable, relevant, and relatable to us more than 250 years after it was first written.

John Vincent of A Revolutionary Press will also discuss how typesetting and printing in the New Haven, Vermont print shop compare to the methods used during the Revolutionary period in America.

Everyone present will have the opportunity to hand-ink the type set by hand, one letter at a time, and letterpress print their own broadside excerpt from this historical and controversial manifesto on the Threads of History unique handmade paper.

John Vincent is a retired police officer, poet, letterpress printer, and director of A Revolutionary Press, a 501c3 nonprofit and volunteer-run collective of artists in service to the Common Good in New Haven, Vermont.

This program is supported in part by the Vermont Humanities, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. www.vermonthumanities.org.

The Threads of History program series at MCL, in partnership with MHS, features Manchester and Southern Vermont’s textile past and weaves the fabric of history into auditory, visual, and tactile experiences of the Industrial Revolution. The series, supported in part by Vermont Humanities, explores themes from this year’s Vermont Reads book, Charity and Sylvia by Tillie Walden.