GENIEVE LAMSON
1886 - 1966
In the year 1887, the Constitution of the United States had
been in operation for less than a century. Only forty States
comprised the Union. Grover Cleveland was President ad
Morrison Waite was Chief Justice. David B. Hill was Governor
of New York and in his annual message to the Legislature he
recommended "the abolition of an unnecessary office."
Abroad, Victoria was Queen and the Marquis of Salisbury was
her prime mbnister. William I was Emperor of Germany and
Alexander III, Tsar of Russia.
Only twenty-nine years earlier, Charles Darwin had published
his Origin of Species. Karl Marx had been dead but four years.
And in 1887, that supreme revolutionary, Gottlieb Daimler, was
operating for the first time a motor car propelled by a petrol
engine.
In this same year, in the cool silence of a little Vermont
town, in sight of the Braintree Mountains and close by the
gentle waters of the Third Branch of the White River, Genieve
Lamson was born.
Miss Lamson's ancestors settled in Randolph in 1791. They were
farmers; and good, solid middleclass citizens; hardy, self-
reliant, independent, ad God-fearing. One uncle ran the farm,
another became a highly successful hardware merchant. Her
father purchased and operated s retail furniture store. As
was customary in thee days, he was also the local undertaker
and funeral director.
Before 1900, Miss Lamson's father invested money in gold mining
which turned out to be worthless; so that while he was able to
send his oldest child and only son to college, he could not
afford to do the same for his three daughters.
Armed only with a high-school diploma, Miss Lammon taught for
four terms in the rural schools around Randolph.
On a Sunday afternoon she would drive her horse and sleigh
some miles out to a tiny village where for five days a week
she met her charges in a one-room schoolhouse; tended a pot-
bellied stove; and gave instruction, not only in reading,
writing, and arithmetic, but, by way of MoGuffey, in the
virtues of temperace, industry, self-control, stick-to-itive-
ness, mercy, and honesty.
GEMIEVE LAMON - continued
The following Friday afternoon would see her return to
Randolph. During the week she would live with a local
family.
Miss Lamson spoke occasionally of those drives through deep
snows, of the biting winds that carried the flakes against
her face, of the crunch of steel runners upon hard-packed snow.
Finding that she liked teaching, Miss Lamson attended a normal
school in Springfield, Massachusetts, for one year. Then for
five years she taught in the Roselle Park, Mew Jersey, high
school.
Aware of the need for a college education, Miss Lamson ventured
even deeper into that great area west of the Hudson River and
matriculated at the young University of Chicago. Here, she
received her Bachelor of Science degree in 1920 at the age
of thirty-three.
After a year of teaching in a private school, Miss Lamson
returned to Chicago for a Master's degree.
In 1922, she came to Vassar where she remained until her
retirement thirty years later.
Miss Lamson was an economic geographer. She was at first
associated with the Department of Geology. In 1934 a Depart-
ment of Geography was established and Miss Lamson was installed
as chairman. This position she held throughout her tenure.
Her published works include "Geographic influences in the
Early History of Vermont" (1924), "A Study of Agricultural
Populations in Selected Vermont Towns" (1931), and parts
here and there in the Dutchess Couty Works Progress Admin-
istration Guide Book of which project she was the director.
Miss Lamson was a delegate to the International Geographical
Union Congress in Warsaw, Poland, in 1934, and in Amsterdam,
Holland, in 1938.
For twenty years, she was head resident in Lathrop House.
Miss Lanson also distinguished herself as Editor-in-chief of
the Vassar Journal of Undergraduate Studies.
Miss Lamson in her "Study of Agricultural Populations in
selected Vermont Towns" described the Vermont farmer, and in
doing so, described herself. He is, she wrote, "a person of
reserve and a strong sense of privacy. His characteristic
independence is based upon an inherent self-respect. He asks
GERIIVE LAMBO - continued
no 'odds of society.‘ He will deal generously with the
unfortunate, and dispense hospitality to the stranger, with
no apologies for the conditions of his hospitality. At the
same time he will drive a shrewd bargain and is so thrifty
that he has earned the reputation of being ‘close.’ A pro-
found conservative, the farmer clings to the established order.
Me accepts change cautiously, and only from conviction based
on experience. His conservatism," she continued, "expresses
itself in his code of morals and religion. There is a good
deal of the English Puritan in the Vermont farmer. He has a
keen sense of right and wrong, and a straightforward honesty.
He respects education. Me appreciates initiative and ability.
He has a profound sense of community responsibility."
One thing she did not mention. In every Vermonter, buried
deep within his soul, is the spirit of Ethan Allen and his
Green Mountain boys. This spirit manifested itself in Miss
Lamson when she rebelled against the Republicanism of her
forefathers, against the Republicanism.of her immediate family,
of her relations to the farthest remove, and of her friends.
She flirted with socialism in the images of Eugene V. Debs
and Norman Thomas, and came to rest, finally, in the arms of
Franklin D. Roosevelt—figuratively speaking.
when Miss Lamson retired she retuned to the family home in
Randolph which in spirit she had never left. She plunged
immdiately into the affairs of the community. She was the
historian of the Bethany Congregational Church, a trustee
of the Vermont Historical Society, a sponsor of the Vermont
Symhony Orchestra, and a prominent member of the Randolph
Garden Club. Almost to the time of her death she sang in the
church choir.
Last May at the State meeting of the Vermont Division of the
American Association of University Women, Miss Lamson was
honored by having a national scholarship named for her.
Thus, on September 25th, there came to an end a useful life
which covered monumental changes in the story of man. True
to her backgroud, Miss Lamson represented the best of tradi-
tions; but she had learned a lesson from Lincoln:
The dogmas of the quiet past are
inadequate to the stormy present
. . . As our case is new, so we
must think anew and act anew.
Ruth Conklin
Homer Pearson
Scott Warthin
Gordon Post, Chairman