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Vermont

A small state in northern New England, Vermont is the 49th most populous state, with about 621,000 people, and has the second-lowest birthrate in the country. Vermont followed New Hampshire in establishing its independence in 1777, thanks to the ability of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys militia in stamping out British and royalist opposition, and has long referred to itself as one of the first sovereign republics in the Americas. In the 21st century, Vermont has continued to be idiosyncratic. The state has long allied itself with outsiders and outliers: it has elected a socialist congressman (now Senator Bernie Sanders), was the first state to offer civil unions for gay couples, and was the birthplace of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, the two central figures of the Latter-day Saints movement.

One of the whitest states in the union (98 percent of the population), Vermonters are also among the oldest Americans: the median age in 2005 was 40.7, and about 42 in the workforce. French Americans (mostly Quebecois) are the largest ancestry group (23.9 percent), followed by the English, Irish, and Germans. About 2.5 percent of the population speak French at home, generally in the north along the Canadian border. The francophone social network is strong, and although the bilingual signage common a century ago is a rarity now, it is common to find mainstream supermarkets carrying Québécois goods and diners and bars serving Québécois food like tourtière and salmon pie. Even non-francophone Canadian goods are not uncommon near the border, from Aero bars and ketchup chips to flipper pie from Newfoundland, as Vermonters of Canadian extraction maintain social ties with their Canadian families. Sugar shacking, the practice of combining a late-winter celebration with the arrival of the first maple syrup of spring, is a Canadian tradition still followed throughout Québécois New England. More than half of Vermont's population were born outside the state, one of the factors that has gradually eliminated the traditional Vermont accent.

Religious Networks

As in neighboring New Hampshire, religious sentiment is one of the weakest in the nation: about a third of Vermonters identify no religious affiliation, and less than a quarter of Vermonters attend church regularly. Evangelical and other conservative Protestant affiliations have enjoyed much less popularity in Vermont than even in New Hampshire, and the largest Protestant denominations are Congregationalist and Methodist (about 6 percent each). Catholicism, which in 1990 accounted for 37 percent of the state, has dropped to a quarter of the state 20 years later. The newest churches—evangelical groups, especially those that run churches out of family homes and rented spaces—and the oldest, the Catholic Church, have some of the strongest religious social networks, encouraging the development of social ties that extend beyond Sunday services.

But as small as Vermont's religious participation is, it is also home to several small, vibrant, religious communities. For instance, Vermont has what is believed to be the largest concentration of Western-convert Buddhists: Americans who were not raised in a Buddhist culture, but converted to the faith. Since the 1960s, Buddhism has thrived in the cities of Burlington and Montpelier, as well as Caledonia County, with a Buddhist population of about 16 percent (about 10 times the national percentage). Tibetan Buddhism, a popular interest of the counterculture movements that were popular in urban Vermont in the 1960s and among the many transplants who moved to the area during that time, is the most popular form of Buddhism in Vermont, and the Buddhist community is a distinct and varied social network in the state. The town of Barnet in Caledonia has a Buddhist compound of over 500 acres, including a target range for Zen archery and retreat cabins used by solitary meditators. Many of the compound's neighboring buildings are homes of Buddhists who have moved to Barnet from out of state, and one of the largest businesses in Barnet is the Samahdi Cushions factory, where meditation mats and pillows are made to be shipped all over the country.

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