To make a better spirit: Community and history at the hill town fairs of Western Massachusetts

This folklife dissertation examines four agricultural fairs that have occurred annually in the towns of Chester, Middlefield, Cummington, and Blandford in Western Massachusetts since the latter half of the nineteenth century. The stories of Littleville Fair, Middlefield Fair, Cummington Fair, and Blandford Fair, which are known to many people as the hill town fairs, offer insights into the place of farming in the hill towns to the West of the Connecticut River Valley over the past one hundred and fifty years. At these events, individuals articulate, through social interaction and competitive performances, the values and attitudes which they attach to farming. Various types of agriculture which once served as principal forms of commercial enterprise in Massachusetts have moved towards the realm of the past and the status of a pastime in the recent history of the Commonwealth. Likewise, while the hill town fairs were originally formed to promote progressive agriculture; they have subsequently become distinctly anachronistic events. Fairgoers have accordingly mobilized around an affirmation of both farming and the fairs\u27 worth as traditional cultural activities through which one can retain a connection with one\u27s past, and can sustain traditional values, such as family and community involvement. By invoking the traditional value of farming and the fairs, fairgoers attempt not only to come to terms with, but to place a positive light on, the subordinate position of hill town agriculture within the socio-economics of Massachusetts