News to me !!

I had them lumped together even worse!

But I see what you are saying with the wikipedia article. Wow.

I’m often interested in the state comparisons done by various groups. The low tax states vs. the high tax states (of which CA is one with 12.5% unemployment).

I believe the legacy media would be doing a better job if they reported these things…

Four. The in-migration of the three states has been quite different. NH has gone from solid red to purple largely because the SE part of the state has become a suburb of Boston metro. VT’s immigrants came up starting in the 60’s from New York to get away from the rat race, start communes, or overdose on pastoral charm. They still vote like New Yorkers. Maine’s immigrants are largely along the coast, strongly connected to that wealthy northeast city contingent. Roosevelts, Tafts, Rockefellers, Morgans, Bushes, Vanderbilts – we didn’t have that so much in NH and VT.

If this goes too long I’ll break it into separate comments.

First. Yes to Shlaes basic point. The reasons why the three originally similar states diverged are interesting.

Two. Types of economy. VT and Maine, before tourism, were largely agricultural, especially if one includes fishing and timber/pulp as agriculture. Maine had some mills, but NH went in for that far more. Beginning around the 1840’s, and accelerating after the Civil War, those states emptied, as farmers discovered that in Western NY, Ohio, and Indiana there weren’t so many goldurned rocks to contend with. Only western NH suffered the same changes. There are towns in those areas that are still smaller than they were in 1840. Our population was more stable, and the mills had much to do with that.

Even the tourist economies were different. VT had the ubiquitous country inns. Maine had two types: remote hunting by wealthy businessmen from Boston and Philadelphia, and ocean cottages, built by similar summer visitors from away. The name LL Bean may come to mind, especially if you knew it a generation ago, with its curious mix of serious outdoorsman and colorful Bar Harbor prep chic. But NH had the grand hotels (no coastline, remember), where the wealthy would send the whole family for the summer on trains, with the husbands riding up on weekends. The tourist economies are somewhat more similar now. Skiing, lakes, hiking are similar across the three.

They have an odd pecking order – your social status in town is determined by how high up you are in the mill (or how high up your dad is if you are a schoolkid). And if you do not work at the mill, you might as well go jump off a bridge because you are worse than trash.

Very poisonous atmosphere in both the literal and figurative senses. I can imagine Detroit etc. being very similar.

But they are even more different, in fact, than NH and Maine. NH and Maine used to have more of an industrial base (mills, and then shoes) whereas Vermont was always more rural and agricultural. Now, although all three states rely heavily on tourism and refugees from cities like Boston and NY, Vermont is even more heavily reliant on those things than the other two states. And although Vermont used to be Republican or independent, since this influx that started mainly in the 1969s, it is now far more liberal; perhaps the most liberal state in the US.

NH, on the other hand, still retains its libertarian motto “Live Free or Die.” And its emergence as a Democrat state was relatively recent, during the Clinton years, and the margin of Democrat victory has always been smaller. Perhaps that’s because more of its immigrants from NY and Massachusetts came there to flee taxes, and don’t want to make NH into the places they left.

but you know the toughest nuns and priests were always Irish and the “easy” priests were Italian!

I am an Italian/Irish Roman Catholic (2nd/3rd generations) and am aware of HUGE cultural differences between:

– Irish-American RCs (very devout, trust and become part of hierarchies, no problem with authority and like to be in power, like to drink)
– Italian-American RCs (really don’t give a crap that much, live and let live, ignore any and all authority including and most of all the Church, pretty much suck at drinking)
– French-Canadian RCs (very devout, fatalistic, but also have the Italian-American anti-authoritarianism, drink often but not well)
– Ukrainian/Polish RCs (not very devout, easy-going, ok with authority, really excellent at drinking)

And I’m sure Mexican, Central and South American RCs are also completely different animals . . .

juxtaposition not justaposition