Project details impact of 1970s counterculture on Vermont

FILE - In this Sept. 1, 1973 file photo, a rock band plays before concert goers on the opening day of a rock festival in Holland, Vt., that attracted a thousands of young people over the three-day Labor Day weekend. The Vermont Historical Society's exhibit 'Freaks, Radicals & Hippies: Counterculture in the 1970s in Vermont' opens at the Vermont History Center in Barre, Vt. on Sept. 24, 2016. The exhibit will showcase how the state became a hotbed for the counterculture as the influx of young people had a lasting influence on the state's politics, agriculture, food and offbeat culture. (AP Photo, File) (The Associated Press)

In this Sept. 16, 2016 photo, posters from the 1970s wait to be added to an exhibition at the Vermont History Center in Barre, Vt. The exhibit 'Freaks, Radicals & Hippies: Counterculture in the 1970s in Vermont' opens on Sept. 24, and will showcase how the state became a hotbed for the counterculture as the influx of young people had a lasting influence on the state's politics, agriculture, food and offbeat culture. (AP Photo/Lisa Rathke) (The Associated Press)

Vermont in the 1970s was a hotbed for the counterculture, and the influx of young people had a lasting influence on the state's politics, agriculture and food and offbeat culture.

The Vermont Historical Society's exhibit "Freaks, Radicals & Hippies: Counterculture in the 1970s in Vermont" opens at the Vermont History Center in Barre on Sept. 24.

The historical society surveyed about 725 people from that time, most of whom identified with the counterculture movement.

Curator Jackie Calder says they were drawn to Vermont for its beauty, rural nature, inexpensive land and farms, and its proximity to Boston, New York City and New Jersey.

Calder says many of them were well-educated. Seventy-five percent of those surveyed had college degrees and some had post-doctoral education.

Thirty percent said they lived on communes.