Welcome

This is the website of the Barre Historical Society, owner of the Socialist Labor Party Hall National Historic Landmark, known as the “The Old Labor Hall”. Here you can find information about the history of the the Hall, about renting the Hall for your event, and about how you can help the Barre Historical Society preserve the Hall and the Union Cooperative Store bakery building.

Happenings at the Hall:

 Get ready for Primo Maggio 2019: 

  • Primo Maggio 2019 – Traditional Italian Dinner with novel history for old hands (and Young Adults)

    Lawrence children at the Hall flanked by Katherine Paterson and bookWednesday, May 1  Buy Tickets NOW!

    5:00 pm Social Hour (cash bar)
    6:00 pm Traditional Italian Dinner
    7:00 pm Bread and Roses, Too Katherine Paterson, award-winning children's author, talks about her young adult historical novel inspired by the picture of children of the 1912 Lawrence textile strikers on the steps of the Old Labor Hall. The book was selected by the Vermont Humanities Council for Vermont Reads 2018.

    Tickets: $25 in advance online or at the door (reservations recommended) Read more →

  • Global Labor Film Festival 2019 —”The Organizer”

    Poster and still from "The Organizer"Thursday, May 2 at 7:00 pm

    Continuing our Primo Maggio celebrations with the 2019 Global Labor Film Festival, film historian Rick Winston will present “The Organizer” staring Marcello Mastroianni as a labor activist involved in a turn-of-the-twentieth-century textile factory strike in Turin, Italy.

    Admission is FREE and open to the public. Light refreshments available. Read more →

  • “For the Love of Pete” – Concert and Singalong celebrating the late Pete Seeger’s 100th birthday

    Pete Seeger 90th birthday cardSaturday, May 4 at 7:00 pm Buy Tickets NOW!

    The Primo Maggio festivities continue with a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the world famous folksinger, the late Pete Seeger.

    The concert and sing-along features Anything Goes, the duo of long-time central Vermont musicians Ben Koenig and Mark Greenberg, who will play Pete's favorites, both the songs he wrote and the one's he loved. Get ready to sing out!

    Tickets are available in advance online or at the door:  $12 or $10 for seniors, students, and union members. Read more →

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History:

  • The Bakery from the Beginning to 2004

    Union Cooperative Bakery BuildingHistory of the Union Cooperative Bakery building, constructed in 1913 as an extension to the cooperative store located in the basement of the Socialist Labor Party Hall. It provided Italian and French baked goods to the community of italian granite workers in the area in the first decades of the twentieth century. Read more →

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Action, Camera!

Check out the Old Labor Hall YouTube channel for video excerpts from events at the Hall. Below are the most recent additions: