Bucksport Maine Finds Its Heart & Soul
How can person-to-person democracy be revived? A one-time mill town in coastal Maine is a laboratory for a new approach.
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Deborah Fallows
150 posts
Deborah Fallows is a writer, linguist and fellow at New America. She has written extensively on language, education, families and work, China, and travel for The Atlantic, National Geographic, Slate, The New York Times, The LA Times, and The Washington Monthly.
How Libraries Are Leading the Way to Digital Equity
This is a report about how that drama is playing out in one sizable American city, and what its lessons indicate for the country as a whole.
Why Some Libraries Are Eliminating Fines
Are fines consistent with a fundamental mission of libraries: to serve the public with information and knowledge? And to address that mission equitably across the diverse population of rich and poor library users?
THE ARTISTS OF LEMMON, SOUTH DAKOTA
The role of the arts in a tiny town with its sights set high
‘This Is What We Train For’
During our five years of travel around the country, my husband Jim and I often found that artists who revealed the perspectives on their hometowns were the people who stopped us in our tracks.
The Post-Pandemic Future of Libraries
"I've never been prouder to be a librarian."
A Rural Health Center With a Pandemic Plan
The Rowland B. French Medical Center is the primary health-care facility for the residents of Eastport, Maine, a tiny Down East fishing town, population 1,400. Eastport was one of the…
Public Libraries’ Novel Response to a Novel Virus
America’s public libraries have led the ranks of “second responders,” stepping up for their communities in times of natural or manmade disasters, like hurricanes, floods, shootings, fires, and big downturns…
Looking at Libraries
Continuing the photo essay about public libraries, which showed many examples of children’s rooms and adult spaces, this collection shows some of the multitude of activities happening at public libraries. It also…
A Portrait of Public Libraries
Since Jim Fallows and I began traveling the country for American Futures and Our Towns nearly seven years ago, there has been one beat that began as a surprise to me and grew into…
How Artists Build the Spirit of a Town
During our travels to towns around the U.S., Jim Fallows and I have come across several artist-in-residence programs, for example in Ajo, Arizona; Eastport, Maine; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ajo, Arizona, is the story of a better America
Take a walk through the oasis of green grass and palm trees in the central plaza of the tiny Sonoran Desert town of Ajo in southwest Arizona. You’re likely to run into…
An Artist-in-Residence Creates a Sense of Place
We’ve seen artist-in-residence programs in a number of the towns we’ve visited. The first was in Eastport, Maine, where we ran into Richelle Gribble, a young artist based in Los Angeles, whom I…
Photos Can Trigger Change in a Town
In 2008, National Geographic photographer Jodi Cobb and photographer and former Second Lady, Tipper Gore, talked about the role of photography at the then Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The…
The Modern Women of Rural America
Along the way of our reporting for American Futures and Our Towns, I ran into the stories of some remarkable women—living and dead. Eliza Tibbets, who planted the first navel oranges in California; Isabella Greenway,…
A River of Words in Pittsburgh
As we've traveled around the country with our American Futures and Our Towns projects since 2013, my husband, Jim, and I have evolved from being skeptics to evangelists about the impact of public arts on communities.