Eden is a small town located in the North East Kingdom of Vermont, U.S.A. The town was founded after the Civil War by virtue of a land grant given to soldiers as payment for their services. The early history of Eden largely concerns the hardship faced by the settlers as they attempted to farm the land and survive the harsh winters. By the early part of the twentieth century, the history of the town had altered dramatically with the discovery of asbestos. Through the course of the century, Eden grew to become the primary production site of asbestos within the United States. Due to the discovery of the harmful affects inherent in the excavation and use of asbestos, the mine gradually cut back production at the site, until it finally closed in the early 1980s. The loss of the mine at Eden created an economic vacuum in the area and heralded the decline of a once prosperous community.
The geographical layout of Eden, as a town-land and recognized jurisdiction, is both simple and symbolic. The mine is located in an area of the town-land known as Eden Mills. Further to the west is an area simply known as Eden. This dichotomy is at the heart of the Eden's figurative meaning.
Eden, as a subsection of the town-land, is a relatively unspoiled area consisting of residential property, farmland, some virgin forest and most notably, Lake Eden. For many years, the lake has attracted holidaymakers over the summer months, who either stay at the caravan park or have a summer hut on the banks of the lake. Indeed, Eden's most famous guest, Federico García Lorca, stayed on the banks of Lake Eden in such a hut during the summer of 1929 and dedicated a substantial part of his collection, A Poet In New York, to his stay in the town-land. The water in Lake Eden is fed by a variety of sources, but most significant of them is the river Gihon that has its origins in the asbestos mountains above Eden and flows south-west into other areas of the state. Finally, Route 100, which is one of Vermont's main highways and runs directly to Canada, flanks Lake Eden. The road functions almost as an artery cutting straight through the town- land and connecting Eden to the outside world.
Eden Mills is most notable for the presence of its asbestos mine. Symbolically, Eden Mills is suggestive of William Blake’s critical allegory of the industrial revolution, The Satanic Mill. Indeed, the very idea of the mill conjures up images of fiery furnaces, dark desolate toil, noise and a system of operation which is in opposition to the act of creation itself, i.e. being dependant on daylight or the seasons.
Additionally, asbestos is found naturally in striations of rock, known as serpentine striations, or colloquially as serpents. The presence of asbestos as the, 'serpent in Eden', therefore functions as a metaphor for the dominant role of asbestos within the mass production economy. The folly of asbestos use in the twentieth century can therefore be aligned to a much greater folly, in the form of the mass production economy and consumer oriented capitalism generally.
Quintessentially, Eden provides a retrospective look at twentieth century U.S.A. from today's post-modern, post- industrial standpoint. As a subject of study, the consideration of America as Eden, can be traced back through the modern era to the Luminist painters of the nineteenth century and beyond to the first European settlers in the New World.