2024 Events & Programs

With Tamar Shadur

Join artist Tamar Shadur in an exploration of the beloved folk tradition of Papercuts. Together participants will design and make their own papercut art pieces to take home, all inspired by the art, history, and material culture of Northampton. Using simple materials, we'll explore papercutting techniques such as symmetry, positive and negative shapes, and meaningful symbols. Combining local history with hands-on collaborative artmaking, the workshop will offer a fulfilling and creative experience for children and their families.

The workshop is open to children (3rd grade and up) with accompanying adult(s). Using simple techniques and provided materials, children and adults will have the opportunity to create at least one paper cut to take home.

Before we say “goodnight” to the Shepherd Barn for the winter, please join us for a barn open house! 

Explore the barn on your own and meet the experts who restored it.  There will be short informal talks by master timber framers Alicia Spence and Miles Herter; restoration carpenter Douglas Thayer; collections manager Kelsy Sinelnikov; and co-director Betty Sharpe. There will be fun activities for children all afternoon.

At 5:00 bedtime, everyone is invited to gather to say “Goodnight Barn!” featuring a special song written just for this occasion. Enjoy donuts and local apple cider.

With Tamar Shadur

Northampton resident Tamar Shadur is an artist whose tapestries include some that were designed by her mother, a renowned Jewish papercut artist. In her presentation, Tamar will show a selection of Yehudit Shadur's (1928-2011) papercuts that were inspired by the Jewish devotional folk-art of papercutting, her tapestries, and the process of this mother-daughter collaboration.

With Emma John, Historic Northampton

Behold and see as you pass by, as you are now so once was I.
 
Historic Northampton historian Emma John will give a tour of the Bridge Street Cemetery, discussing the long history of epigraphs (gravestone inscriptions). Some well-known phrases like the one above and Rest in Peace go back to Ancient Rome and were popular with early residents of Northampton. The tour will also cover how to “read” parts of a gravestone such as the inscription and engraving, which can provide critical clues about someone’s social status in life and death.
 
This program involves walking and standing for about an hour on uneven ground, so comfortable walking shoes are recommended.

With Steve Waksman

Steve Waksman, the "Doctor of Rock," will soon be moving from Northampton to begin a five-year research project in England on how sound amplification technologies have impacted music, live events, political activism, and culture.

Before leaving the area, Waksman will share his story, which includes: his early fascination with music, playing in a local band, and his teaching and research career at Smith College. Waksman's wide ranging interests in music–from rock to heavy metal–led to his most recent book on the history of live music in America. In this conversation with noted interviewer Buz Eisenberg, he will also offer a preview of his forthcoming initiative, The Amplification Project.

Following the conversation, in-person attendees are invited to join a celebratory send-off reception featuring light refreshments.

With Emma John, Historic Northampton

On this tour of Northampton's Main Street, historian Emma John will be your guide on a walk from Historic Northampton to the Academy of Music and focus on what the architecture tells us about how 19th century citizens saw and used their main street. Where was the opera house? Where were the meeting rooms where abolitionist activities took place? Which buildings from the mid-1800s are still in use today? We will also talk about the role of civic pride, social order, historic preservation and what our Main Street has in common with others in the U.S.

With Laurie Sanders, Co-director, Historic Northampton

Co-director and naturalist Laurie Sanders will lead a walk to Burt’s Pit, one of the most ecologically, geologically and historically-significant properties within the City’s conservation holdings.

The property includes the city’s only extant bog, a network of trails, and a history of ownership that will dazzle. There aren’t many places in America where so many different strands of history come together; this is one of them.

This 1.5 mile walk will include off-trail explorations, so you must be able to walk over uneven surfaces.

With Laurie Sanders, Co-director, Historic Northampton

Co-director and naturalist Laurie Sanders will lead a walk to Burt’s Pit, one of the most ecologically, geologically and historically significant properties within the City’s conservation holdings.

The property includes the city’s only extant bog, a network of trails, and a history of ownership that will dazzle. There aren’t many places in America where so many different strands of history come together; this is one of them.

This 1.5 mile walk will include off trail explorations, so you must be able to walk over uneven surfaces.

With Elizabeth Sacktor, Museum Educator, Historic Northampton

Join Historic Northampton’s Elizabeth Sacktor for a walking tour of the Bridge Street Cemetery. We’ll explore how gravestones, and their locations in the cemetery, help us understand how Northampton women have been remembered, or nearly forgotten.

The tour will visit the graves of ten women buried between 1776 and 1923, from early 18th-century midwives to the first Indigenous woman to attend Smith College.

Each woman has a story to tell, and by examining the grave itself and the material remnants of their lives, we will uncover these stories together.

The tour involves walking and standing for about an hour on uneven ground, so comfortable walking shoes are recommended.

With Elizabeth Sharpe, Co-director, Historic Northampton

Historic Northampton co-director Elizabeth Sharpe will lead this guided walk to the dam ruins.  Sharpe is the author of the book In the Shadow of the Dam: The Aftermath of the Mill River Flood of 1874.​

Sharpe will discuss the design and construction of the dam, the dam break, and the changes in the natural landscape. The meeting location will be provided to registrants prior to the walk.
 
The trail is approximately 1.5 miles total, of moderate difficulty, with some steep, slippery, and rugged portions. 
The meeting location will be provided to registrants in the reminder email.
 Donations accepted. In partnership with the Williamsburg Woodland Trails Committee. 

​At left: View from below Reservoir showing East Wall, Views of the Flood in Mill River Valley, Knowlton Brothers, Northampton, Mass.

With Christopher McBride

Come celebrate our first full season in the Shepherd Barn, support Historic Northampton, and enjoy a night of disappearing ice cream and sophisticated close-up magic by sleight-of-hand artist Christopher McBride.

During this special benefit for Historic Northampton, McBride will use an ordinary deck of playing cards to perform tricks that seem to defy natural laws, challenge your perception of what is real . . . and make you smile. He will also explore some of the history of sleight-of-hand card magic, which dates back to the 15th century, when playing cards became popular and widespread.
 
A large projection screen will show the fine details of his sleight-of-hand, ensuring that everyone in the audience will have a good view. Because McBride’s performance requires an adult’s attention, this program is recommended for ages 15 and up.

Your reservation includes your choice of four delicious flavors of Herrell’s ice cream, plus hot fudge sauce. No wands required.

With TheatreTruck

Historic Northampton is pleased to present The Mill Project: women, work & resistance , a play with music by TheatreTruck, originally performed in 2017 and updated to reflect new scholarship.

The Mill Project remembers and embodies women’s experiences of work and resistance in the textile mills of nineteenth-century New England through a performance-collage drawn from letters, newspapers, pamphlets, and etiquette books. Woven into a tapestry of primary source text, original music, and movement, the play stages the mill operatives’ lived experiences and the rhetoric of womanhood, independence, enslavement, and abolition that surrounded them. Content Advisory: The play includes themes of death, pregnancy, and abortion and is recommended for adult audiences.

With Mass Humanities

Reading Frederick Douglass Together brings people together to read aloud Frederick Douglass’s speech, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?  

Smith College President Sarah Willie-LeBreton will give the opening and closing remarks for the 2024 Northampton event.

Come to listen or come to read a passage.  Copies of Douglass’s speech will be distributed to all in attendance.  The public can take turns reading passages from it in succession.  This event is free and open to the public.  200 chairs will be available.  Feel free to bring your own chair.

The speech was first delivered in 1852, in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York to the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society. The themes addressed in the speech still resonate with Americans more than 150 years after they were written.  Now more than ever, the speech forces us to reckon with the legacy of slavery and the promises of democracy.
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Frederick Douglass had strong ties to the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Florence and spoke in downtown Northampton in the 1840s about slavery and the abolitionist movement.

With Jennifer Hamlin Church

The children’s book, Miss Rumphius, was inspired by the real life of Hilda Edwards Hamlin, who spread lupine seeds along the roads near her summer home in Maine.

A native of England, Hilda’s connection to Northampton began when she moved here as a 15-year-old to live with her uncle, Harry Gardiner, a Smith College philosopher.  After graduating from Smith College in 1912, she married and moved away. In 1929, after her uncle’s death and her own divorce, she returned to Northampton. For the rest of her life, Hilda split her time between Northampton and the Maine summer home.

​In this presentation, Hilda’s granddaughter, Jennifer Hamlin Church, will share glimpses of Northampton history gathered from the letters and diaries written by her grandmother and her great granduncle.

Old Hampshire County Courthouse, ​99 Main Street, Northampton, Mass.

The coroner’s inquest into the cause of the Mill River flood deaths was a closely watched investigation into why the Williamsburg Reservoir dam failed. Over seven days, 42 witnesses testified about the dam’s design, construction, and oversight. Each witness was quick to blame someone else. Examining the coroner’s inquest gives us a window into the pervasive business mindset of the late 19th century. In this readers’ theatre presentation, twelve participants will take on the roles of individual characters in this dramatic moment of national importance. Elizabeth Sharpe, author of In the Shadow of the Dam: The Aftermath of the Mill River Flood of 1874, will narrate.

Church lawn, 195 Main Street, Leeds, Mass.

There will be a recounting of Myron Day’s heroic ride warning Leeds, a reading of the names of the 51 Leeds victims, and the performance of an original song by John Daniel.

River-inspired art pieces by Leeds artists, original illustrations from Millicent and The Day it Rained Buttons by Nancy Meagher, and an art piece made by the Leeds After School Enrichment River Arts Club will be on display.

A memorial tree will be planted to honor Myron Day.

First Congregational Church of Williamsburg

The program will feature new musical compositions by Nick Reid and Louise Mosrie, the “May 16th, 1874” ballad by Lynne Bertrand and Penny Schultz with cellist Stephen Katz, and the story of the disaster in the words of witnesses (arranged by Elizabeth Sharpe) with a reading of the victims’ names. A re-enactment of dam keeper George Cheney’s frantic horseback ride to warn the village will follow on North Main Street. Two trees will be planted at the church honoring the first two victims of the flood.

The event will be in-person and livestreamed.

With Andrea Olsen

Dancing Your Age is a group performance that explores the lives of six dancers and the world-music of percussionist Tony Vacca. Each dancer draws on their own embodied memories and kinesthetic imagination to explore all the years of their lives through movement. Performances are individual, held within the rhythms of Tony Vacca's music, and accompanied by the other dancers: Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser, Sarah Lass, Maya LaLiberté, Cameron McKinney, and Andrea Olsen.

Welcome and introductory remarks by Historic Northampton's co-directors Laurie Sanders and Elizabeth M. Sharpe, with a Q & A to follow.

Dancing your Age,developed by dance artist Andrea Olsen, is taking place at dance sites around the globe from 2023-25.

In Partnership with A.P.E@33 Hawley

With Alicia Spence

During April, Historic Northampton will build a larger garden shed using traditional timber frame joinery to store the Bridge Street School Sprouts gardening program equipment (shovels, rakes, gardening gloves, wheelbarrows). Expert timber framer Alicia Spence will teach volunteers the craft of timber framing, the use of hand and power tools, and how to cut and pre-fit the timber frame.

With Emma John

Historic Northampton historian Emma John will give a tour of the Bridge Street Cemetery that highlights some of the authors buried there and their literary contributions. Parking is available at Bridge Street School.

With Emma John

Join historian Emma John for a special family-friendly tour in our main gallery about the history of Main Street. It will be followed by open-ended play with hands-on activities–from making your own downtown to museum treasure hunts. Week of the Young Child is being coordinated by the City of Northampton's Early Childhood Center.

With Ilyon Woo & Lynne Zacek Bassett

The story of Ellen and William Craft’s dramatic escape from slavery in 1848 is the subject of Ilyon Woo’s new book.

On their journey, Ellen Craft disguised herself as a wealthy, disabled, male planter, while William Craft played the role of her slave.

To ensure accuracy, Dr. Woo worked with clothing historian Lynne Zacek Bassett about the particulars of what the couple wore. Together they will discuss the significance of clothing to the Crafts’ successful self-emancipation. Examples from the Historic Northampton collection of the types of clothing that they wore will be on display. Dr. Woo will also read from the book.

The program will be introduced and moderated by Dr. Elizabeth Pryor, Associate Professor of History at Smith College.

With Kiki Smith

Smith College Professor of Theatre Kiki Smith will discuss her work developing, preserving, and teaching with the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection, which includes over 4,000 items from the early 1800s to the present. Smith’s recent book, Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore, provides insights into women’s lives and their evolving roles at home and in the workplace. Introduction by fashion historian Lynne Zacek Bassett.​​

A book signing & reception will follow the talk. Copies of Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore will be available for sale

Presented by the Friends of the Smith College Libraries Oculus Society, in partnership with Historic Northampton.

With Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, Marge Bruchac, James Lowenthal

As night falls, join us for a gathering on the grounds of Historic Northampton to celebrate International Dark Sky Week. We will also take a short stroll—in darkness—through nearby Bridge Street Cemetery to experience the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings of the dark night-time environment.
 
Special guests include:

• Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, who will read the City’s proclamation recognizing April 2-8, 2024 as International Dark Sky Week
• Abenaki poet and anthropologist Marge Bruchac, who will read selections from her poetry; and
• James Lowenthal, coordinator of Northampton City Lights and an astronomer at Smith College.

Coordinated by Northampton City Lights in partnership with Historic Northampton.

With Laurie Sanders

Join co-director and naturalist Laurie Sanders for a walk down Hockanum Road to the site of the former Hockanum Ferry on the Connecticut River. The return leg will coincide with the sunset, which is one of the most beautiful times to be in the Meadows. We will view the Holyoke Range and appreciate the broad floodplain that shaped so much of Northampton's history. To and from the river, we'll hope for flocks of migrating Canada geese and ducks … and possibly an aerial performance by a woodcock (or two).

A Presentation by Dr. Robert M. Thorson, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Connecticut

As Robert Thorson notes in his book, Stone by Stone, “abandoned stone walls are the signatures of rural New England.” Thorson’s research on the region’s historic stone walls has revealed that the majority were built between 1775 and 1825, principally by farm families and their hired hands, to mark boundaries between properties, enclose pastures and fields, and clear the fields of stones left by the last glaciation. There are an estimated 240,000 miles of stone walls in New England—a distance longer than the entire U.S. coastline. In this illustrated presentation, Thorson will describe the history of stone walls in New England, how and why they were made, by whom, and their purposes and styles. He will incorporate the present-day ecological roles of walls and discuss how what were once barriers in the landscape now bind together the region’s cultural fabric. Finally, Thorson will offer suggestions for how landowners, towns, and other organizations can inventory and map their historic stone walls.

A Presentation by Geoffrey S. LeBaron, Christmas Bird Count Director for National Audubon

Some of the nation’s first bird surveys were conducted in the Connecticut River Valley. In Northampton, the first records date to the 1840s when William Dwight Whitney, who grew up on King Street, began observing birds and collecting specimens. In the decades that followed, the nation’s interest in natural history and conservation soared. In 1889, Florence Merriam published the first field guide to bird identification in the U.S., Birds Through an Opera Glass, which includes profiles of species she observed along the Mill River while she was attending Smith College.
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In this presentation, noted ornithologist Geoff LeBaron will spotlight the last century of birding in the Connecticut River Valley by focusing on the records gathered during the Christmas Bird Count. Started in 1900, Christmas Bird Count is considered one of the world’s largest “citizen science” projects and relies on data collected by thousands of volunteers. LeBaron will share information on how some species of birds in our area are doing on local, regional, and continental scales.

A Presentation by Scott Jackson, UMass Professor of Environmental Conservation

In this illustrated presentation, Scott Jackson, an expert on biodiversity conservation, will examine the past, present, and future of Northampton’s wild landscapes. Jackson will describe new, objective tools and information sources that help identify and prioritize the areas that are the most “important” in terms of conservation and ecology, particularly in the face of climate change. These tools, many of which were first developed at UMass, are now available to cities, towns, and other organizations working on long-term regional conservation initiatives and climate resilience.