A Bibliography of Sources on Northampton History
Top Recommended General Histories
Buckley, Kerry W., ed. A Place Called Paradise: Culture and Community in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-2004. University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. The definitive anthology of recent scholarship on the history of Northampton and its regional setting.
Everts, Louis H. History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches: Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers, vol. 1. J.B. Lippincott & Co, 1879.
Holland, Josiah Gilbert. History of Western Massachusetts.: The Counties of Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire.: Embracing an Outline, or General History, of the Section, an Account of its Scientific Aspects and Leading Interests, and Separate Histories of its One Hundred Towns, vol. 1 and 2. Samuel Bowles and Company, 1855. A comprehensive history of the four western counties up to 1855, including much on Northampton. Good accounts of agriculture, railroads, educational institutions and newspapers. Of value for description of Northampton area at time of writing.
Lockwood, Allison. Finding Paradise: Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-1861. Daily Hampshire Gazette, 2004.
Sinton, John. Devil’s Den to Lickingwater: The Mill River Through Landscape & History. Levellers Press, 2018.
Trumbull, James R. History of Northampton, Massachusetts, From Its Settlement in 1654, vol. 1, 2, and 3. Gazette Printing Co., 1898. Trumbull, a retired local editor, compiled this history using the Judd Manuscripts, in which he had half interest. Volume 2 was posthumously assembled by his nieces. The period 1722-1819 is covered in detail.
Additional General Histories
Betty Allen Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Early Northampton. F.A. Bassette Company, 1914. Fifteen essays on various aspects of Northampton history.
Johnson, Clifton. Historic Hampshire in the Connecticut Valley: Happenings in a Charming Old New England County from the Time of the Dinosaur Down to About 1900. Milton Bradley Company, 1932. Chapter II is a historical sketch of Northampton and its people.
Pontius, Susan. The History of Women in Northampton from 1660-1980. Hestia Art Collective, 1980. As background for the Hestia Art Collective mural, the artist produced a short sketch of Northampton women in history.
Wikander, Lawrence E., Harold U. Faulkner, Harriet C. Bliss Ford, et al., ed. The Northampton Book: Chapters from 300 Years in the Life of a New England Town, 1654-1954. Tercentenary History Committee, City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1954. A collection of 46 articles widely used as a source book.
Wikander, Lawrence E., Helen Terry, and Mark Kiley, ed. The Hampshire History: Celebrating 300 Years of Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Hampshire County Commissioners, 1964. A series of 21 town histories which appeared serially in the Hampshire Gazette. The chapter on Northampton appears on pp.158-186, but this volume is of principal interest for its histories of neighboring towns.
Manning, Alice H. Meadow City Milestones: A Collection of Historical Sketches. Daily Hampshire Gazette, 1987. Thirty-six vignettes of Northampton history originally written for the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Arts and Music
Bassett, Lynne Zacek, ed.. Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth. University Press of New England, 2009.
Blumenthal, Barbara B. Paradise Printed & Bound: Book Arts in Northampton & Beyond. 350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 2004.
Dietz, Paula. “Katherine Elizabeth McClellan: An Essay.” Massachusetts Review 25 (1984): 405-420. On the work of a remarkable Northampton photographer at the turn of the century. Reproductions of some of her work include two of her studio at 44 State Street.
Dozema, Marianne, ed. Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke. Cornell University Press, 2002.
Eliot, Samuel A., Jr. “The Municipal Theatre in Northampton.” Theatre Arts 3 (1919): 248-254. Blames the townspeople for the demise of the Northampton Players.
Hale, Philip. “Musical and Theatrical Life in a New England Village in the Sixties.” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 56 (1923): 335-343. A former resident’s witty commentary on Northampton in the 1860s: its democracy, churchgoing, preaching, medicine, theatrical shows and music.
Harrigan, Rita. “The Northampton Academy of Music: The First Municipal Theatre in the United States.” Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1949. Reviews the history of the Academy from its opening in 1891 to its failure in 1919. Includes sketch of founder, Edward H.R.Lyman.
Hoppin, Martha. Arcadian Vales: Views of the Connecticut River Valley. George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum and Wesleyan University Center for the Arts, 1981.
Osterhout, Paul. “Music in Northampton, Massachusetts to 1820.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1978. Around 1800 Northampton was an important and unique music publishing center. Study based on the Judd Manuscripts, early newspapers and the published music itself.
Buildings and Architecture
350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, ed. Paradise Built: Shaping Northampton’s Townscape, 1654 – 2004: Our Peculiar Plan/ Fifteen Preservation Projects/ Architect William Fenno Pratt. 350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, 2004.
Committee on Historical Localities, ed. Historical Localities in Northampton. Committee on Historical Localities, 1904. Description of historic homes, buildings, etc., identified and located.
Cote, Richard C. “Isaac Damon’s Northampton: An Essay in Townscape and Townplanning.” Unpublished article, 1970. On Damon’s early contribution to Northampton’s architecture, 1811-1828.
Cote, Richard C. “Rethinking the Early Greek Revival: The Success of Influences and the Failure of a Builder.” Old-Time New England 64, no. 3-4 (1974): 61-76. A Northampton carpenter-builder, Thomas Pratt, failed at his early (1826-1828) attempt at the Greek Revival portico house form. He was out of his element and without experience in the new style.
Cote, Richard C. “Thomas Pratt and the Greek Revival Architecture in Northampton, Mass.: A Study of New England Architecture, 1807-1832.” B.A. thesis, Hampshire College, 1972. Pratt constructed homes while his contemporary, Isaac Damon, specialized in civic buildings.
Fabing, Suzannah J. Roswell Field Putnam (1840-1911): Versatile Architect for the Pioneer Valley. N.p., 2020.
Hayes, Marian. “Life and Architecture in the Connecticut Valley.” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1944. Northampton is well-represented in this dissertation. Covers 300 years of history and 300 miles of river. About 200 photographs. Structural and framing details. Footnotes and bibliography.
Hunt, Cynthia L. “William Fenno Pratt and the Development of Nineteenth-Century Northampton.” Honors thesis, Smith College, 1977. Author concludes that Pratt had an astonishing impact on Northampton. He represented the transition between carpenter-builder and the trained professional. Includes 94 drawings and photographs. Footnotes and bibliography.
Kneeland, Harriet J. Some Old Northampton Homes. Northampton, 1909. Dates and details of old homes and who lived there.
MacDonald, William L. Northampton Massachusetts: Architecture and Buildings. Northampton Bicentennial Committee, 1975. Demonstrates how Northampton’s buildings reflect its changing styles, fads and culture. Illustrated by author.
Menke, William F. “William Fenno Pratt: Changing with the Times in Northampton, Massachusetts.” Seminar paper, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, ca. 1975. Author pieces together clues as to the professional life of the architect-builder Pratt, the son of carpenter-builder Thomas Pratt. Presents research findings on the planning and erection of Pratt’s civic and institutional buildings.
Merrill, David O. “Isaac Damon and the Architecture of the Federal Period in New England.” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1965. An erudite and exhaustive study of the life and times of Isaac Damon, the famed architect-builder of the Connecticut Valley. Well-illustrated.
Southwick, Mrs. Elbridge G. The Evolution of Main Street Northampton, Mass. Forbes Library, 1915.
Stone, Lu. A House. A Street. A City.: The Story of 17 Summer. 350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 2004.
Calvin Coolidge
Buckley, Kerry W. “A President for the ‘Great Silent Majority’: Bruce Barton’s Construction of Calvin Coolidge.” New England Quarterly 76, no. 4 (2003): 593-626.
Fuess, Claude M. Calvin Coolidge: The Man From Vermont. Little, Brown and Company, 1940.
Lockwood, Allison. A President in a Two-Family House: Calvin Coolidge of Northampton. Northampton Historical Society, 1988. An account of Coolidge’s years in Northampton as captured in anecdotes, recollections and news photography.
McCoy, Donald R. Calvin Coolidge: The Quiet President. The Macmillan Company, 1967. A biography of the president, including descriptions of his life in Northampton, followed by an essay on selected sources, endnotes and index.
Pease, Clifford A., Jr. Calvin Coolidge and His Family: An Annotated Bibliography. Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, 1987. A useful bibliography up to 1987 with critical annotations.
Perry, Phillip M. “With Calvin Coolidge in Northampton.” New England Galaxy 18, no. 3 (1977): 37-43. How Coolidge spent his retirement in Northampton. Includes some memories of his secretary, Herman Beaty, and his chauffeur, John Bukoski.
Ross, Isabel. Grace Coolidge and her Era: The Story of a President’s Wife. Dodd, Mead & Company, 1962. A biography of Grace Coolidge (1879-1957) with a strong accent on her Northampton experiences: early teaching at the Clarke School, marriage to Calvin Coolidge, and life after the presidential term.
Well, Susan Lewis. Calvin Coolidge: At Home in Northampton. Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum, 2009. This work of local history describes the thirtieth president’s seven homes in Northampton, Massachusetts, the people he roomed with, and the neighbors he encountered – set within the context of the small New England city where they lived.
White, William Allen. A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge. Capricorn Books, 1938. Editor William Allen White’s evaluation of Coolidge, numerous references to his life in Northampton.
Churches
Dwyer, Margaret C. Centennial History of St. Mary of the Assumption Church, Northampton, Massachusetts, 1866-1966. Custombook, 1966. The history of Roman Catholicism in Northampton begins in 1834 with the celebration of the first mass and culminates in the building of St. Mary’s, 1885-1889. Appendix lists early pastors, curates and parishioners.
First Parish, Northampton: Meeting Houses and Ministers from 1653 to 1878. Gazette Printing Company, 1878. Good historical and architectural detail. Contains biographical sketches of the ministers.
Lawton, Edward M., Jr. The Sesquicentennial History of the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, 1825-1975. 1975. Well-researched study backed by notes and bibliography. Of particular interest is the account of the Free Congregational Society of Florence and its famed Cosmian Hall.
Wilbur, Ruth E. and C. Keith Wilbur. Bid Us God Speed: The History of the Edwards Church of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1833-1983. Phoenix Publishing, 1983. Summarizes chronologically the ministries of the nineteen pastors over a 150-year span.
Clarke School for the Deaf
Grosvenor, Lilian “Deaf Children Learn to Talk at Clarke School.” National Geographic 107 (1955): 378-397. Illustrated article by the granddaughter of Alexander Graham Bell, who was personally involved with the school for 51 years.
Marvelli, Alan L. “An Historical Examination and Organizational Analysis of the Smith College – Clarke School for the Deaf Graduate Teacher Education Program.” Ed.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, 1973. Detailed history of the school, and close examination from an educator’s point of view.
Numbers, Mary E. My Words Fell on Deaf Ears: An Account of the First Hundred Years of the Clarke School for the Deaf, Narrated by a Teacher. Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, 1974. Author came to Clarke School in 1918 and retired from there in 1963. Her book is a comprehensive history of the school up to 1974.
Waite, Helen E. “100 Years of Silence.” Volta Review 69 (1967): 118-125. A historical study, with brief sketches of three of its principals, Harriet Rogers, Caroline Yale and George Pratt.
Williams, Alice M. and John Blake, eds. Clarke School and Its Alumni, 1867-1947. Clarke School Alumni Association, 1947. Besides the alumni data compiled, this work includes a perceptive history of the school by John Blake, himself a graduate.
Yale, Caroline A. Years of Building: Memoirs of a Pioneer in a Special Field of Education. The Dial Press, 1931. The author’s memoir of her sixty years teaching.
Disasters
History of the Mill River Disaster in Hampshire County, Mass.: A Full and Graphic Account of the Terrible Mill River Disaster, Caused by the Breaking of the Reservoir in Hampshire County, Mass. Weaver, Shipman and Company, 1874. Authoritative and contemporary account, drawn from the Springfield Republican.
Shanley, Joshua. Connecticut River Valley Flood of 1936. The History Press, 2021.
Shanley, Joshua. Images of America: Northampton Fires and Firefighting. Arcadia Publishing, 2023.
Sharpe, Elizabeth M. In the Shadow of the Dam: The Aftermath of the Mill River Flood of 1874. Free Press, 2004.
Early Colonial Period
Benes, Peter, ed. The Bay and the River, 1600-1900. The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Annual Proceedings 1981. Boston University, 1982.
Demos, John P. Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England. Oxford University Press, 1982. Includes a chapter on Mary Bliss Parsons.
Dinnie, Sam. “The Burden of Proof: Sex, Power, and Patriarchy in the Eighteenth-Century Connecticut River Valley.” The New England Quarterly 98, no. 1 (2025): 70-108.
Foster, Mary C. “Hampshire County, Massachusetts, 1729-1754: A Covenant Society in Transition.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1967. Examines the decline of the covenant society in Hampshire County. Factors of change included increasing worldliness and theological divisions.
Goldstein, Amy G. “Another Look at the Society of Seventeenth-Century Northampton, Massachusetts: The Slander and Witchcraft Trials of Mary Parsons (1656-1679).” Honors thesis, Smith College, 1978. A well-researched study of the witchcraft trial and its significance in Northampton history.
Innes, Stephan C., Richard I. Melvoin, and Peter A. Thomas, ed. Early Settlement in the Connecticut Valley. Historic Deerfield, Inc. and the Institute for Massachusetts Studies, 1984.
Mank, Russell W., Jr. “Family Structure in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-1729.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Denver, 1975. The nuclear family was the foundation of the community. Over 100 families were identified during the first 75 years of its history. Demography and family structure are based on files of the city clerk and on wills and inventories.
Miller, Marla R. Entangled Lives: Labor, Livelihood, and Landscapes of Change in Rural Massachusetts. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.
Miller, Marla R. The Needle’s Eye: Women and Work in the Age of Revolution. University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
Parsons, Gerald J., comp. The Parsons Family: The English Ancestry and Descendants of Cornet Joseph Parsons (1620-1683). Gateway Press, Inc., 2002.
Romer, Robert H. Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts. Levellers Press, 2009. Robert Romer presents a “snapshot” of slavery, choosing a moment – 1752 – and a place – the main street of Deerfield, Massachusetts – to present detailed information about the slaves who lived in that place at that time – and their owners. Some twenty-five slaves belonging to fifteen different owners lived on that mile-long street in 1752. In chapter five, Romer takes a quick look at slavery in thirteen other towns in the Connecticut Valley to demonstrate that slavery was pervasive throughout the area.
Rota, Tiziana. “Marriage and Family Life in Northampton, Massachusetts: A Demographic Study, 1690-1750.” Master’s thesis, Mount Holyoke College, 1975. The author “reconstitutes” the family structure of Northampton colonial folk and reached some conclusions as to the family’s attitudes toward birthing, parenting, vocational training and marriage.
Ward, Gerald W.R. and William N. Hosley, Jr., ed. The Great River: Art & Society of the Connecticut River Valley, 1635-1820. Wadsworth Atheneum, 1985. Exhibit catalog featuring essays on the regional material culture of the Connecticut River Valley and an extensive catalog of furniture, architecture, textile, paintings, and other material culture works from the valley. Features many objects from the Historic Northampton collection.
Williams, Solomon. Historical Sketch of Northampton, From Its First Settlement: In a Sermon, Delivered on the National Thanksgiving. Hampshire Gazette Office, 1815. Focuses on the early settlers’ conflict with Indians and the succession of Congregational ministers, including Williams himself.
Educational Institutions and Development
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women’s Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.
Jones, Virginia W. “The Development of the Education of Girls in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-1850.” Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1926. Up to the 1830s there was slow progress in the public education of women, although private “dame schools” flourished. By 1837, however, progressives won out, with the establishment of the High School for Girls.
Meehan, Frederick D. “The Growth and Development of the Parochial School System in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1891-1949.” Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1949. Meehan introduces his history of Northampton’s parochial schools with a sketch of successive waves of Roman Catholic immigration: Irish, French Canadians, Polish, and Italian. He identifies reasons for immigration, what occupations they took up, and the neighborhoods in which they first settled.
Story, Ronald, ed. Five Colleges: Five Histories. Five Colleges, Inc. and Historic Deerfield, 1992.
Forbes Library
Harrison, Joseph L. Forbes Library: The Half-Century, 1894-1944, With a Sketch of Charles Edward Forbes. Trustees of Forbes Library, 1945. Historical sketches of the Clarke and Forbes libraries. Interesting interior photographs of the Forbes as it appeared in 1945. Text refers to the annual trustees’ reports for historical documentation.
Wikander, Lawrence E. Disposed to Learn: The First Seventy-Five Years of the Forbes Library. Trustees of the Forbes Library, 1972. An account of the founding, tenures of its librarians and its special collections.
Immigration, Family, and Social Histories
Camposeo, James M. “Anti-Catholic Prejudice in Early New England: The Daley-Halligan Murder Trial.” Historical Journal of Western Massachusetts 6, no. 2 (1978): 5-17. Effects of religious bias in a Northampton trial of two Irish Catholic immigrants. Highlights efforts of Father John Cheverus.
Clark, Adrienne G. “Who Murdered Marcus Lyon?” New-England Galaxy 19, no. 2 (1977): 15-21. Journalistic account of the 1806 Daley-Halligan murder trial.
Doherty, Robert. Society and Power: Five New England Towns, 1800-1860. University of Massachusetts Press, 1977. The author examines five New England towns representing three types: hilltown, market-administration, and seaport. Geographic mobility, wealth distribution, social status and political power are discussed.
Garner, Lynne C. “Trends and Correlates in Mortality: Northampton, Massachusetts from 1870 to 1900.” Master’s thesis, University of Massachusetts, 1982. A statistical study in social history.
Glazer, Penina Migdal and Myron Peretz Glazer. The Jews of Paradise: Creating a Vibrant Community in Northampton, Massachusetts. 350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 2004.
Katra, Joseph R., Jr. “A Survey of the Polish Population of Northampton, 1889-1953.” Honors thesis, Amherst College, 1953. Polish immigrants came to Northampton as contracted farmhands and gradually became owners of farms. Closely examines their religious, social, political, occupational and educational life. Based on primary sources, including oral history interviews.
Millett, William W. “The Irish and Mobility Patterns in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1846-1883.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1980. Author uses newspaper files to examine the problems of Irish immigrants in Northampton, and uses manuscript census records to establish the position of Irish in occupational and residential patterns.
Siek, Anna Grazyna. “Mobility and Success: The Case of Selected Polish Immigrants and their Descendantes in Northampton, Massachusetts.” Honor’s Thesis, Smith College, 1976.
Slaughter, Lynn. “The Impact of Immigration on the History of Northampton, Massachusetts.” Honors thesis, Smith College, 1969. Using primary sources, the author examines how Northampton natives reacted to immigration, and how the immigrants and their children adjusted.
Sullivan, Robert. “The Murder Trial of Halligan and Daley – Northampton, Massachusetts, 1806.” Massachusetts Law Quarterly 49 (1964): 211-224. The author, a Massachusetts Superior Court justice, argues that the trial’s outcome was less influenced by popular anti-Catholic feelings than by the political ambitions of the prosecuting attorney and the bias of the presiding justices.
Wilcox, Jerome E. “Tenacious Families, Mighty Forces: Household Structure in Hamden and Hampshire Counties, Massachusetts, During the Period of Industrialization.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1981. A sociologist’s exhaustive demographic study of the two counties from 1850 to 1880. Presents demographic differences between ethnic groups.
Wilcox, Jerry and Hilda H. Golden. “Prolific Immigrants and Dwindling Natives? Fertility Patterns in Western Massachusetts, 1850-1880.” Journal of Family History 7 (1982): 265-288. Examines fertility differences in Hampden and Hampshire counties, based on censuses. By 1880 native fertility rates were remarkably low, especially in the top and middle classes.
Industrial and Economic Development
“America’s Most Famous Toothbrush.” Industry 11 (1946):15-18. Historical sketch of hairbrush and toothbrush manufacturing in Florence. Industry is an organ of Massachusetts industrial concerns. (UM)
Camposeo, James M. “The History of the Canal System Between New Haven and Northampton (1822-1847).” Historical Journal of Western Massachusetts 6, no. 1 (1977): 37-53. Outlines the building of the canal and its economic failure.
Clark, Christopher. The Roots of Rural Capitalism: Western Massachusetts, 1780-1860. Cornell University Press, 1990.
Dean, Charles J. “The Mills of Mill River.” Unpublished manuscript, 1935.
Forsyth, Ann. “NoHo: Upscaling Mainstreet on the Metropolitan Edge.” Urban Geography 18, no. 7 (1997): 622-652. Explores the relationships between urban revitalization and Northampton’s Lesbian community.
Freeman, Phyliss M. “Industrial and Labor Developments in the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1898-1930.” Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1931. A management-labor study, based on interviews with 60 union and company individuals. Conditions were found to be better than in larger centers, but only as long as industry was locally owned. Author had no access to union and company records.
Good, Gretchen. “The History of Industries in Florence, Massachusetts.” Seminar paper, Smith College, 1985. In addition to the familiar stories of the silk factories and the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, the author draws on interviews and newspaper files to portray Florence’s smaller industries, suppliers, hotels, business blocks.
Hannay, Agnes. “A Chronicle of Industry on the Mill River.” Smith College Studies in History 21, nos. 1-4 (1936). A study of industrial development, from a 1658 grist mill to the devastation of the Great Depression. Unlike major centers such as Lowell, Mill River industry was controlled by local businessmen who had no need for outside capital. Footnotes, bibliography and index.
Maynard, C. Edgar. “How the Plastics Industry Got Started Here.” Industry 19 (1954):11-12. Northampton’s Pro-phy-lac-tic Brush Co. and the early beginnings of the plastics industry.
Mensel, Ernst H., comp. Northampton and the Northampton Institution for Savings, 1842-1942. Northampton, 1942. A memorial booklet with sketches of the institution’s officers since 1842.
Myles, Ann M. “Northampton in the Civil War Era.” Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1954. Author concludes that Northampton’s industrial expansion during the Civil War was only incidentally influenced by the war.
O’Shea, Peter. “Famous Industries of Northampton.” Western New England 3 (1913): 429-434. Describes the status of town’s industrial concerns in 1913. Illustrated.
Pabst, Margaret R. “Agricultural Trends in the Connecticut Valley Region of Massachusetts, 1800-1900.” Smith College Studies in History 26., vol.26 (1941). As Northampton is classified as an industrial town, compared to the lowland and hill agricultural towns, it is not specifically discussed. However the study has insights into how Northampton fit into regional development.
“Pro-phy-lac-tic Brush Company.” Industry 5 (1939): 7-10. A short historical review of the toothbrush made in Florence since the 1880s.
Savoie, Ronald. “The Silk Industry in Northampton.” Historical Journal of Western Massachusetts 5, no. 1 (1977): 21-32. Contrasts the history of the two silk companies, the popular locally-owned Coticelli and the “big business” outsider, the Belding Brothers.
Senechal, Marjorie. Northampton’s Century of Silk. 350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 2004.
Jonathan Edwards
Conforti, Joseph A. Jonathan Edwards, Religious Tradition and American Culture. University of North Carolina Press, 1995. Edwards’ influence on the second Great Awakening and on the Colonial Revival in America.
Edwards, Jonathan. A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton and the Neighboring Villages of New-Hampshire in New England: In a Letter to the Reverend Dr. Benjamin Colman of Boston. Sabbath School Book-Store, 1831. Edwards explains how he awakened the souls of parishioners who had slid backwards during the last years of Stoddard’s ministry.
Gillett, E.H. “Jonathan Edwards, and the Occasion and Result of His Dismission from Northampton.” Historical Magazine 1, no. 6 (1867): 333-338. On the second thoughts of Joseph Hawley and other elders in dismissing Jonathan Edwards. Date of this essay is an indicator of how long historians have been discussing this issue.
Grant, Leonard T. “A Preface to Jonathan Edwards’ Financial Difficulties.” Journal of Presbyterian History 45, no. 1 (1967): 27-32. Edwards’s financial problems during the 1740s were precipitated by an extravagant life style and the needs of a growing family. Author discovered a loan note in Edwards’s handwriting.
Johnson, Thomas H. “Jonathan Edwards and the ‘Young Folk’ Bible.” New England Quarterly 5 (1932): 37-54. Provides documentation in the “immoral book” controversy of 1764, identifying the book as Aristotle’s Legacy, not Fielding’s Pamela as Trumbull suggested. Lists the 22 culprits, witnesses and one adult named by Edwards.
Marsden, George M. Jonathan Edwards, A Life. Yale University Press, 2003. The current standard in Edwards scholarship.
Miller, Perry. Jonathan Edwards. William Sloane Associates, Inc., 1949. Miller interprets Edwards’s intellectual and religious ideology, as well as the personalities and internal conflict of his Northampton congregation.
Minkema, Kenneth P. “Jonathan Edwards’ Defense of Slavery.” Massachusetts Historical Review 4 (2002): 23-59.
Minkema, Kenneth P. “Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade.” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1997): 823-834.
Stein, Stephen J. “‘For Their Spiritual Good’: The Northampton, Massachusetts Prayer Bids of the 1730s and 1740s.” William and Mary Quarterly 37, (1980): 261-285. Petitions for prayers, written by Northampton parishioners are preserved in Edwards’s papers. They tell much of the attitudes toward death, illness and religious practice of individuals who may otherwise have left no written record of their existence.
Tracy, Patricia J. Jonathan Edwards, Pastor: Religion and Society in Eighteenth-Century Northampton. Hill and Wang, 1980. Unfortunately for Edwards, his congregation measured him against his grandfather Stoddard. Based on her Ph.D. dissertation, the author examines why Edwards took a path his congregation refused to follow and examines the demography and attitudes of his flock.
Wallace, Ethel. “A Colonial Parson’s Wife: Sarah Pierrepont Edwards, 1710-1758 ‘And a Very Eminent Christian’.” Review and Expositor 47, no. 1 (1950): 41-56. On her married life with Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Stockbridge and Princeton.
Westbrook, Robert B. “Social Criticism and the Heavenly City of Jonathan Edwards.” Soundings 59, no. 4 (1976): 396-412. Edwards tried to make his congregation a prototype for his social vision of a post-millennial “beautiful world.”
Winslow, Ola E. Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758: A Biography. The MacMillan Company, 1941. A straightforward biography, with considerable detail on Edwards’s ministry in Northampton.
Late Colonial and Early National Period
Brown, E. Francis. Joseph Hawley, Colonial Radical. New York, 1931. A scholarly treatment of Hawley by a historian and Northampton native.
Brown, E. Francis. “The Law Career of Major Joseph Hawley.” New England Quarterly 4, no. 3 (1931): 482-508. Describes the Northampton lawyer’s career in the provincial bar from 1749 until the Revolution.
Brown, E. Francis. “Shays’s Rebellion.” American Historical Review 36, no. 4 (1931): 776-778. Reproduces a letter dated April 16, 1782, written by Joseph Hawley to Ephraim Wright, describing the recent mob action at Northampton. As Brown comments, Hawley vividly portrays the discontent leading to Shays’s Rebellion.
Clune, Mary. “The Life, Work, and Letters of Joseph Hawley.” Master’s thesis, Smith College, 1917. Exhaustively researched study: includes 17 political letters of Hawley.
Dwight, Timothy. Travels in New England and New York Vol 1. S. Converse, 1821. Dwight, a son of Northampton, became a leader in New England society of the early national period. He describes how Northampton evolved from a frontier settlement to a literate society with a budding culture by 1810.
Gross, Robert A., ed. In Debt to Shays: The Bicentennial of an Agrarian Insurrection. University of Virginia Press, 1991.
King, Titus. Narrative of Titus King of Northampton, Mass.: Prisoner of the Indians in Canada 1755-1758. Connecticut Historical Society, 1938.
Nobles, Gregory H.. Divisions Throughout the Whole: Politics and Society in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, 1740-1775. Cambridge University Press, 1983. An outgrowth of the author’s Ph.D. dissertation, this study analyzes changes in conditions and political power in Hampshire County in the years before the Revolution.
Nobles, Gregory. “Politics and Society in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, 1740-1775: The Rural West on the Eve of the Revolution.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1979. The period 1740-1776 was unstable in Hampshire County: ecclesiastical disorder, dramatic population increase, with resulting change in political leaders.
Pomeroy, Seth. The Journals and Papers of Seth Pomeroy, Sometime General in the Colonial Service. Edited by Louis Effingham de Forest. Society of Colonial Wars in the State of New York, 1926. Pomeroy’s journal and correspondence much of this military man and other Northamptonians involved with him in struggles with the French and British.
Pomeroy, Seth. Seth Pomroy, His Book: The Journal of Seth Pomeroy of Northampton, Massachusetts, Kept in the Years 1745, 1755 and 1764, Comprising a Daily Record of Military Campaigns against the French and Indians at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, & Crown Point, New York, Together with a Brief Record of Road Construction in Northampton. Edited by Joseph Donohue. Forbes Library, 2002. A daily record of campaigns against the French and Indians at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia and Crown Point, New York. Includes a brief record of road construction in Northampton.
Richards, Leonard L. Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Using public records and other primary sources, the author examines the rebellion’s participants, causes and impact.
Silverman, Kenneth. Timothy Dwight. Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1969.
Szatmary, David P. Shays’ Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection. University of Massachusetts Press, 1980.
Webb, Anne Baxter. “On the Eve of Revolution: Northampton, Massachusetts, 1750-1775.” Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1976. Describes life just prior to the Revolution. Demography, social status and economic activity are analyzed.
LGBTQ+ History
Bonfitto, Vincent F. “The Formation of Gay and Lesbian Identity and Community in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts, 1900-1970.” Journal of Homosexuality 33, no. 1 (1997): 69-96.
Forsyth, Ann. “‘Out’ in the Valley.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 21, no. 1. (1997): 38-62.
Forsyth, Ann. “NoHo: Upscaling Mainstreet on the Metropolitan Edge.” Urban Geography 18, no. 7 (1997): 622-652. Explores the relationships between urban revitalization and Northampton’s Lesbian community.
McKenna, Susan E. “Seeing Lesbian Queerly: Visibility, Community, and Audience in 1980s Northampton, Massachusetts.” Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009.
“Northampton Pride & Liberation: LGBT Voices from the Valley.” Forbes Library Images from the Archives. Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts. Contains oral history interviews and images related to Northampton Pride. Also includes a comprehensive guide to archival resources related to LGBTQ+ history in the Connecticut River Valley.
Raymond, Kaymarion. From Wicked to Wedded: Northampton’s LGBTQ History. Blog, 2014- present. The most comprehensive record of Northampton’s 1970s Lesbian history, chronicled by a founder and member of several Lesbian organizations.
Sexual Minorities Archives. Digitized Transgender Collection. Digital Transgender Archive.
Tevah, Zemora. “‘Before We Fought, Now We Celebrate’: A Critical Queer History of Northampton’s Annual Pride March.” Division III, Hampshire College, 2013.
Werth, Barry. The Scarlet Professor: Newton Arvin, a Literary Life Shattered by Scandal. Random House, 2001. A biography of professor and literary critic Newton Arvin, whose secret life as a homosexual was exposed in a 1960 police raid on his Northampton apartment.
Zurn, Perry. How We Make Each Other: Trans Life at the Edge of the University. Duke University Press, 2024. Explores the transgender history and experience within the five colleges, drawing on archival and oral history research.
Native Peoples
Baron, Donna Keith, J. Edward Hood, and Holly V. Izard. “They Were Here All Along: The Native American Presence in Lower-Central New England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” William and Mary Quarterly 53, no. 3 (1996): 561-586.
Brooks, Lisa. Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. Yale University Press, 2019.
Bruchac, Margaret. “Native Presence in Nonotuck and Northampton.” In A Place Called Paradise: Culture and Community in Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-2004, edited by Kerry Buckley. University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.
Casseday, Heather Renee. “‘Worthy to be Gifts’ A Microhistory of Haudenosaunee Moccasins at the Historic Northampton Museum.” Master’s thesis, University of California Riverside, 2019.
Nash, Alice. “Quanquan’s Mortgage of 1663.” In Cultivating a Past: Essays on the History of Hadley, Massachusetts, edited by Marla R. Miller. University of Massachusetts Press, 2009.
Salisbury, Neal. Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643. Oxford University Press, 1982.
For more, see the bibliography of the Native Lives project.
Nineteenth-Century Descriptions
Bridgman, Thomas, ed. Inscriptions on the Grave Stones in the Grave Yards of Northampton, and of Other Towns in the Valley of the Connecticut, as Springfield, Amherst, Hadley, Hatfield, Deerfield, &c. with Brief Annals of Northampton. Hopkins, Bridgman & Co., 1850. In addition to the epitaphs in Northampton cemeteries, Bridgman added a chronology of events up to 1850, a list of the original land grants, and a copy of the land agreement with the Native people.
Gere, Henry S. Reminiscences of Old Northampton: Sketch of the Town as it Appeared from 1840 to 1850. Gazette Printing Company, 1902. Description, meticulously detailed, as remembered by an editor many years later.
Kneeland, Frederick N. Drives in Northampton and Vicinity. With Maps. Gazette Printing Co., 1888. A descriptive guide for excursionists.
Kneeland, Frederick N. Northampton, the Meadow City. Frederick N. Kneeland and L.P. Bryant, 1894. Valuable for its excellent photography of Northampton in the Gay Nineties.
Northampton Association of Education and Industry
Bestor, Arthur E., Jr. “Fourierism in Northampton: a Critical Note.” New England Quarterly 13, no. 1 (1940): 110-122. On the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. Author presents evidence that the NAEI was not properly a Fourierist (Socialist) community.
Clark, Christopher. The Communitarian Moment: The Radical Challenge of the Northampton Association. Cornell University Press, N.Y., 1995.
Clark, Christopher and Kerry W. Buckley, eds. Letters from an American Utopia: The Stetson Family and the Northampton Association, 1843-47. University of Massachusetts Press, 2004. Brings together seventy-five recently rediscovered letters of the Stetson family, members of the Association from 1843 to 1847. The correspondence details the lives of “ordinary people struggling to uphold common ideals in challenging circumstances.”
McBee, Alice E. “From Utopia to Florence: The Story of a Transcendentalist Community in Northampton, Mass., 1830-1852.” Smith College Studies in History 32 (1947). A highly detailed treatment of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, fully documented with footnotes and bibliography. The author suggests that once the dreamers left, the plain folk could not keep the dream alive. Recent scholars may disagree with author’s interpretation of the association’s ideology.
Stebbins, Giles. Upward Steps of Seventy Years. United States Book Company, 1890. A Hatfield youth spent a year at the NAEI, many years later he recalled his experiences with interesting details.
Pictorial Histories
Clark, Jason A. and Craig P. Della Penna. Images of America: Florence. Arcadia Publishing, 2013.
Knab, Frederick. Northampton of Today, Depicted by Pen and Camera. Picturesque Publishing Company, 1902. Photography and text portrays Northampton’s people, institutions and industries as they looked at the turn of the century.
Kneeland, Frederick N. Northampton, the Meadow City. Frederick N. Kneeland and L.P. Bryant, 1894. Valuable for its excellent photography of Northampton in the Gay Nineties.
Moore, J. Michael and Anna Schuleit Haber. Images of America: Northampton State Hospital. Arcadia Publishing, 2014.
Moore, J. Michael and Stan Sherer. The Life and Death of Northampton State Hospital. N.p., 2024.
Parsons, James M. Images of America: Northampton. Arcadia Publishing, 1996.
Shanley, Joshua. Images of America: Northampton Fires and Firefighting. Arcadia Publishing, 2023.
Van Voris, Jacqueline. The Look of Paradise: A Pictorial History of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1654-1954. Northampton Historical Society, 1984. An overview in text and pictures of Northampton’s history.
Warner, Charles Forbes, ed. Picturesque Hampshire: A Supplement to the Quarter Centennial-Journal Edition of the Hampshire County Journal. Wade, Warner & Publishers, 1890.
Reference
Northampton Business Directory Collections. Various publishers, 1860-1988. Titles vary: Northampton Business Directory and General Advertiser, Historical Register and General Directory, Directory and General Advertiser, Northampton Easthampton Directory. Some years not published. The directories are a valuable research tool, containing lists of residents with their occupations, historical and descriptive sketches of many businesses, industries, institutions, and hotels. Collections are available at Historic Northampton, Forbes Library, Smith College, and UMass Amherst.
Gilmore, Barbara. A Puritan Town and Its Imprints: Northampton, 1786-1845. Hampshire Bookshop, 1942. A bibliography of books, pamphlets, sermons, newspapers, etc., published in Northampton, arranged chronologically.
Index to Local News in the Hampshire Gazette, 1786-1937 Vols. 1, 2, and 3. Historical Records Survey, Works Progress Administration, 1939. Introduction by Charles J. Dean provides a historical sketch of the Gazette itself. Part I: Northampton. Part II: Hampshire and Franklin counties. Part III: Personal.
Round Hill School
Bassett, John S. “The Round Hill School.” American Antiquarian Society Proceedings 27 (1917): 18-62. The early experiment in education by George Bancroft and Joseph Cogswell, 1823-1834, and why it failed.
Blumenthal, Louise. “Round Hill and the Charity School: A Not So Distant Mirror.” Ed.D. diss., Boston University School of Education, 1982. Contrasts the elite Round Hill School with New York City’s Charity School for the poor.
Ticknor, Anna E., ed. Life of Joseph Green Cogswell, As Sketched in His Letters. Riverside Press, 1874. Cogswell’s, school founder, years at the Round Hill School (1823-1834) are documented in his letters.
Ellis, George E. “Recollections of Round Hill School.” Educational Review 1 (1891): 337-344. Significant original source material by a former student, consisting of commentary on school life and on the incompatibility of the congenial, popular Cogswell and the remote Bancroft.
Handlin, Lillian. George Bancroft: The Intellectual as Democrat. Harper & Row, 1984. Handlin portrays a more worldly young Bancroft than is usually presented. At Round Hill he was restless and quarrelsome both with his founding partner Cogswell, and his wife Sarah. Handlin focuses on his political life, beginning with his relationship to the Workingmen party of Northampton and his running for office in 1834.
Marr, Harriet W. “The Round Hill School for Boys, 1823-1833.” Old-Time New England 49 (1958): 49-55. Focuses on the curriculum.
Nye, Russel B. George Bancroft, Brahmin Rebel. A. A. Knopf, 1944. Bancroft, co-founder of the Round Hill School in 1823, was not a teacher at heart and eventually drifted toward scholarship, a move facilitated by his marriage into the wealthy Dwight family of Springfield.
Science and Medicine in Northampton
Carson, Gerald. “Graham: The Man Who Made the Cracker Famous.” New-England Galaxy 10 (1969, no.4): 3-8.
Earle, Pliny. Memoirs of Pliny Earle, M.D., with Extracts from His Diary and Letters (1830-1892) and Selections from His Professional Writings (1839-1891). Edited by F.B. Sanborn. Damrell & Upham, 1898. Dr. Earle was the second superintendent at Northampton State Hospital(1864-1885) and was considered the wise old man among early American psychiatrists. He created controversy with his protests against the practice of making overly rosy claims for cures of insanity, and the extravagance of institutional buildings.
McCarthy, Katherine E. “Psychiatry in the Nineteenth Century: The Early Years of Northampton State Hospital.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1974. Describes the first 27 years of operation of the hospital, focusing on its social functions and internal structure. Focuses on the many young, single Irish women patients and reality differing from popular claims about mental health issues caused by excessive drinking.
Moore, J. Michael and Anna Schuleit Haber. Images of America: Northampton State Hospital. Arcadia Publishing, 2014.
Moore, J. Michael and Stan Sherer. The Life and Death of Northampton State Hospital. N.p., 2024.
Nissenbaum, Stephen. Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform. Dorsey Press, 1980. Professor Nissenbaum, without accepting Graham’s health theories, presents him sympathetically, not as a quaint eccentric but as a pioneering reformer with many of the same concerns over diet and living habits as we have today. Includes Graham’s cranky semi-retirement in Northampton, 1839-1851.
Porter, Dorothy B. “David Ruggles, 1810-1849: Hydropathic Practitioner.” Journal of the National Medical Association 49, nos. 1 and 2 (1957): 67-72, 130-134. The nearly blind, black abolitionist chose Northampton as a site for the first building erected exclusively for hydropathy. A well-researched biographical sketch with a detailed description of Ruggles’s water cure, which earned a testimonial by William Lloyd Garrison, among others.
Powell, Lyman P. The Emmanuel Movement in a New England Town. The Knickerbocker Press, 1909. The rector of Northampton’s St. John’s Episcopal Church writes of his 1908-1909 experiment in psychotherapy treatment of insomniacs, neurotics and alcoholics, conducted by a physician-minister team.
Sokolow, Jayme A. Eros and Modernization: Sylvester Graham. Health Reform, and the Origins of Victorian Sexuality in America. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983. Graham’s retirement in Northampton is briefly discussed.
Slavery and Abolition
Allen, William. An Address, Delivered at Northampton Mass., on the Evening of October 29, 1854, In Commemoration of the Close of the Second Century Since the Settlement of the Town. Hopkins, Bridgman & Company, 1855. Historical sketch. The appendix documents anti-slavery attitude of Edwards, a slaveholder.
Gilbert, Olive. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Bondswoman of Olden Time. Emancipated by the New York Legislature in the Early Part of the Present Century with a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her Book of Life. Review and Herald Office, 1884. Originally published by a white friend, this is an oddly organized semi-biography. Includes an account of Sojourner Truth’s appearance at a Northampton camp meeting and of her reaction to the Northampton Association of Education and Industry.
Hodges, Graham Russell Gao. David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City. University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Karcher, Carolyn L. The First Woman of the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Marie Child. Duke University Press, 1994. A look at the life and world of author and social reformer Lydia Marie Child (1802-1880). Chapter 11 focuses on her and her husband’s years in Northampton: their anti-slavery activities, failed sugar beet venture, and their impressions of the town.
Laurie, Bruce. “Chaotic Freedom” in Civil War Louisiana: The Origins of An Iconic Image. University of Massachusetts Press, 2016. Uncovers the history behind one of the most iconic photographs in the history of American slavery, the often untold life of the photograph’s subject, the Union Army soldiers from Western Massachusetts who made the photograph famous, and Northampton’s role in circulating the photograph before it reached a national audience.
Laurie, Bruce. Rebels in Paradise: Sketches of Northampton Abolitionists. University of Massachusetts Press, 2015.
Melish, Joanne Pope. Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860. Cornell University Press, 2000.
Minkema, Kenneth P. “Jonathan Edwards’ Defense of Slavery.” Massachusetts Historical Review 4 (2002): 23-59.
Minkema, Kenneth P. “Jonathan Edwards on Slavery and the Slave Trade.” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 4 (1997): 823-834.
Murdock, Mary-Elizabeth. Index of the Hampshire Herald 1845-1848 Northampton, Massachusetts. N.p., 1987. A guide to the contents of the abolitionist newspaper, the Hampshire Herald, organized by subject. The newspaper is available at Forbes Library.
Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol. W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.
Porter, Dorothy B. “Anti-slavery Movement in Northampton.” Negro Historical Bulletin 24 (1960): 33-34,41. A review of black history in Northampton from the time of its earliest black residents. Making the city an important abolitionist center were reformers like Sojourner Truth, Charles C. Burleigh, David Lee Child and Lydia Maria Child.
Rockman, Seth. Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery. University of Chicago Press, 2024.
Romer, Robert H. Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts. Levellers Press, 2009.
Warren, Wendy. New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America. Liveright Publishing Co., 2017.
Washington, Margaret. Sojourner Truth’s America. University of Illinois Press, 2009. A biography of Sojourner Truth’s life, including a chapter on her experience in Northampton.
Wyatt-Brown, Bertram. Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery. Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1969. Born in Northampton, abolitionist and businessman Tappan (1788-1873) was a founder of the American Anti-Slavery Association and prominent in the Amistad case.
For more, see the bibliography of the Slavery Research Project.
Smith College
Gordon, Sarah H. “Smith College Students: The First Ten Classes, 1879-1888.” History of Education Quarterly 15, no. 2 (1975): 147-168. Discusses the demography of the first years’ classes and outlines the daily life of a student in the 1880s.
Hanscom, Elizabeth and Helen F. Greene. Sophia Smith and the Beginnings of Smith College. Smith College, 1925. Consists of a profile of Sophia Smith by Hanscom and the narrative of Dr. John M. Greene, the latter edited by Greene’s daughter. As Greene, Sophia Smith’s minister in Hatfield, had much to do with the founding of Smith College, his narrative constitutes an original source.
Historical Handbook of Smith College. Smith College, 1932. History and photographs of some of Smith College’s better known buildings.
Lincoln, Eleanor T. and John A. Pinto. This, the House We Lived in: The Smith College Campus from 1871 to 1982. Smith College, 1983. History and architecture of Smith College’s nearly 100 buildings, through text, photographs and maps.
Lincoln, Eleanor T. Through the Grecourt Gates: Distinguished Visitors to Smith College, 1875-1975. Smith College, 1978. Smith College has been the magnet to attract many famous visitors to Northampton. Descriptions of the visits of those who came to lecture, give concerts and receive honorary degrees.
Mendenhall, Thomas C. Chance and Change in Smith College’s First Century. Smith College, 1976. A commemorative address by the then president of Smith College.
Rhees, Harriet C. Laurenus Clark Seelye, First President of Smith College. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1929. His daughter portrays Seelye as “an old-fashioned gentleman”, an administrator with strong convictions and a leader in almost every civic organization in Northampton.
Seelye, Laurence C. The Early History of Smith College, 1871-1910. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923. The definitive history of the college up to 1910 by its first president. Includes a copy of Sophia Smith’s will.
Social and Literary Culture
Bliss, Theodore. Theodore Bliss, Publisher and Bookseller: A Study of Character and Life in the Middle Period of the XIX Century. Edited by Arthur Ames Bliss. N.p., 1941. Memoir of Northampton native. His career as a bookseller was in Philadelphia but he spent his boyhood and apprenticeship in Northampton, on pp.3-41 he describes social life in town from 1822-1843.
Bridgman, S.E. “Northampton.” New England Magazine 21 (1900): 581-604. Anecdotal and biographical sketch of Northampton’s literati, teachers and benefactors.
Briggs, Caroline. Reminiscences and Letters of Caroline C. Briggs. Edited by George S. Merriam. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897. The author warmly narrates her nearly idyllic childhood in Northampton of the 1830s and 1840s, as a daughter of the town jailer, “Mr.Clapp”, and writes of her “little band of Unitarians.”
Butcher, Philip. George W. Cable: The Northampton Years. Columbia University Press, 1959. Focuses on this Southern writer’s residence in Northampton in the 40 years after 1884, and particularly the Home Culture Club, a national organization he organized along with his associate Adelene Moffat. Clarifies the unpleasant controversy over his discharge of Miss Moffat in 1907.
Clark, Solomon. Antiquities, Historicals and Graduates of Northampton. Gazette Printing Company, 1882. Old Northampton homesteads, its college graduates and professionals. Biographical and genealogical data up to 1882.
Cobb, Elizabeth. “Intellectual History of Northampton in the 1840s.” Honors thesis, Smith College, 1932. A critical analysis of Northamptonians’ attitudes in the 1840s toward religion, education, experimental reforms, literature, health fads, art and music.
Ellis, Rufus. Memoirs of Rufus Ellis, Including Selections from his Journal and Letters. Edited by Arthur B. Ellis. William B. Clarke and Co., 1891. A minister in Northampton’s Unitarian Society, Rev. Ellis’s letters tell much of the town’s society and culture in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Flower, Dean. Henry James in Northampton: Visions and Revisions. Friends of the Smith College Library, 1971. On James’s 1905 lecture at Smith College. Flower concludes that James’s 1864 youthful residence in the town left a deep and lasting impression on him.
Flower, Dean. “The View from Prospect House: With Ten Photographs of Henry James by Katherine McClellan.” Massachusetts Review 26 (1985): 217-232. In 1864 Henry James came to take the waters in Northampton. He found the place vulgar and provincial, although a good spot to write. Returning in 1905 for a lecture, he was only slightly more kindly.
Huntington, Charles. “Diary and Letters of Charles P. Huntington.” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 57 (1924): 244-277. Some papers of Judge Huntington of Northampton and Boston for period 1831-1834. Informal commentary on local politics.
Lesley. Susan I. Recollections of My Mother, Mrs. Anne Jean Lyman of Northampton. Being a Picture of Domestic and Social Life in New England in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1899. Reflects the genteel social life of an intellectual and liberal family in Northampton during the first part of the nineteenth century.
Miller, Anne Elizabeth. “Recollections of James Russell Trumbull: Historian of Northampton, Massachusetts.” Smith College Studies in History 7, no. 4 (1922). Selected letters and journal entries of Trumbull, sentimentally edited by his niece, who also outlines his newspaper career, indexing of the Judd Manuscripts and the writing of History of Northampton.
O’Connell, James C., ed. The Pioneer Valley Reader. Countryman Press, 1995. A collection of poetry and prose from three centuries of writing on the Connecticut River Valley.
“Three Glimpses of a New England Village.” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 136, no. 829 (1884):646-656. Among other impressions, an anonymous English traveler was struck by the enterprising spirit of Northampton’s “maiden ladies” in the 1880s.
Tyler, Henry M. The Beginnings of the Northampton Social and Literary Club. Northampton Social and Literary Club, 1925. Historical sketch of “The Club”, founded in 1862, whose membership was drawn from the most prominent professional men of the town, including ex-President Coolidge. Includes membership list to date.
Wright, Catherine S. “An Intellectual History of Northampton, Massachusetts, in the 1870s.” Honors thesis, Smith College, 1942. Studies the effects of industrialization upon social and intellectual life in the 1870s. The author’s primary source was the Hampshire Gazette.
Solomon Stoddard
Coffman, Ralph J. Solomon Stoddard. Twayne Publishers, 1978. Stoddard’s fame as a revivalist spread through New England. Appendices include the Stoddard family tree, lists of the Northampton oligarchy 1661-1726, and a useful biographical glossary.
Gura, Philip F. “Preparing the Way for Stoddard: Eleazer Mather’s ‘Serious Exhortation’ to Northampton.” New England Quarterly 57, no. 2 (1984): 240-249. Increase Mather’s haughty brother was the first minister of Northampton. At his early death in 1669, he left a badly splintered community. Part of the problem lay in his overly severe criticism of what he perceived as the elders’ moral failure and his refusal to allow a more liberal admission policy.
Stuart, Robert Lee. “‘Mr. Stoddard’s Way’: Church and Sacraments in Northampton.” American Quarterly 24, no. 2 (1972): 243-253. Despite what has been commonly believed, there was little difference between the views of Stoddard and his grandson on the issue of communion to all, whether predestined or not.
Walsh, James P. “Solomon Stoddard’s Open Communion: A Reexamination.” New England Quarterly 43, no. 1 (1970): 97-114. Attempts to explain Stoddardism (open communion to almost every one) as part of Stoddard’s Presbyterianism and zeal to slow the declension of New England religion.
Sports and Recreation in Northampton
Turner, Brian and John S. Bowman. The Hurrah Game: Baseball in Northampton, 1823-1953. Historic Northampton, 2002. A comprehensive, detailed accounting of the history of Northampton baseball, from the city’s working-class neighborhoods of Florence and Bay State to its natural rivals up and down river, Brattleboro, Greenfield, Holyoke and Springfield.
Sylvester Judd
Hall, Arethusa, ed. Memorabilia: From the Journals of Sylvester Judd of Northampton, Mass., 1809-1860. Metcalf, 1882. Journal excerpts selected by Judd’s sister-in-law serve as an autobiography of the veteran compiler.
Hathaway, Richard D. Sylvester Judd’s New England. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981. A scholarly look at Sylvester Judd, Jr., the Maine Unitarian minister born in Westhampton. Chapter V, “Northampton in the 1820s,” provides an interesting profile of the elder Judd, the Judd family and their position in the Old Church-Unitarianism schism.
Judd, Sylvester. Judd Manuscripts. 1833-1860. Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts.
Judd, Sylvester. Selected Papers from the Sylvester Judd Manuscript. Edited by Gregory Nobles and Herbert Zarov. Forbes Library, 1976. Reproduces a small but significant fraction of the Judd Manuscript. Topics addressed include: town and country, law and order, religion, family life, customs and traditions, the cost of living, medicine, wealth and its distribution, war and revolution. Includes the editors’ evaluation of Judd as a scholar.
Twentieth-Century Northampton
Atwood, William T. “Northampton, the Meadow City and Capital of Hampshire County.” New England Magazine 43 (1910-1911): 301-315. An affectionate description of the city and its institutions in 1910.
Cahillane, James Francis. The Best Place of All: An Irish-American Memoir of Pluck, Luck & Automobiles. 350th Anniversary Committee of the City of Northampton, Massachusetts, 2005.
Carpenter, Albert H., “Northampton, Past and Present.” Western New England 1(1911): 297-318. The October 1911 issue describes the city’s culture and industry. Many photographs document Northampton’s streets and buildings as they appeared in 1911. Besides Carpenter’s essay, there is an informative article on Northampton’s industries.
Committee of Publication for the City of Northampton. The Meadow City’s Quarter-Millenial Book: A Memorial of the Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of Northampton : Massachusetts. Direction of the City of Northampton, 1904. Documents illustrating how the city celebrated its 250th anniversary. Of some value for its depiction of the local scene at the time of the celebration.
Conrad, Candy. “A Study of the Comparative Occupational Mobility of Five Ethnic Groups in Northampton, 1920-1962.” Seminar paper, Smith College, 1969. Using Northampton poll tax records for 1920 and 1962, the author looks for upward mobility in five ethnic groups – Polish, Jewish, French, Irish and Italian – finding some patterns, but does not provide an interpretation.
Delevingne, Lionel and Faye S. Frail. Northampton: Reflections on Paradise. Nouveau Monde Press, 1988. Through photographs and interviews, diverse people are presented as they are at this stage in Northampton history.
Hazen, Charles Downer. Old Northampton: An Address Delivered before the Faculty and Students of Smith College, June 7, 1904, on the occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of Northampton. The University Press, 1904. In an address at Smith College, one of its history professors commemorated Northampton’s 250th anniversary and paid respects to its historical figures.
Hemenway, Herbert D. “The People’s Institute of Northampton, Mass.” Western New England 2 (1912): 210-214. Cultural offerings of the institute in the year 1912.
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz and Kathy Peiss, ed. Love Across the Color Line: The Letters of Alice Hanley to Channing Lewis. University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.
Kidder, Tracy. Hometown. Washington Square Press, 1999.
Knab, Frederick. Northampton of Today, Depicted by Pen and Camera. Picturesque Publishing Company, 1902. Photography and text portrays Northampton’s people, institutions and industries as they looked at the turn of the century.
League of Women Voters of Northampton, Massachusetts. This is Northampton: A Sketch of the City Government. League of Women Voters of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1968. Sketches the historical background and evolution of Northampton’s city government, and describes its political organization as it was in 1968. An update to the 1962 version, which is also available.
Lockwood, Allison. Children of Paradise: A Northampton Memoir. Daily Hampshire Gazette, 1986. The author’s personal history of culture and growing up in Northampton between the wars.
Lockwood, Allison. Touched with Fire: An American Community in World War II. Daily Hampshire Gazette, 1993.
Plummer, Edgar. Calvin Coolidge Memorial Bridge: Official Souvenir and Tribute Book. Metcalf Printing and Publishing Co., 1939. A short history of the bridge is included.
Warner, Charles. Representative Families of Northampton: A Demonstration of What High Character, Good Ancestry and Heredity have Accomplished in a New England Town. Picturesque Publishing Company, 1917. Dated but valuable sketches of the elite families of Northampton in the pre-World War I era.
Villages and Neighborhoods
Clapp, John Irving. Lost Village of Roberts Meadow: Northampton’s Forgotten Settlement. Off the Common Books, 2016.
Clark, Jason A. and Craig P. Della Penna. Images of America: Florence. Arcadia Publishing, 2013.
Emrick, Robert P. Leeds: A Village Within The City of Northampton, Massachusetts. N.p., 1999. Leeds resident Emrick’s 1941 history, transcribed and indexed by local historian James Parsons.
Koleszar, Janice K., ed. Florence, Massachusetts: History, 1895-1985. Florence Civic & Business Association, 1986. An update of Sheffeld’s History of Florence.
Stone, Lu. North to Market: Two Streets, Two Centuries: A Sheaf of Northampton Stories. Levellers Press, 2020.
Sheffeld, Charles A, ed. History of Florence Massachusetts: Including a Complete Account of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry. Springfield Printing and Binding, 1894. The authoritative history of Florence, its industries, leaders, and of the Association, drawn from the Judd Manuscript, Gazette files, town records, documents of the Association, and recollections of individuals.
War
Blight, David W., ed. When This Cruel War is Over: The Civil War Letters of Charles Harvey Brewster. University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. An annotated collection of over 100 letters that chronicle Brewster’s experience of the Civil War and illuminate its effects on his attitudes on race, slavery, the nature of war, and his values. The original letters are in the Historic Northampton collection.
Gilfillan, James and Herbert Riley. Northampton in the Spanish-American War. Enterprise Printing Company. 1899. Reprint ed., Creative Media Partners, 2025. Describes exploits of Northampton’s Company I and provides its roster.