Event Archive: Past Programs 2022
Exploring Parsons Brook
A Walking Tour with co-director & naturalist Laurie Sanders
Sunday, May 22, 2022 | 1:30 - 3:30 pm
Monday, May 23, 2022 | 9 - 11:30 am
Parsons Brook Greenway
During the last twenty years, the City of Northampton has protected more than 100 acres in the Parsons Brook Greenway. This landscape is underlain by outwash plains that were deposited 16,000-13,000 years ago, when braided glacial streams, choked with sands and sediments, flowed into Glacial Lake Hitchcock. Today, this area includes a mix of habitats, nearly all of which have been highly manipulated by people during the last fifty years.
 
Join co-director and naturalist Laurie Sanders on a two-hour loop in a portion of the conservation area, through abandoned gravel pits and oak and pine woods, past ponds and marshes, and beside a stretch of Parsons Brook that reveals exposures of 200-million year old sandstone.

Registration Required.
Each tour is limited to 15.
Sliding Scale Admission: $10-20.

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Architectural Geology: Building Stones of Northampton
A Walking Tour with geologist John Brady
Tuesday, May 17, 2022 | 9:30 to 11:30 am
Thursday, May 19, 2022 | 1:30 to 3:30 pm
Hampshire County Courthouse, Main Street
Photo by Rob Weir
Geologist John Brady will lead a walk on Main Street and describe the geologic origins of the building stones used to construct some of downtown Northampton's most iconic structures--from the Court House and First Churches to City Hall and beyond. This walk will expand your view of Northampton's architecture and give you a new appreciation for some of the 400 million years of earth's history that the building stones reveal.

Meet at Historic Northampton, 46 Bridge Street, Northampton.

Registration Required.
Each tour is limited to 15.
Sliding Scale Admission: $15-25.

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Walk with the Indian Doctress:
Restorative Approaches to Interpreting Native American Medicine
A Zoom Presentation by Dr. Margaret Bruchac
Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
Thursday, May 12, 2022 | 7 pm
Margaret Bruchac as Indian Doctress
Photo by Justin Kennick
Dr. Margaret Bruchac will describe the lives and work of several 19th century Indigenous healers, including Rhoda Rhoades (1751-1841), who treated people in Northampton and other western Massachusetts locales.

Rhoades doctored people at her home in “Indian Hollow,” a section of Huntington later destroyed by the construction of the Knightville Dam. She cured illnesses using special diets and traditional medicines made with boneset, Joe Pye weed, wake robin, and other indigenous plants. Rhoades' neighbors recalled that she grew “every kind of flower imaginable” and used them to make an herbal medicine called "The Extract."

Dr. Bruchac will discuss her research on these gifted Native healers, revealing how their knowledges were exploited by patent medicine peddlars and Yankee physicians. She will also discuss her approach to restorative research, including living history performances in the character of “Molly Geet, the Indian Doctress” at Old Sturbridge Village museum.

Register for the Zoom link.
Sliding Scale Admission: $5-25.

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Sponsored by Whalen Insurance
Patches of Wildness:
A Preliminary Inventory of the Overlooked Plants in and around Downtown Northampton
A Walking Tour with co-director and naturalist Laurie Sanders
Tuesday, May 3, 2022 | 9 to 11 am
Saturday, May 7, 2022 | 8 to 10 am
In the midst of an otherwise built-up landscape, cracks in the sidewalk, roadside edges, and other "neglected" patches are places where a variety of plant species--grasses, wildflowers and trees--have taken hold.  Although usually dismissed as "weeds," these plants have fascinating life histories (many come from other parts of the world) and when considered up-close, their flowers and features are beautiful. What's more, larger, untended patches often support a variety of butterflies, bees, ants and other insects. 
 
On this outing, we'll begin to identify and inventory some of the most common "weeds" in downtown Northampton.

Registration Required.
Each session is limited to 15.
Sliding Scale Admission: $10-20.

Register
"To Live in the Common Cause:"
Activism and Community at the Northampton Association
A Zoom Presentation by Dr. Christopher Clark
Professor of History, University of Connecticut
Friday, May 6, 2022 | 3 - 4 pm
Williston's Cotton Mill from the series Stereoscopic Views of Florence by the Knowlton Brothers Photographers
In April 1842 (180 years ago), a group of radical abolitionists formed the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian community they sustained for four-and-a-half years. How did their activism contribute to the campaign against slavery?  What did they learn about living in community?  And although the Association itself broke up in 1846, how did its members help found the village of Florence that still thrives today?

Zoom link
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/99367882715?pwd=VnlmK3VEaFdCTmR4Y0J5ZFAyNFVlQT09
Meeting ID: 993 6788 2715
Passcode: 591001

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This event is co-presented by Northampton Neighbors,
Historic Northampton and the David Ruggles Center for History and Education.
When Movement Struggles Produce Progressive Thought
A Zoom Presentation by Dr. Sarah Lynn Patterson
Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Thursday, April 28, 2022 | 7 pm
"The National Colored Convention in Session at Washington, D. C." Sketched by Theo. R. Davis. Harper’s Weekly,
February 6, 1869. Howard University (mss_5785A).
Over seven decades, from 1830 until 1900, tens of thousands of Black men and women from different walks of life attended meetings publicly advertised as “Colored Conventions.”

Professor Sarah Lynn Patterson will discuss the rise and the fall of the Colored Conventions movement as a way of understanding dialogues about progressive politics at the turn of the twentieth century.

Professor Patterson is a founder of the award-winning archive www.ColoredConventions.org and an editor and contributor to The Colored Conventions Movement (UNC Press, 2021). 

Register for the Zoom link.
Sliding Scale Admission: $5-25.

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Sponsored by Whalen Insurance
What Happened to the Milky Way?
A Zoom Presentation by Astronomer James Lowenthal
Tuesday, March 29, 2022 | 7 pm
Photograph of the Milky Way
from Mount Willard
Today in the United States, only about 20% of us can see the Milky Way from where we live.
 
In this illustrated presentation, astronomer James Lowenthal will discuss the night sky and describe steps we can take to bring back the spectacular views of the Milky Way and its stars. The simple changes he proposes will also save money on wasted electricity, improve public health and safety, and protect the naturally dark sky that many species depend on to thrive.

Register for the Zoom link.
Sliding Scale Admission: $5-25
Students: Free

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In partnership with the International Dark-Sky Foundation
Exploring Northampton
A Sunset Walk in the Meadows
A Walking Tour led by Co-director & Naturalist Laurie Sanders
Friday, March 18, 2022 | 6 - 8 pm
Saturday, March 19, 2022 | 6 - 8 pm
Registration is Full.  To be placed on the waitlist, please email info@historicnorthampton.org
Subject line: Meadows Walk March 18th or
Subject line: Meadows Walk March 19th
Hockanum Ferry by Moonlight, Northampton, Mass.
Postcard by Edgar T. Scott.
Courtesy of the Jones Library, Amherst
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).  The walk on March 18th will also include a bonus: the rise of the full moon.
Thinking Through Stories: Children, Philosophy, and Picture Books
A Zoom Presentation by Tom Wartenberg

Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 7 pm
Can picture books be more than a means of getting children to sleep? Tom Wartenberg thinks so.
 
In his new book, Thinking Through Stories: Children, Philosophy, and Picture Books, Wartenberg describes how picture books are a great way to get children thinking about the central issues in Western philosophy, such as: How do I know that I’m not dreaming now? Is it morally acceptable to deceive someone by telling them a white lie? What is the best way for a person to be happy?

Wartenberg, who has been working with elementary-school children for more than twenty years, will explain why he is such a champion of children’s picture books and why he thinks that it's important for children to be introduced to philosophy from an early age.
 
In partnership with Broadside Bookshop, R. Michelson Galleries, and the UMass Center for Philosophy and Children.
 
Register for the Zoom link.
Sliding Scale Admission: $5-25
Students: Free

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