Northampton Association of Education and Industry

How We Created This Site

In the spring of 2006 a team of educators, designers, and scholars representing the Emerging America: Teaching American History program set out to link the powerful local story of the NAEI to key national themes and events addressing Massachusetts and national standards for U.S. History. We wanted to model a hands-on approach to primary sources backed up and put in context by accessible secondary source narratives.

Based on a discussion of how best to present the story so that teachers and students could use it in the classroom, we chose some 70 primary sources from among hundreds of documents, artifacts, and images from the archives of Historic Northampton.

Teachers explored an early version of the site and provided input on how best to put the story of the NAEI to use in classrooms.

Why a story about the NAEI? 

As an inspiration for what teachers and students might do in their own communities, we aimed to tell a local story with serious national significance. We hoped to highlight one of those brief moments when our community held center stage in world affairs. Indeed, the Northampton Association exemplifies both the growth of Abolitionism and the creation of the powerful New England textile industry – in this case, silk.  Important abolitionists joined or contributed to the community, including David Ruggles, Lydia Childs, and Sojourner Truth.  William Lloyd Garrison summered there with his sister’s family.  Frederick Douglass and other leaders stopped to enjoy the community’s radical egalitarianism. 

We also knew that we could only tell a story if the sources were available to us. Thanks to the stewardship of the descendants of the Stetson family who preserved important letters for more than a century, with acknowledgment for the care and professionalism of Historic Northampton, and with an intellectual debt to the rich scholarship of Kerry Buckley, Chris Clark, Steve Strimer, Marjorie Senechal, and others, we knew indeed that the NAEI represented a wealth of primary sources and thoughtful analysis that could help ensure the accuracy and relevance of this story.

Ultimately, we wanted to tell a story with compelling characters and engaging scene and detail – a story that matters. Thanks ultimately to the passion, courage, and vision of the radical Abolitionists themselves, we are confident that in the NAEI, we discovered just such a story.

Bringing the Vision to Life

This site exists due to the tireless work of the entire research and design team. Kerry Buckley in particular demonstrated great creativity and knowledge of the material and of the scholarship on the NAEI and its world. Dave Hart and Matthew Mattingly from the Center for Educational Software Development tapped a decade of experience bringing history to the internet, including the dynamic flash features. Steve Strimer’s zeal for the nation’s long struggle for justice lent the site passion and conviction. Kelley Brown applied her enormous reservoir of experience with what works in the classroom to her work on both the introductory narratives and the high school lessons. In addition to the scholars listed above, Bruce Laurie and the faculty of the UMass Amherst Department of History gave critical professional guidance and helped to ensure the integrity of the program. Chris Sparks and Lucia Foley employed their technical and creative wizardry to help breathe the creation to life. The Professional Development Department of the Hampshire Educational Collaborative provided the platform and space in which to carry off such an ambitious project. Finally, the vision of Congress in supporting the U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History program quite simply made the project possible. Our deepest gratitude to them all.