Historic Northampton Events
September 2022
Paradise East Open Mic Night
Arts Night Out | Friday, September 9, 2022 | 6 - 8 pm
An evening of music, poetry, story-telling ... and a special performance by Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra!

Please join us to enjoy or share one of your talents: music, poetry, comedy, dance, name yours! Bring a blanket, a picnic, and friends.

Performance time is 5-10 minutes, and child performers are encouraged.

Open Mic Night is held in partnership with the Downtown Northampton Association, Downtown Sounds, the Fiddle Orchestra of Western Massachusetts, the Graves Avenue Association, Northampton Community Music Center, Northampton Neighbors and the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association
Firsting & Lasting:
Writing Indians Out of Existence in New England
A Zoom Talk by Dr. Jean M. O'Brien

Wednesday, September 14, 2022 | 7 pm
Professor Jean O’Brien (White Earth Ojibwe) will discuss how local historians in New England, writing between 1820 and 1880, promoted the myth of Indian extinction, if they wrote about the Indigenous population at all.

Local historians erased Indians from the record by focusing on “firsting,” which refers to the practice of listing the firsts of the proud English (e.g. first born, first settlement) and then “lasting,” in which local histories told of the tragic disappearance of the last members of the Indian population, who had not disappeared at all. Dr. O'Brien will describe how these patterns were perpetuated and how they inform our present day.

During the discussion, presenters will read from the historical record (found in the Leverett Library and in Amherst’s Jones Library Special Collections), which demonstrates how western Massachusetts “firsted" and "lasted" its Indigenous people and often "replaced" them with monuments.

Register for the Zoom link
Sliding scale admission: $0-$20
Daniel Shays's Honorable Rebellion
A Zoom Lecture by Daniel Bullen

Thursday, September 15, 2022 | 7 pm
In this Zoom lecture, Daniel Bullen will discuss his interpretation of Shays Rebellion (1786-87), which is the subject of his new book Daniel Shays’s Honorable Rebellion: An American Story. Telling the narrative from the people’s perspective, Bullen asserts that Shays, and thousands of other farmers, protested flagrantly unjust economic policies that forced some farmers off their land, while profiting financiers. Through five months of protests, the farmers kept the peace and later won reforms they sought.

Register for the Zoom link
Sliding Scale Admission: $5-20
Northampton Neighbors DoozyDo Parade
Downtown Northampton

Saturday, September 17, 2022 | 11 am
Come join the fun and watch Historic Northampton and lots of your friends and favorite organizations celebrate Northampton’s first DoozyDo Parade. The parade, organized by Northampton Neighbors, promises to be a joyful, inclusive, unconventional celebration in—and of—the City of Northampton. It will include people of all ages, as well as local organizations, businesses, local bands and musicians, roller derby devotees, bagpipers, floats and antique cars, and teams of kids, adults and seniors joining in the fun. 

The parade will begin outdoors at the Northampton Center for the Arts at 33 Hawley Street and end outside the Academy of Music.
Northampton State Hospital in History & Fiction:
A Walking & Reading Tour with Ellen Meeropol

Tuesday, September 20, 2022 | 10 am
Wednesday, September 21, 2022 | 5 pm
Join local author Ellen Meeropol on a walk and talk around the former Northampton State Hospital and the Village Hill neighborhood, the setting and inspiration for her new novel. The Lost Women of Azalea Court begins one November morning, when 88-year-old Iris Blum goes missing from a fictional six-bungalow development on the grounds of the long-closed hospital, where her husband was the last head psychiatrist. Their daughter, the neighbors, and police detective suspect Dr. Blum of being involved in Iris’s disappearance and dig into his past. The neighbors, family, and detective narrate this story together, uncovering ghosts, secrets, and lies.
At historical landmarks, the group will hear short scenes from the novel set in those places, and think together about the challenge of both honoring our local history and telling a good story.

Registration is required | Limited to 20
Sliding scale admission: $10-25
Exploring Northampton: Beaver Brook Greenway
A Walking Tour with Bob Zimmermann and Laurie Sanders

Saturday, September 24, 2022 | 10 am
Join Broad Brook Coalition president Bob Zimmermann and Historic Northampton’s co-director Laurie Sanders for an exploration of the human and natural history of the Beaver Brook Greenway. Learn about the family that lived here during the early 1900s, who ran a sawmill, operated a large farm and planted daffodils around their home. Fast-forward to today and learn about how this became a conservation area, how the timber-frame wildlife blind was built, and the natural history of the adjacent beaver marsh and surrounding uplands.
 
Co-sponsored by Broad Brook Coalition and Historic Northampton, in partnership with the Leeds Civic Association.

Registration is required | Limited to 30
Sliding scale admission: $10-$20
HISTORIC NORTHAMPTON
46 Bridge Street
Northampton, MA 01060